The Hostelz.com Review
When you tell fellow travelers that you are staying at Gilligan's they ooh and ahh and say, "Wow, you're staying at the fancy hostel." And you have to agree that Gilligan's is one of the best hostels you'll ever stay in. Even though you are paying a slightly higher price per night, this is the place to splurge a little because it's well worth the extra couple of dollars.
The reception area is immaculate and modern with an open area leading to the bar, cafe, and tour office. The rooms are also immaculate. Each room has its own bathroom, balcony, and lockers and it's air conditioned. Sheets and towels are provided and rooms are cleaned everyday. There is on-site laundry as well as plenty of pay phones to make those calls home. Luggage storage is available for those late-night flights or bus departures.
With airport/bus transfers and its downtown location, accessibility to this hostel is great. They house a tour booking office next to the reception as well as a cafe that gives you fifteen minutes of free internet when you purchase something. There's also a private pool for hostel guests. The kitchen area is huge and modern (has two stoves and sinks) with kitchens and TV lounges on every floor. It's a ten-minute walk to the wharf area and five minutes to the night markets/supermarkets.
One hostel guest got a case of the bedbugs during our stay, and the hostel staff weren't very helpful or compassionate with providing her any information on doctors or treatments. Staff members, while nice, are not really helpful at all with "trivial" tourist issues -- even the ones that have lived in Cairns for years don't seem to know much about the area's happenings. As well because of the hostel's massive size, it's a bit more difficult to meet fellow travelers.
The reception area is immaculate and modern with an open area leading to the bar, cafe, and tour office. The rooms are also immaculate. Each room has its own bathroom, balcony, and lockers and it's air conditioned. Sheets and towels are provided and rooms are cleaned everyday. There is on-site laundry as well as plenty of pay phones to make those calls home. Luggage storage is available for those late-night flights or bus departures.
With airport/bus transfers and its downtown location, accessibility to this hostel is great. They house a tour booking office next to the reception as well as a cafe that gives you fifteen minutes of free internet when you purchase something. There's also a private pool for hostel guests. The kitchen area is huge and modern (has two stoves and sinks) with kitchens and TV lounges on every floor. It's a ten-minute walk to the wharf area and five minutes to the night markets/supermarkets.
One hostel guest got a case of the bedbugs during our stay, and the hostel staff weren't very helpful or compassionate with providing her any information on doctors or treatments. Staff members, while nice, are not really helpful at all with "trivial" tourist issues -- even the ones that have lived in Cairns for years don't seem to know much about the area's happenings. As well because of the hostel's massive size, it's a bit more difficult to meet fellow travelers.
— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
June 2007
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Gilligan's Backpackers Hotel & Resort Cairns Details
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Gilligan's Backpackers Hotel & Resort Cairns Reviews from the WebHostelz.com Guest Reviews
Noisy, but very clean and fun My partner and I stayed here twice because we liked our first stay so much. We stayed for 2 weeks each time in September and October 2010. It was by far the cleanest hostel we've stayed in on our 3 month journey of the East Coast. The beds are pretty comfortable and a bit bigger than a normal single, so we shared one, although we were a bit squished. On our first stay, our roommates were a really fun group of English people. They were very considerate and we had fun partying together downstairs. On our second stay we got some really horrible roommates who drank in our room and brought tons of random people in until 4am even though we were clearly trying to sleep as we had early excursions in the mornings. There is only one shower and toilet per a room of 8, so it can be a bit busy in there at times. The one most annoying thing for us all was that there were only 2 electrical outlets in the entire room. One near the toilet and one in the entryway. In total, only 4 sources of power for 8 people. When we all have phones and computers and other travel accessories that require power, it's pretty unrealistic. The free nightly meals aren't really a full meal size and most nights it didn't change. We had very sore stomachs a couple of times from the chili con carné, so I would definitely say steer clear of that. The meals that you have to pay for are actually really good though. The pool is really nice to sit by and there's flying fox and a volleyball net in that area, which are good for a bit of fun. Overall, one of our favorite places. — Cate and Tom , Canadian and