Copthorne Hotel And Resort Bay Of Islands

“Great setting and views, mediocre rooms and terrible food.”

Lovely and spectacular setting. But our first room was tired, cramped and without a view. Our second night, we were able to upgrade to an ocean view. The overall premises was also tired in general. And the food at both breakfast and dinner was awful—barely edible. Staff was as sympathetic and … more

Lovely and spectacular setting. But our first room was tired, cramped and without a view. Our second night, we were able to upgrade to an ocean view. The overall premises was also tired in general. And the food at both breakfast and dinner was awful—barely edible. Staff was as sympathetic and helpful as possible.

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“It was a shame because it could be better.”

We had 3 nights here. The area is stunning & had the hotel been better, would have loved to stay longer. It’s situated next to the Waitangi Treaty grounds which is an absolute must to visit & can be walked thru the hotel grounds. I’ll start with the positives because i want to keep the review balan… more

We had 3 nights here. The area is stunning & had the hotel been better, would have loved to stay longer. It’s situated next to the Waitangi Treaty grounds which is an absolute must to visit & can be walked thru the hotel grounds. I’ll start with the positives because i want to keep the review balanced: The facilities here are good overall with a nice looking pool (which we didn’t use) restaurant (which we didn’t use but looked good) & bar area which we used extensively with a nice bar menu, because the walk into town was too far. The rooms were mostly ok with a comfortable bed & nice outdoor seating area. We did complain to hotel management about the negatives as I believe it gives them time to address them. Our room was ground level garden facing, which meant folk could walk past your window & look in because there were no net curtains or blinds, only curtains. So privacy was a big problem, the shower leaked water into the adjoining room. The hand basin was outside the bathroom opposite the fridge - just weird. There was no bathmat & on the side of the bath (with shower overhead) it said, use bathmat when using. I complained to reception on leaving & they said after checking that previous occupants must have stolen the nets & bath mat? We did look at other rooms from the garden area & it seems there is a major problem at this hotel with thievery because their net curtains were missing too. We also feel that we were in a room yet to be renovated & that might have explained the issues we had.

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“Nice Location and view. Everything thing else pretty average.”

I guess the location is the justification for the room rate but take that away and it's really just a pretty average 3 star motel. Long characterless institutional style corridors. Tiny Rooms. Even tinier bathrooms. And DON'T let them put you in a room with a second level above you. Our first night… more

I guess the location is the justification for the room rate but take that away and it's really just a pretty average 3 star motel. Long characterless institutional style corridors. Tiny Rooms. Even tinier bathrooms. And DON'T let them put you in a room with a second level above you. Our first night was awful. Kept away by the guest(s) above talking, thumping around back and forth (God knows what they were doing as the rooms are too small to pace) and dragging chairs across the tiled balcony over our bedroom below. The place has been recently refurbished to a reasonable standard but the soundproofing doesn't work. Trust me. Staff handled the complaint well the following morning and moved us to an upper level room without question (lady by the name of Samantha particularly helpful) - and organised for our luggage to be taken upstairs, also (that's 'upstairs' literally since there's no lift). Had an unpleasant incident in the bar one evening. A guest with two small children was allowing them to run riot, screaming, around the bar and lounge area but no attempt at all by staff to intervene. Clearly not adequately trained with no idea of acceptable or expected standards. Dinner in the hotel restaurant not inexpensive but pretty awful. Not a dreadful experience but could have been a lot better.

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“Such a shame, this place could be fabulous!”

What could be a fantastic hotel has been let down by the staff and the facilities. When we arrived in our room, the first thing I saw was a dirty face cloth. I picked it up to show staff and they looked completely disinterested - no apology or anything. This is when I knew that things were going … more

What could be a fantastic hotel has been let down by the staff and the facilities. When we arrived in our room, the first thing I saw was a dirty face cloth. I picked it up to show staff and they looked completely disinterested - no apology or anything. This is when I knew that things were going to be interesting. The room was great, comfortable beds and pretty modern. Great views of the Harbour. The pool area was fantastic. However, the next morning our room was not “turned down” when we came back in the afternoon. The cleaners were cleaning the rooms next-door to us, but had appeared to skip our room. When we approached staff to ask them they queried “ well what do you want us to do?”. What we were after was the usual service that you expect at a hotel eg making beds, replacing linen, replacing dirty, cups, mugs, etc. It was bizarre to us that we had to explain this to the cleaning staff. Once they had finally attended to our room, we had realized that they had done half a job - not replacing all of the linen and not replacing the mugs and cups. We then had to go to the front of house staff to do so, and they gave us a broken glass. Again, we had to return to have this replaced. At no point, were apologized to. It felt like we had to do their jobs for them.. The day was not cheap, so we expected better service than this. Given the lackluster approach from the staff so far, I’m not expecting much of a reply to this review. This place has potential but the staff need to pull their boot straps up. The pool area could be greatly enhanced by having something like swim up cocktails or drinks to order like you see in some local and overseas resorts. With some good management training, this place could be amazing.

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