Just returned from a two night stay at the Peppers Beacon Queenstown, which was booked by our travel agent here in the States.

Let me first say the location of the hotel is good, with a view of the Lake and within easy walking distance to the main areas of Queenstown. However, the positive aspects stop there.

How this hotel received its 5 star rating is a mystery, as at best it would be a 2 star hotel here in America. From it's tiny, dingy and dirty standard "hotel" rooms (which take 2 elevator rides and a walk either through a parking garage or courtyard full of offices to get to, if you are above level 5), its unhelpful and rude staff and lack of amenities, I would be hard pressed to even let my dog stay here.

There are plenty other options to stay in Queenstown. Take advantage of them.

We stayed at Peppers Beacon for one night in March 2008.

We very disappointed with this hotel. The hotel is advertised as being a 5 star hotel, but it is 4 stars at best.

The rooms do not have very good sound proofing. You can hear everything next door or outside your door, including the lift buzzing and opening and closing.

Also:

- we ran out of toilet paper overnight (there was only half a roll of toilet paper when we arrived).

- our room was not ready for checkin when we arrived. To be fair on this point, we booked through www.wotif.com and the email confirmation we received from www.wotif.com said that the check in time was 2pm. We arrived just after 2pm at the hotel and were told that check in was not until 3pm. When we finally managed to check in, there was no cover on our quilt!!

The place really just isn't deserving of a 5 star rating. Another example of this was when we approached receptionist to ask about the NZ departure tax. We wanted to make sure that you could pay the departure tax by credit card. When we asked the receiptionist, she said that we need to pay the departure tax (der....) but when we asked about the credit card issue she said that she didn't know and that we would need to call the airport and find out. It probably seems like a bit of a picky issue, but I've stayed at 5 star hotels that would the extra step and find out those sorts of answers for you/

We would not recommend this hotel to anyone we know. It was the worst accommodation we had during our NZ trip. We would recommend that travellers look at other 5 start accommodation in Queenstown in preference to staying at this hotel.

Like some of you we travel a lot, and of course we stay in Hotels/Motels just like you. And like you we all have our own opinions. This is review is strictly based on what our visit was like on the day.
We stayed in a 2 bed apartment (616) with a courtyard view. The day was warm and the aparment hot.......no A/C, only fans available on request............mmmm found that a tad strange.
The apartment was dark, but got much worse as you moved to the 2nd bedroom, no windows, not pleasent.

The headboard on the all the beds were broken and banged against the wall on every move, fixed that by jamming a cushion down the back of the headboard.
On checking the crockery, yuck the coffee cups were filthy and needed cleaned before use.

Like others the floor arrangement was confusing, but once you done it once no problem. The receptionist did advise us all about the floor change. Also with offices on the courtyard......so what they operate from 9-5, we wern't there we were away having fun and I never personally heard noise coming from them. We never had a problem with noise from next door, but we never had people on either side.

As for the breakfast it was fresh, clean and overall quite good for NZ.

Location for us was fine with a 7 min walk into Queenstown.

While we only stayed 1 night, we found the apartments fine for what we needed.

Yes there are heaps of choices in Queenstown for accommodation, but that's no to say they are any better.

On the website the hotel looks great, but I have to echo some of the previous comments about this hotel - for us the principle problem was the sound-proofing. There doesn't seem to be any. We could hear every, and I mean, every, cough, snore and laugh in the next door room. Unfortunately it was a 2-room apartment and they had a lot of friends also staying in the hotel who were constantly popping in and out so we could hear every word of their conversations, every chink of their teacups. It's amazing how a seemingly up-market hotel such as this has managed to skimp so much on the basic details such as the thickness of the walls.
The hotel is on 2 levels, weirdly if you are staying on an upper floor you have to take one lift to the 4th or 5th floor and then cross an open air courtyard - past the offices(!) to get into another lift. Bizarrely having left the 4th floor of one building you are then on the 5th floor of the next - very confusing when you get the lift back down and we met a lot of similarly confused people who got caught out by this. Why? Who knows, but it would help to have a sign or something up letting you know.

The location is ok, but it is surrounded by other accommodation options and if you are heading to Queenstown I would suggest trying some of these, I can't recommend any but there seem to be enough of them to ensure you a room on the spot without the hassle of booking in advance and having to put up with sub-standard accommodation for 3 nights as we did. We did move after the 1st night and had a room higher up - but both rooms had limited views and were small and cramped. This is not a great hotel, it's not even a good one, and what they are doing letting out offices in the middle of a hotel.
Don't stay here, there are better places to waste your money on than this.