“Sudima Queenstown Five Mile” -is in Queenstown, right? The name seems pretty clear. It’s shown as being in “Queenstown Central” which is in central Queenstown, right? The name seems pretty clear on that point too. Close to the lake perhaps, looking towards the mountains, near the Queenstown bars and restaurants? WRONG. WRONG. “Queenstown Central” is not in central Queenstown. It’s the name of a shopping centre outside of Frankton, next door to the airport, surrounded by massive carparks, supermarkets, K Mart etc and about 50m off the main State Highway 6A. Hence the “Sudima Queenstown Five Mile”, despite the name, is 7.6 km from Queenstown according to Google maps (or a $50+ taxi ride away, as I can tell you from frequent experience) and about as far away from the experience or the convenience of staying in central Queenstown as you can get. Close to the lake perhaps, looking towards the mountains, near the Queenstown bars and restaurants – in your DREAMS. Having booked in a hurry and taking at face value the name(s) described the reality, we were stuck at this hotel for three nights. On arriving we were given an “underground carpark pass”, meaning that as an elderly couple we had to park 5-10 minutes’ walk away from the hotel in an isolated underground location, walking through deserted carparks late at night or early in the morning. (As we were checking out, we discovered that the receptionist could have simply noted our car registration number and for the duration of our stay we could have parked in the massive carpark immediately outside the hotel door.) We were given Room 223 for our stay, which I found overlooked the massive nearby roundabout on the main State Highway 6A (meaning trucks would be audibly braking at all hours), with a view to K Mart, I went back to the desk and asked for a room away from the Highway. We were moved to Room 214. On entering Room 214, I discovered a woman lying on the bed, semi-undressed, on the telephone. I quickly backed out of the room and went straight down to reception, where I was told, “that’s odd, someone mustn’t have updated the system”. I went back to Room 214, knocked on the door and apologised to the occupants, explaining what had happened. All attempts to find another hotel to stay in were unsuccessful; there were no vacancies at such short notice. We stayed in Room 223, but tried to be out of the hotel as much as humanly possible. I had booked restaurants in Queenstown – full degustation menus with matching wines, for every night we stayed - meaning I couldn’t drive, and we consequently were paying an extra $100-130+ per night to go to dinner and return to the ‘carpark-hotel’. Had the room we stayed in been in a hotel located in central Queenstown then it would have been a pleasant experience, but what we experienced was simply awful. Might the name of both the hotel and the shopping centre mislead people who are booking a stay in Queenstown? I will leave it to you to decide.
