Mantra on Salt Beach Kingscliff

Always a great place to visit. Lovely restaurants. Nice drives of coastal scenery. Staff friendly and helpful. Plenty of parking for larger vehicles. Rooms are great size and we had a spa in our room which was great to relax in. Good bar. Breakfast at Peppers across the road very good buffet

I recently stayed at the Mantra on Salt Beach Kingscliff with my husband and 2 children over 3 nights for a wedding. The location itself was absolutely beautiful and the resort (in general) was pretty nice. The lagoon style pool was a standout. However, we were left disappointed by the staff's friendliness, hospitality and willingness to make sure we had a good stay. We arrived early on the day of our booking and were well aware that check-in wasn't until 2pm (although slightly hopeful that we may be able to check in sooner). The staff was quite blunt in enforcing the 2pm check-in and didn't give us any indication as to whether or not the room would be ready any earlier. They also made a point of mentioning there was a "VIP guest" in our room so they would be prioritised (because we're not as important). There was also no real effort made to make us feel welcomed, or help us settle in to the resort for the 4h we had to spare. Given we had flown in from interstate, had two young children (a 2 year old and an 8 month old) and were clearly all a little hot and bothered - even the smallest ounce of hospitality would have gone a really long way (perhaps the simple offer of a drink by the pool and informing us of where we might be able to change into our bathers). Given we'd booked one of the top rooms (2 bed spa deluxe), and the price per night was dear, my expectations were high and I was left feeling annoyed from the get-go (not exactly the holiday-mode I wanted to sink into). The room was fine, but outdated and not well maintained. There was rubbish left on the floor, the floors were extremely scuffed, one of the shutters was falling apart, our laundry door was broken and there was even a pair of the previous guest's jocks in the dryer. Plus, our room was never cleaned during the stay. The resort also seemed to need a little maintenance (rust, etc.). When checking out, the staff also couldn't locate the full payment we had made upon checkin in within their system. So, we had to pull up our banking app and take screenshots to show them. As a guest, this shouldn't be my problem and shouldn't be something that delays my check-out experience (annoyingly it meant we couldn't grab take-away coffee before taking our airport transfer). The staff need to work on their customer service & hospitality and rooms need upgrading - luckily the location and setting is stunning! Not good enough.

This property is in need of a total update, air con does not work well, TV"S in most rooms are 20 years old, Furniture is 20 years old, Window Shutters are broken,This Property needs and up grade . Catering was not great there Food and catering is very, very poor, staff are not helpful, Functions are very, very poor and are super expensive and are not value,THIS NOT THE PLACE TO HAVE A FUNCTION. Staff are not helpful and disappear when asked a question. VERY,VERY POOR CHOICE ANOTHER.

Our stay started terribly with trying to check in at 13.30pm when we were told our room wasn't ready we would just have to wait. I understand checkin is at 14:00pm however I thought that being quiet and only arriving 30mins early we would be able to get into our room. We arrived with a 13 month angry, wet baby and this didn't help. We booked an ocean view one bedroom, which was very tired, in need of a renovation and quite cramped. Only one air conditioner in the unit which was in the living room, which meant the bedroom was quite hot because the air hardly got to that room. The buffet breakfast was included in our stay, if I had to have paid for it separately I would have been pretty disappointed as it was very basic. We have stayed all over the world in 4 and 5 star hotels, and what we paid at the Mantra was up there with some of the best hotels we've stayed in and definitely did not receive the same experience.

Very disappointing and definitely not value for money. Very old. No service. No help with bags offered. The ocean view was underwhelming. The lounge was so small. One couch and one small odd chair. Balcony tiny table and two plain chairs. Not luxurious. Long long passages to get to our room.