Southern Laughter Backpackers — Hotel in South Island

If you want a really great Backpackers, Southern Laughter is the place to go, Clean, good amenities in all area of the hostel, great parking too, plenty of space there re parking, Friendly helpful staff, Great location to towns venues, If you're in the Queenstown Marathon, for example, it is only a 4 min trot down to catch the race bus, and from the race finish line, short walk indeed. Medical centre across the road as is a firestation next to it, 6 min walk to the bulk of shops, tours, boats buses and many other type tours, Economical, I love to be on my own in a room, so I had a double room to myself for only $285 for total of 3 nights. Clean rooms comfortable beds, Quiet for sleeping, good views, staff will do their up most to work out great deals for you, accom with prursuits you want to see do, and tours. they will organsise for you, and take out alot of that headache for you. Ring Toby and Jim, You WONT REGRET IT. 'Good security' too, I like that. Great laundry, living rooms to relax, DVDs, with screen,friendly folk, good clean kitchens, bathroom showers and ablutions, I dint SEE a Games room or BBQ (Though I love BBQs, I just didnt have time to look for one, either, but I 'heard', that during covid lockdown, they 'even converted an area', so people could exercise workout with a mini gym room, Now How Good is that? I think that is GREAT! normally 2 kitchens living rooms, at least in normal non covid times, I am a pretty choosy person, and have travelled around NZ for marathons, so I have stayed many backpackers, Including others in Queenstown, which I had trouble getting a booking back to others, but at Southern Laughter for me was HOME AWAY FROM HOME and I have re booked again for yet another year, Great team working there. ||I normally travelled solo, but this year I managed to get my friend Shirley there, and When she saw why I recomended it to her, She was delighted, she thanked me for telling her to come to Southern Laughter, she too would definitely re book to stay there, oh yes and we both enjoyed the jokes they had painted around the place on the outside walls and posters of jokes inside, She was laughing at club today and shared the jokes with her Hubby at home,and to other club members at running today. Oh if I say below, NOT SURE its because the question didnt apply to myself, or I just didnt have time to pursue that answer to any particular question,at the time I was there for a marathon, I didnt take photos as my little phome camera wouldnt do justice for such thing. otherwise I would have. maybe next year I will take some, and ask someone to show me how to put them in...

The location was the only good thing about this hostel. I didn’t expect quiet, being a hostel but other hostels have been clean. In my opinion this place should be closed down by the health department. The kitchen we used was filthy dirty and the refrigerator stank. Dirty dishes remained from the day before. The room where we stayed was tiny but at least had an outside window for ventilation. Other rooms don’t have this. The wallpaper was peeling, the shower didn’t drain. I had to unscrew the drain. With water up to my ankles, it overflowed all over the cracked linoleum. I expect there must be mold present in this hostel. Wifi was down, parking lot closed and the front desk was kind but had no idea what was actually going on. I don’t know if there any other hostels in town (my friend made the reservation) but I would never stay at this one again. P.S Neil, thanks for taking the time to reply. I understand and sympathize that the past two years have been difficult and you probably have difficulty getting enough people hired. You and your staff told us the reason we couldn’t park was that the cleaners had closed the parking lot. When you spoke to me I was very confused and I may not have been friendly but I don’t believe I was rude. I’ve been staying in hostels for 50 years, in scores of countries and I have never encountered one quite as dilapidated and dirty as yours. I have no doubt that your clientele are the problem. I always try to set an example by cleaning up after myself and leaving things better than I found them. I have never stayed in a five star hotel and have no desire to. I see other reviews mentioning dirty kitchens and run down conditions, so I suggest you try to get more staff and keep...

8 friends and I stayed in one 8-bunk dorm at Southern Laughter and let's just say the name was appropriate because the service was laughably bad.

The cleaner left our door wide open! Yes, you heard that right, left the door unlocked and WIDE OPEN when we weren't home ALL DAY!!! Once the keys we're even in the door still! The cleaner came daily and didn't clean anything really - they mostly put away dishes and brought new towels but nothing was ever vacuumed and the bathroom was left uncleaned for the duration of our 4 day stay - but they did successfully manage to leave our door unlocked and leave our belongings unsecured twice. We complained both times and it wasn't until I threatened to take my business elsewhere that the problem was rectified by Taylor and Alex who promised to attend to it personally, but by what means I do not know. The door was locked the next day despite lacklustre apologies and miserable customer service - there was no attempt to make amends and frankly I was tempted to demand a refund for the days the room was left unsecured by staff. The employees altogether seemed unprepared, unapologetic (sorry isn't good enough!), dismissive, and showed a genuine lack of managerial problem solving.

This was truly the most disappointing accommodation I have ever stayed in and I would think again before booking here...