Hilton Queenstown Resort and Spa - Review

A Trip Down Under 2019
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When I'm looking for hotels that offer three beds it's typically hard to find - and even harder to find them in hotels that use points that we collect.  Hilton has two hotels in Queenstown, including one that had 2- and 3-bedroom units.  The downside is they're both across Lake Wakatipu (wak-uh-TIP-oo) from the actual town of Queenstown.  On the other hand that meant it was just minutes from the airport so it wasn't all bad!  We took a shared shuttle from the airport and were the first stop.  It was less than a 10-minute drive, which was great.

We pulled into the covered area where a bellman took our bags for us.  We'd arrived before noon so it was no surprise our room wasn't ready.  We left our bags with the bellman and the front desk said they text me when the room was ready.

Drive-up Main Entrance

Front desk in the pink area, entry doors directly across from it

Lobby Seating

We had a light lunch in the hotel coffee shop and then walked down to the water where for $5 NZD (about $3 USD) we were able to take the 15-minute journey into Queenstown.  It was pretty chilly out on the water and the boat moved quickly but fortunately there was room enough in the cabin for everyone.  I'll have more about Queenstown in the next installment but just before it started raining a bit we got the text that our room was ready.  Since it was approaching dinner time we went ahead and had dinner there in town before taking the water taxi back to the Hilton.  Not only was our room ready but the bell staff had already taken our bags to our room, which was great.

We stopped by the front desk to get our keys and were informed that our rooms were actually in the Lakeside Residences, which were in the building next door.  It seems that the building with the front desk has standard hotel rooms and suites, while there are 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom Residences, which are basically small condos.  All the Residence units have a lake view, which is nice.  There is an underground tunnel that connects the two buildings.  I wish I'd known that on the first day when it rained some!  But it made it convenient to go to breakfast each day as that was served in the restaurant in the main building.

Queenstown is quite hilly and some of the paved areas around the resort are cobblestones so if you have mobility issues this may not be the place for you.  But it does offer up some great views of the mountains across the lake, including this one of the hills with a little frosting on top.

Late spring in Queenstown!

Two Bedroom Lakeside Residence

Because the terrain is quite steep on the Hilton side of the lake, you actually walk a bit downhill from the main lobby to the entrance of the Lakeside Residences.  Upon entering you find you're on the third floor.  This worked out well for us as our room was on this floor near the very end of the hallway on the left side as you face the water.

Entering the unit, the kitchen is immediately on the left.  It's an appropriate size for the unit and has a full-size refrigerator, an oven, a 4-burner stove and a microwave.  Smaller appliances like a toaster and a coffee pot were provided as well.  The cabinets seemed unusually high to us so shorter folks may have difficulty reaching anything on the second shelf or above.  The end of the kitchen that opened into the living area was open though I don't believe there were any bar stools at the counter.

Continuing into the unit next up was the dining table with chairs for six people.  The sofa is a sleeper so technically you could have six people staying in this unit.

The living room had both the sleeper sofa and a love seat facing the gas fireplace and the TV. French doors opened on to the balcony and I can imagine on warmer days this would be a lovely place to sit with a beverage and look out over the lake.

View from the balcony. The orange boat is the water taxi.

In the far back right corner was the master bedroom with a king-sized bed and its own bath.  The safe was in the closet.  This bed could not be split which was a shame.  I understand that most often you'd have parents and two kids so you'd want the second bedroom to have a bed that splits into twins.  In our case it would have been nice if the master had split too as it was significantly larger than the second bedroom.  We had three beds and three people but it would have been nice to have it arranged a little differently.

Coming back toward the front door, the second bedroom was next to the master and had only a very small closet with some built in shelves.  There was really nowhere in the room to put our big suitcases.  We ended up moving the dining table against the back wall and lining up all the chairs in a row and that gave us enough room to set out our suitcases.

One thing that did help the bedrooms not feel so claustrophobic is that they had folding partitions that could be opened up to the living room.

Back by the front door, across from the kitchen was the hall bath.  It was wide but it was quite deep.  The large shower stall at the back was great - except there was nowhere to hang wet wash cloths and only a tiny soap dish for both bath gel and hair care products.

There was no counter space at all though there was a small glass shelf below the mirror and some storage space under the sink.

Toiletries were by Crabtree & Evelyn and, as usual, were a little on the perfume-y side for my taste but it was fine for a few days.

Behind this bathroom door and across from the sink was the laundry closet which also had a deep sink.  As this stop marked the halfway point of our trip we made use of the washer and dryer.

Restaurants

The property has four restaurants on-site: the Lake Counter Cafe & Deli which was the coffee shop we visited the first day, a Chinese restaurant called Me & Mee (we did not visit), Stacks Pub which has burgers, brews, pizza, etc.  where we ate a couple of times as it was in our building,  and the Wakatipu Grill, which is the fine dining restaurant in the main building and is also where breakfast is served each day.  We were glad to learn of the tunnel on the second floor of our building that connected to the main building as it was an easy (and less hilly) route to reach the restaurant.

The buffet is fairly extensive and can get really busy at times.  Arriving early is always good plan, especially in high season.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Amenities

Side by side in the main building are the gym and the pool.  Neither are huge but you're typically not planning to stay inside while visiting Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand!

There is a hot tub at one end of the pool but each time I visited someone was in it so I don't have photos.

Nearby is the eforea spa for massages and skin treatments.

Final Thoughts

We used a boatload of Hilton points for this stay.  While we didn't get great value on a per point basis, it was better for us than paying over $400 USD per night.  Hilton points are easy to earn with their credit cards and we've already made a dent in replenishing those we used.  I hate that the weather didn't cooperate very well as there are several other activities we'd have enjoyed but then again, having a day to veg out in the midst of our two weeks was not a bad thing at all.