Aussie (2011-03-26) Place to have fun A huge complex well located! The place to be for having fun! Huge rooms with very nice bathroom and balcony! No issue about cleanliness or noise (room facing the street). For partying, lots of activities with 3 bars, a pool and a lot of people -- great! The only issue would be about cold staff -- maybe because of the crowded place, something could be done to improve reception. — Mike , Europe (2010-05-27) Absolutely Horrific! Worst stay ever, rude staff who couldn't care less if you had a bad stay or not. Too worried about how they look. People are allowed to check out of this hostel and then stay in other dorms having not paid for them, thus you could end up with up to thirty in a small, four-bed dorm, Half the U.S. navy included. The nosiest backpackers and if you are doing early starts for tours you will be sure not to get any sleep. Not a very good start in Oz for us. It wasn't just us either -- met another couple who had a worse experience than us where all their belongings had been put into black bin bags -- passports included even though they had paid for another night. Horrible, horrible place. — Rosalind Hennessy and Emmet Smyth , Ireland (2009-08-02) I expected better The first few nights I stayed in this hostel were great. We had a massive shared balcony with the two rooms next to us, the beds were comfortable and a little bigger than most other hostel. One backpacker said that he "didn't even notice he'd brought a girl home until he woke up and she was hogging the pillow!" My only complaint at that stage was the creepy crawlies that frequented the kitchen. However, it all went downhill from there. At 9 a.m., we were woken up by one of the staff. She aggressively asked each of us for our names. When she got to me, she yelled at me for not being in the correct room. Considering that my booking sheet matched the room I was told to go to and that my room key opened the door for that room, I don't know how I was supposed to guess that I wasn't supposed to be in that room, but the lady who yelled at me didn't seem to understand that. On top of all of that, my new room had bedbugs that bit me all night! — Leigh , Australia (2008-08-28) Horrible, disgusting, full of bedbugs, rude staff I stayed for five nights at Gilligan's Bedbug Backpackers Resort -- the first two nights my friend and I stayed in a four-bed dorm and we thought we were in the best hostel ever. anyway, things changed. Two other friends joined us and we moved into a eight-bed dorm. First night was ok (ok it was loud, cause it's a party hostel and we got no sleep) but before second night we found out the all beds were infested with lots of bedbugs -- we moved/swiched three times the room, had to put our staff in the freezer, front desk just laughed at us -- nobody ever said sorry or anything else. We had booked six nights -- before the last night we again found out that in this "new" room were also bedbugs. The front desk lady gave us a "quarantine" room and said it's fully cleaned and it is sure that there are no bedbugs for our last night (and if there are, we took them with us) -- we went up to the room and it really looked nice and fresh cleaned. But we moved the first mattress and guess what -- full of bedbugs (worst than in all rooms before). Again back to reception we were told to leave the hostel or we need to sleep in the bedbugs bed (because they are fully booked), so at 11:30 p.m. we were on the streets (five people) had no accomodation -- even we didn't get our money back for the last night, we couldn't upgrade -- nothing! I have never experienced such a bad hostel, rude staff, and a hostel where every room (eight-bed dorms) is infested with disgusting bedbugs. The big hostel laundry were our bags were put into the freezer -- when we took them before we left at 11:30 p.m. it was full of bugs on the floor! Never stay at Gilligan's! — Martina E. , Austria (2008-08-11) Terrible! Please don't stay at Gilligan's! I traveled to Australia with a volunteer group, my trip was amazing until the last five nights when we stayed at Gilligans. The hostel looks clean and inviting, however my first impressions were dead wrong. I had to switch rooms three times! The first time I had to switch rooms because my room was infested with roaches and the second and third times were because of bed bugs. Infestations were not limited to my room either. All six of the rooms that my group occupied were infested with roaches or bedbugs! I understand how bugs would be present in such a traveled place and in a warm climate, but the staff were anything but helpful. I have never met such rude people in customer service. They could care less about the bugs and even laughed in our faces as one of the girls in my group was crying at the front desk about the infestations. The staff was so horrible to our group that our tour guide (whose organization has a large contract with because so many of our volunteer groups stay at Gilligans) contacted someone who spoke to Gilligans Manager in Sydney, who then flew up and tried to handle and reprimand the rude staff.
