Summer House Cairns

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1. 5 months ago
   • they come into the room about ten times a day for a rushed cleaning, but they don’t hesitate to move all your belongings around and rummage through your bags to throw away food (even in unopened packages).

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   13 days in this hostel—13 days too many. It’s impossible to use the kitchen, which is very small, busy and half of whose appliances don’t work; the fridges are overloaded, and the staff is rude. The worst part is probably that they come into the room about ten times a day for a rushed cleaning, but they don’t hesitate to move all your belongings around and rummage through your bags to throw away food (even in unopened packages). I had no choice but to keep two cans of food and a box of crackers in my bag upstairs because the fridge is too small for all the residents; they rummaged through it and threw everything away. I found my swimsuit crumpled up on my bed because they moved it after touching it to check if it was damp. It’s common for this hostel to be intrusive in residents’ private lives—I’m really glad to be leaving. And finally, they sell us “cheaper” activities thanks to the hostel’s prices, which are actually more expensive than on the websites for Green Island, Fitzroy Island, or even Get Your Guide :) Google asks me to rate the rooms : 1/5, really small for 6 people. The service : well... 1/5. Location : 1/5 far from everything.

2. 8 months ago
   • Several times they walked in while we were chanting and did not say anything or apologise.

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   The staff were rude and would walk into the room without announcing themselves. Several times they walked in while we were chanting and did not say anything or apologise. We had cockroaches in our room and complained about that and they did not seem to care. Only good thing was the free shuttle bus and bar being on site.

3. 10 months ago
   • On multiple occasions one particular member of staff has burst into our room without knocking or announcing herself and turned the light on while people are still in bed.

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   This is a hostel with a lot of potential but the execution is not quite there. The rooms are nice with big lockers and air con and are frequently cleaned. There it’s lots of outdoor space around the pool and bar which is very reasonably priced. The free shuttle bus is great but can get busy at night. However some of the other facilities are not enough for the number of guests. The kitchen is far too small and always busy and there isn’t enough food storage space for everyone. The WiFi is very slow. You aren’t allowed to hang wet clothes or towels in the rooms but the outdoor drying area is tiny, big enough for a few people’s stuff but not a huge hostel. This is a place where people are doing barrier reef, waterfall and rainforest tours most days, which results in a lot of wet towels and clothes and nowhere to hang them. If you leave toiletries in the ensuite bathroom they will be taken by the housekeeping staff and have to be reclaimed from reception. On multiple occasions one particular member of staff has burst into our room without knocking or announcing herself and turned the light on while people are still in bed. I understand that they have to come in and clean the rooms but some warning would be nice, every other hostel I’ve stayed in they knock and announce themselves before opening the door. What if someone was getting changed inside? There also seems to be a real issue with thefts, there are frequent messages in the WhatsApp group from people whose stuff has been stolen. This also makes me nervous to leave my clothes in the outdoor drying area in case they are taken. They run daily events but a lot of them start at 9pm and quiet hours starts at 10pm so it doesn’t really seem worth it. We attended the Trivia night which was advertised as team trivia but actually was just 30 minutes of individually doing random Kahoot quizzes. There are just too many rules, most of which you aren’t told before hand and only are told after you’ve broken them. I would probably stay here again for a couple of nights because the price is cheap but definitely not long term.

4. 2 years ago
   • At one point during our stay one of them opened the door to our PRIVATE room to ask if we smoke, which we don’t (without giving any sort of explanation).

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   In theory Summer House would have been a great hostel, however we felt that it didn’t quite work out. Staff were nice but in our experience most of them didn’t seem to know what they were doing. At one point during our stay one of them opened the door to our PRIVATE room to ask if we smoke, which we don’t (without giving any sort of explanation). They also let a girl into our room when she was checking in because the receptionist “had bad handwriting so his 24 looked like 29”.

5. 2 years ago
   • the staff came into our room several times during the day and didn’t even close the door properly so our stuff could have been stolen without knowing

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   Very loud hostel, most people are staying here long-term and the staff came into our room several times during the day and didn’t even close the door properly so our stuff could have been stolen without knowing. Would not recommend.