Room/studio

Our room was 402. It was spacious, airy and comfortable, with the following features:

- One king bed and two single beds
- Timber floors with no carpets
- A small round dining table and two chairs
- A corner table with a lamp, and chair
- Numerous lights scattered around the place with a few strong downlights strategically positioned above the beds which gave good illumination for reading (a rarity in hotels, at least in my experience)
- Limited storage space, with only a small cupboard with a few hangars and three shelves. -Three bedside tables with a small drawer in each, handy for extra storage especially given the limited storage in the rest of the room
- A smart TV well positioned on the wall opp the king bed, although with weak internet, we struggled to access Netflix and YouTube
- Sufficient power points to be able to charge multiple devices at the same time
- Rev cycle air con/heater, although I guess that in such a hot climate, one would rarely use the heater
- Spacious balcony with five chairs and a small outdoor glass table, and views of the ocean on one side and the mountains to the other. Perfect for outdoor dining especially in Cairns’ weather
- Handy shelf near the door, to stash either one suitcase lying flat or two upright, with space for another one underneath on the floor
- Iron and ironing board
- Hair dryer
- Free internet, but it was poor quality and virtually unusable at night
- Ugly spaghetti wires under the TV, as you can see in one pic

Given that the room was so large, the space could have been put to better use, by the addition of at least one chest of drawers for extra storage.

Being on the 4th floor, noise levels from the road below were low. However, as the corridors were all timber with no carpets, we could often hear guests wheeling their suitcases along, sometimes at odd hours like very early morning or late at night, I guess determined by the flight schedules in and out of Cairns Airport. We ourselves left the hotel at 4.30am for a 6.00am flight, so apologies to all our fellow guests who were woken up as we wheeled our cases to the lift!

Kitchenette

Our little kitchenette had a bar fridge and micro, but no stove, dishwasher or draining board. Glassware, crockery and cutlery were all provided, so there was enough to self-cater, although without a stove, the best we could do was to buy ready cooked meals from Coles or Woolies that only needed to be heated up in the microwave. Dishwashing liquid and sponges were also provided

Bathroom

I found the bathroom a bit cramped and awkward. Opening and closing the door required some nifty footwork to allow enough clearance, for the door to swing in and out, and I’m a small guy. There was no bath, but It did have the all important solid locking wooden door for privacy. The shower cubicle was large and spacious but the floor was slippery, requiring caution not to fall. There were no markers on the taps to indicate the hot and cold, so one needed to be extra careful the first time one used the shower. That’s a strange oversight, and a simple thing to rectify. Under the sink was a vanity with two drawers and two shelves. Just sufficient for all our toiletries, and the drawers kept everything dry. On the wall were plastic bottles with shower gel and shampoo and conditioners.

Location

C.P. Hotel is a little way out of town and it will take around 15 minutes to walk to the night markets, the most central location, I would say, in Cairns. Not far though, is the Cairns Aquarium, and if you walk up Minnie Street towards Sheridan Street, you’ll come across the Reject Shop, about a km away, which is handy for cheap household, food and cleaning products. The all-important Cairns Central Shopping Centre is 20 minutes at a brisk pace. This centre has everything in it that would need, from a food court to Coles and Woolies supermarkets, hairdressers, liquor stores, coffee shops, a JB Hi Fi etc. The famous Cairns R.S.L. Club with its popular bistro is about 10 minutes walk (bookings advised if you want to dine there any night of the week). Since the hotel restaurant is closed, it seems like management has struck a deal with Muddy’s Café, which is across the road, on the beautiful Esplanade, for a 10% discount for hotel guests. Muddy’s is a pleasant spot for a morning coffee or a brekkie.

Common Areas

Common areas were all clean and well looked after.

The pool though was small and usually full of kids splashing around. The ambience around the pool, with uneven concrete and adjacent to a construction site that was once the restaurant, but now looks very much closed up and gutted, with no indication as to whether or when it will reopen, was not conducive to spending a relaxing few hours there.

There are usually two lifts, which would be adequate for a building of this size, but at the time of writing, one was undergoing maintenance or replacement, and it was unusable, so there was only one available, which could sometimes mean a bit of a wait, but not as bad as I’d expected.

The car park has two levels of parking, the upper level requiring a short drive up a rather steep slope. We only had a car for one night, so parking wasn’t really an issue for us, but on the night that we did need it, the car park was full by around 7.30pm, so we parked in the street, where restrictions, I think from mem, end at about 5.30pm and start up again around 8.00am, with three hr time slots permitted, although we never witnessed any enforcement, so there probably isn’t any, but Cairns, being what it is, I wasn’t too happy about having to leave my hire car in the street overnight. In the result, it was safe there.

Laundry

A guest laundry is provided on level 1 in the car park. Last time we visited Cairns in 2019, guest laundries generally charged 3 for a wash and 3 for a dry. Now because of hyperinflation, it’s - wow- 33% more, at 4 for a wash and 4 for a dry. But the machines worked well and were easy to operate and for 4 pesos you get a full hr of drying, not 30 mins like some places. There wasn’t a huge demand for the laundry, so we were able to use it whenever we wanted. Staff will happily exchange your notes for the 1 peso coins that you need for the machine. You can buy powder at 2 a sachet from reception, or just bring a few tablets from home, as we did, or buy powder at the Reject Shop.

Service

Staff were polite, helpful and patient with us and all our requests. Lesley, the Manager especially went out of her way to secure us a better room than we had originally and we were grateful to her for arranging that. Although the rooms were serviced daily to a high standard, with fresh towels provided and the toiletries replenished, it could sometimes be well into the afternoon before this happened and I found this late and unpredictable cleaning schedule a bit inconvenient.

Memo

Due to the aforementioned lift upgrades, at times it could be quite noisy from drilling and hammering. I do understand that ageing hotels like C.P. need regular maintenance and upgrading to keep them to a reasonable standard, so that they can compete with newer ones (and in Cairns, there are many newer and smarter hotels) and in any event, it wasn’t as bad as I expected and apart from a few episodes of loud noise, it didn’t disturb us too much and I wouldn’t consider it a reason to not book this hotel. In fact, on a few mornings, they started around 8.00am, which was a good inducement for us to get out of bed, and get going for the day.

Summary

I have mixed feelings about the C.P. Hotel. On the positive side, rooms are spacious and comfortable, loc is reasonably convenient to most attractions (but then remember that Cairns is really just a big country town, so nowhere is very far away) and the staff were friendly, helpful and polite. For us at least, the biggest pos was the price, by far the best deal we could find in the mid-budget range for the first half of Aug. On the negative side, the pool was a disappointment and the lift construction could be disturbing. It would have been nice to have a coffee shop, bar or restaurant on site, but this seems a long way off, judging by what we saw. Having the rooms cleaned in the late afternoon was a nuisance. My understanding is that the lift construction will be finished by Dec 22, so we would consider staying here again next year.