Gilligan‘s Backpackers Hotel & Resort Reviews

Perfect if you get a quiet room - loads going on, central and kitchen and rooms clean :)

Giligans the place to be in Cairns if you want to meet people and enjoy your time!

The personnel is helpful and friendly. The location is perfect and the bar/club is always busy. You can eat, drink and party all at the same place. The air conditioning in the rooms was a bit too strong, and there is no controller to modify it. It's a centralised system. The bed has to be done by yourself when arriving. Finding it done would be appreciated. A shelf and individual light in the bed would be really useful. The building is very big and has enough room in the common areas and kitchen (which is busy at any time). Services are fine overall.

Lovely hostel. Beds very comfy, rooms spacious, en-suites in the room and great night life.

Omg staying at this hostel was equally parts traumatic and entertaining. The best way to describe it is imagine if a problematic 60 year old man opened a hostel with a nightclub underneath, and all the social activities were designed with other problematic 60 year old men in mind. They don't seem to do any sort of gender balancing in the mixed dorm, one girl checked into my room in the middle of the night, because she was put in a mixed dorms with only men over 50. The social activities are old fashioned but not in a good way, I'm talking wet t shirt contests, pole dancing competitions, jelly wrestling. But honestly this hostel gave most of the girls staying here the ick so we ended up having movie nights on the girls floor, going to the market and Esplanade together and to the free gym. I actually had a good time, ironically. The facilities at this hostel are really good to be fair, the dorms were clean, they all had air conditioning and balconies (unfortunately you are not able to control the temperature of the air conditioning or turn it off when it is cold outside), they had large well equipped kitchens, a pool and a free gym. Even the nightclub was a good venue, but the social activities are like something out of the Wolf Of Wall Street. If they are going to be a sleazy venue they could at least hire Magic Mike dancers. But honestly they just need to get a new entertainment manager and this place would be fine. Location is alright, about a twenty minute walk to the Esplanade.

The location is very good, in the city center, near to the lagoon, super market, Rusty’s market, the Fleet Terminal. So it is very convenient for your activities. The downsides are the cleanliness and the hostel bar. Kitchen is not clean, badly equipped, not properly lit, resulting in guests having dinners in the dark. Guests leave many uncleaned dishes overnight, with cockroaches running over. There are no sign indicating rooms numbers whatsoever, whereas some rooms are technically hiding behind doors. Many guests having difficulty finding their rooms, including myself. I have seen at least three persons going un and down the corridors several times before finding the room number. The hostel bar’s music is extremely loud and this until 2:30 am. So every night I sleep very badly.

I only stayed there one night, but I loved it! Met people from different walks of life, looking for adventure. If that's what you're looking for, I'm telling you, you will find it there. Was super cheap too! Love that reception is open 24/7! And when you check in, you get a complementary drink voucher which you can redeem at the bar. Will definitely be going back. And will be staying longer hehe :))

Happy with my stay, thank you! I had a small issue with my stay and it got fixed right away.

WARNING FOR THOSE BOTHERED BY SMOKING! They allow people to smoke off of all the balconies and so it drifts into the rooms and people smell strongly of it in the room causing issues if you are bothered like I am. Also very loud at night not just outside but inside as no one is respectful of the quite after 10pm rule. But the staff were friendly and helpful. The location was great and the beds were nice and the bathrooms alright.

Very noisy...but it s ok apart from that.. The staff is nice.

There were cockroaches in the room. People were having sex at night inside the room.

Very happy with my stay Clean rooms Comfy bed Friendly staff I'll Definitely stay again

If you are looking for a spacious double room at this hostel, I recommend spending a little more to upgrade to their “hotel” double room with balcony. This room type is more recently renovated I suppose, as it looks quite new! The room is overall very spacious, with plenty of space for putting our luggages. The balcony is also very spacious and a good place to chill and have a meal. I could even see the sunrise from my balcony. I was surprised to find out the room even comes with ironing board and iron.

Returned for a 2nd stay after our diving trip. Got the twin room which did not come with a balcony, but the room was still very spacious and we appreciated the rattan chair which allowed us to dry the clothes 😂 Everything was great, clean and comfy. Just the noise ~