Paradise Resort Gold Coast
Readers Reviews
Jen and Jaie
March 2006
We just returned from our first family holiday to the Gold Coast... staying at the "Paradise Resort" Hotel, though we didn't see it as being "Paradise". We found the resorts website online and thought it looked FANTASTIC, great pools, clean play areas, looked like a brand new resort and we couldn't wait to get there!!
We booked for 10 nights on the kids eat/stay/play for free package... upon arrival our room was small, but bearable... until discovering the fridge didn't work, lights were not working, we payed $15.00 to watch an in-house movie but could hardly see the picture thru terrible tv reception, the airconditioner leaked puddles of water onto the carpet... we chose a non-smoking room and after a few nights of putting up with the people smoking in the room next to ours and being able to smell smoke thru the inter-connecting door we demanded a change of room... which had cockroaches in the bathroom...
We thought the pools were fantastic, especially with 4 different size pools and a spa, great fun for my husband and son (16 months) who love the pool - until my husband cut open his foot on uneven tiles in the resorts largest pool (just lucky it was him and not a child that injured themselves) ...
The internet had photos of the "adventure playground" which I was keen for our son to play in but we only visited that once and found it to be dirty and run down... the sand was black with rubbish all over!
The main restaurant "Sinbads" wasn't to our liking, we preferred the small take away cafe "GD's" which we did eat dinner at a few times and it was okay, catered for our son only being little he enjoyed the free kids meal of burger/chips or pasta etc. Adult meals, okay but not fantastic. The resorts mini-mart was handy for when we ran out of milk and that, but much cheaper to stock up at supermarket down the street.
The worst thing I found was I chose this resort for my family and being so "kid friendly" I didn't expect people to be smoking so close to the pools and smoking near the eateries and right outside the entry/exit to the resort... I would have preferred designated smoke areas well away from the kids.
The staff were mostly friendly and helpful when we asked questions about buses/booking taxis etc... but for us and our first family holiday it certainly WAS NOT the "Paradise Resort"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michelle and family
November 2005
We just got back from our first family holiday to the Gold Coast yesterday.
We booked the Mercure Resort (now Paradise Resort) a couple of months ago and couldn't wait to get there - it looked fantastic on their website!!!
Lo & behold we get there & it was DISGRACEFUL!!!
The first night we invited my sister & her kids to dinner at Sinbads - which has 'theme' nights where the adults pay $24.50 & the kids eat free.... the only things there for the kids were sausage rolls, party pies & chips. The adults menu wasn't much better - dry food and cold food & also the people behind the counter & filling the empty trays looked tired & really not interested at all!!!
Regarding the rooms - the whole place needs a really good fumigation!!! (I don't really think that would fix all of their problems either) We are certainly not fussy people but we do draw the line at sleeping in a room - 2 adults & 2 kids aged 6 & 3 - with cockroaches crawling everywhere!!! The last people must have had the same problem as there was dead/splattered cockroaches all over the ceiling which hadn't been cleaned off prior to new clients checking in....!!! When mentioning this to staff - they were totally not interested!!! We stayed there 2 nights until we had had enough - my hubby was on the loo at 5am when 2 roaches crawled out of the floor drain in the bathroom & proceeded to have a good crawl around & then went back down the drain for a couple of minutes before returning - this time my hubby was prepared with the Mortein that I had gone out & purchased!!! Luckily I didn't see this or there would have been screaming!!!
We didn't let the kids go into the pools as they had a greenish tinge to them - not clear or blue at all - we certainly didn't want our kids getting sick while we were on holidays in another state!!!
When we found another hotel to stay in (one phone call to the Aquarius) I called the reception of the Mercure to explain why we were checking out etc., & was cut off while explaining & was told just to come back & hand in the keys and that there would be letter waiting for me to explain to my travel agent why I should receive a refund.... There was never once an apology or any questions as to whether they could rectify or assist me with this situation - none at all.... It really sounded to me as though they have this problem many times...
So as we are sure you are gathering we would definitely recommend that you look elsewhere if you plan a holiday that you want to enjoy!!! This was definitely a big mistake & we would never ever consider staying there again - they couldn't even pay us to go there. The Mercure charges $254.00 a night for the room we stayed in & where we ended up staying was $185.00 per night for a 2 bedroom apartment with laundry etc., three times the size that we had at the Mercure..... Please don't think about staying here - it was a NIGHTMARE that you really shouldn't have to put up with!!!
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