Our rooms were not the only rooms affected by infestations. We heard countless stories of bugs in other guests rooms as well. So unless you want to take home bugs in your suitcase, don't stay at Gilligans! — Michelle , United States (2008-07-28) Standards have dropped this was a good backpackers. Unfortunately standards have dropped a lot! The rooms are unclean and the staff very unfriendly! Really rude actually, like everything is a hassle. The kitchen areas are absolutely disgusting -- I would never cook anything in there, ever! The bar is cool, but the pool is disgusting, I wouldn't like to think what sort of diseases are in there. Other than that, you get a nice big bed and clean sheets. — dan , Australia (2008-04-28) Terrible. Rude, unfriendly, difficult, incompetent staff. Nightmare! The staff are rude, incompetent, and don't care about the guests at all. There's one knife and one fork between the four kitchens and the reception staff won't bother to provide any for you. Watch out in case they overcharge you for your room, I was overcharged and they wouldn't refund me. — Clare , UK (2008-03-26) Cant complain! Really cant complain about Gilligan's -- it was one of the best hostels we stayed in on our east coast trip. Gorgeous hotel-style entrance, air-conditioning everywhere (thats important for Cairns in February!), and clean rooms of hotel standard (apart, of course, from the fact that they were dorms). Fresh towels are given to each guest every day, which is a nice touch. The pool is gorgeous. It has a good travel office too. We didnt use the bar, so can't comment on that -- we spent all our nights in the Woolshed instead! The only problem was that it got a bit cold in the room at night -- but hey that's better than not having any air-con! — Aileen , Ireland (2008-02-19) Very central, activities every night in their attached bar but some of my group had trouble with noisy rooms (club stays open 'til 3 a.m. every night and it's attached to the hostel -- ask for a room facing the street instead) and one girl traveling alone was put into a room with five males who were abusive and rude. Generally well-run hostel though. — Anon (2007-02-04) Gilligan's Rocks! It is a great hostel and after staying in some very dodgy places up the East Coast this was luxury! Have a burger and chips in the bar -- great portion and really cheap. — Liz (2006-09-12) Not as great as all the hype would have you believe. When we checked in we asked for a quiet room which we got. However, there were little black insects crawling everywhere. The staff were very helpful though and moved us to a different quiet room. It was very big and we liked the fact that the shower and toilet were separate. But there were still a few insects crawling on the bed and the air con unit was directly over the bed and could only be turned off when you took your card out of the slot (i.e all the electricity went off). However, saying all that, we stayed here a week and had no probs. Try the lilypad cafe over the road and snoogies juice bar in the arcade over the road aswell. — Mark and Debs (2006-07-18) The staff is unfriendly, and can be down right nasty at times. It is way too expensive, especially for double rooms ($98). They made me leave a good room after a few days because someone else booked it. So they put me in a room right below the gym, which was totally noisy. So they moved me to a room above the bar which was even noisier. The A/C is right above the bed and the only way to turn it off is to turn all the power off in the room (lights, tv). Many of the people here leave the communal kitchens a mess. Maybe this is beacuse since it costs so much people feel they don't need to clean up after themselves, or maybe it just appeals to rich kids who never cleaned up for themselves. — rendieb (2006-06-30) Good central location and great bar, bit expensive though! The rooms are nice and clean but hey you shouldn't have to pay twice the price of anywhere else to get that! — Jenny (2006-03-29) This it the best of the best in hostels.It more like a hotel at backpacker prices. Its kept very clean,and most of the staff are quite helpful.The bar is wicked with happy hours and games most nites. lovely pool and just a lovely place to stay.You can even treat yourself at the beatuy therpy place called Seksi or use the free gym. — Lizzie (2006-03-13)