Paihia Beach Resort & Spa

The Paihia Beach Resort & Spa is in a truly beautiful location, right across from the water, with easy access to town. The views are stunning, and the staff were friendly and professional. That said, there were a few practical challenges during my stay. The elevator was out of service, and there was no advance notice, which made carrying luggage up and down the flights of stairs quite difficult as a solo traveler. Parking is also limited and the wifi was slow. While the hotel is very pretty, there are some signs of age and wear, particularly in the bathrooms. Still, you are largely paying for the unbeatable location and view. With a few updates and better communication about amenities, this could easily be a top-tier experience.

…there endeth the good news. The hotel failed in so many ways that it simply represented a step up from camping. If you want a good base for the local restaurants and amenities, book a room only. We experienced practically unusable wifi, tardy morning reception cover, slow restaurant service (we ended up not eating breakfast here having paid for it), bathroom sink didn’t drain, paintwork was tired and chipped, we couldn’t even book the sauna.

We stayed here for 4 nights in July 2025. We had rooms 404 and 405 which were studio rooms on the top floor. During our stay there was extremely heavy rain and room 405 which was at the end of the building became quite damp and very musty smelling. We suspect that being on the end of the building it was subject to leaking internally, however there were no obvious leaks, just a wet mouldy smell which was very unpleasant. 404 was absolutely fine. The hotel itself is one of the nicer places to stay in Paihia, but is not what I consider 4 star. The resort itself is quite tired and dated, although it was clean and the views are outstanding especially from the top floor. We had breakfast each morning and dinner one night. The breakfasts were perfectly okay, although not much variety on the menu at all, especially for those wanting a light breakfast option. Dinner was not great. I had the seafood pasta which had prawns and a piece of fish which I suspect was frozen it was so awful. The prawns were nice but the pasta was sweet and not at all an authentic italian dish which I found very disappointing. My husband and son had the slow cooked beef, and while it was much better than the seafood option, was not fall off the bone tender at all, so was also a let down for the price tag. The highlight of this hotel were the staff who were all very nice, polite and keen to please. With a bit of money spent on refurbishing the place and attention to the restaurant offerings, the place would be very good. I hear the spa is excellent but cannot comment on this, as it was booked out during our stay.

The room size was nice. Great location. Disappointed that their check out time was 10:00am and any later was going to be an extra charge. Their excuse was that was a standard time for check out in NZ. Why not be different(and more accommodating) and offer an extra hour if someone asks....it's not like everyone needs it. They can't clean all the rooms at 10:00am. We had driven 11 hours the previous day and wanted to sleep in a bit later. In my opinion it is not smart on their part to lose a future guest(probably won't stay there again) at the simple request of a slightly later check out which 95% do from the many thousands of hotels I have stayed at over the last 50 years.

We had a lovely two nights here. Staff were very friendly. Room was a good size, great view out to the pool and ocean. Hot pools were fantastic - hot and relaxing. Very convenient location and just short walk around the corner to the restaurants and pier. Would recommend.