5 Stars Hotels in Southern Cook Islands, Cook Islands

When you pay over $700 a night for a villa in a resort you have certain expectations on quality and service and I'm afraid the Crown Beach Resort fell well short of those expectations. You don't even get free wifi! You have to pay extra for that and there was no guarantee it would work if your villa was too far away from reception The whole resort is run down and nowhere near the 4 1/2 star resort it claims to be. It obviously was once, but not anymore. We had a beach front villa for 7 days. The villa was huge but run down. The whole resort needs a full makeover to charge the prices they charge. If it was $300 a night we would have been perfectly happy to overlook the quality issues, but when you pay over $5000 for a week you want luxury and we didnt get it! You walk around the resort and most of the feature ponds are near empty with green stagnant water, the gardens are bare and unattractive, We didn't have hot water in the villa for 2 days, the buffet breakfast is not good, in fact all their buffet meals are terrible. We booked in for the buffet Sunday roast which started at 6pm, we got there at 6:45 and most of the trays were empty, and what was there was cold! The staff don't seem to top up the trays as the night goes on so unless you are there as soon as it starts you are out of luck. Same goes for breakfast! Not good enough! The staff are all lovely though, very nice to deal with, but could be a bit slow in the restaurant and bar. But to be fair, we did have an issue with our booking and the general manager did try to make it right so credit for that. We talked to other guests during the week and they all felt the same as we did, infact we spoke to a couple who stayed there 6 years ago and couldn't believe how badly it deteriorated in that time. Overall we enjoyed our week, but from what we seen on the island there are plenty of other resorts that are way better value for money. Seems like most of the good reviews for this place are from a long time ago when the Crown was at its best. Those days are gone

Good environment, facilities, location, service, general

When you pay over $700 a night for a villa in a resort you have certain expectations on quality and service and I'm afraid the Crown Beach Resort fell well short of those expectations. You don't even get free wifi! You have to pay extra for that and there was no guarantee it would work if your villa was too far away from reception The whole resort is run down and nowhere near the 4 1/2 star resort it claims to be. It obviously was once, but not anymore. We had a beach front villa for 7 days. The villa was huge but run down. The whole resort needs a full makeover to charge the prices they charge. If it was $300 a night we would have been perfectly happy to overlook the quality issues, but when you pay over $5000 for a week you want luxury and we didnt get it! You walk around the resort and most of the feature ponds are near empty with green stagnant water, the gardens are bare and unattractive, We didn't have hot water in the villa for 2 days, the buffet breakfast is not good, in fact all their buffet meals are terrible. We booked in for the buffet Sunday roast which started at 6pm, we got there at 6:45 and most of the trays were empty, and what was there was cold! The staff don't seem to top up the trays as the night goes on so unless you are there as soon as it starts you are out of luck. Same goes for breakfast! Not good enough! The staff are all lovely though, very nice to deal with, but could be a bit slow in the restaurant and bar. But to be fair, we did have an issue with our booking and the general manager did try to make it right so credit for that. We talked to other guests during the week and they all felt the same as we did, infact we spoke to a couple who stayed there 6 years ago and couldn't believe how badly it deteriorated in that time. Overall we enjoyed our week, but from what we seen on the island there are plenty of other resorts that are way better value for money. Seems like most of the good reviews for this place are from a long time ago when the Crown was at its best. Those days are gone