I don't usually write reviews, but after my visit last week I felt I should share how easy and pleasant my experience was. My husband and I have never been to the area before and when we loosely mentioned this to the lady at the front desk she went out of her way to help. We were given information about the local area and where to eat out.

We were also early to check in and she was kind enough to let us leave our bags in the room while their finished cleaning (I have never found anywhere else that lets you do that)

We will be back for sure!

THANK YOU

I recently stayed at Karana Palms for five nights. From the start the managers were so helpful. The room was airy and bright. All the outside areas are well looked after. I'm very surprised by some of the other reviews as I was more then pleased with my stay. It is not a serviced hotel in the middle of surfers paradise, but a brilliantly located, family friendly establishment a little bit away from the sometimes frantic pace of the beachfront.

I booked for this establishment through Wotif as a place to stay during a mini-getaway to Gold Coast for UFC on FX on Saturday 15th December 2012 and just to enjoy Surfers Paradise in general, had booked for 3 days. The main reason was price and affordability, I am a simple guy so didn't mind the standard of this place, one thing for sure is it's not 4 stars, more like 2.5 to 3 stars. I arrived at night, and was a bit confused on how to enter, but called the on-call number and was helped by probably one of the managers on getting my key and accessing the room. The room itself is big as a self-catered apartment, with the queen-sized bed in the room, and outside of the bedroom there was a small dining table, reasonably sized kitchen, lounge room with fold-out-bed-couch and an okay bathroom/laundry room, and a nice balacony. It was clean all over the apartment. I had to pay an extra $5 a night for airconditioning which was fine by me. It was actually quiet with the other customers in the building, and I could also park my car in the underground area. The only drawback I could say was the actual shower facility seemed a bit tired/rundown, with the shower taps coming off, the sliding-window was fragile, and kinda small, if you're a heavyweight it could be a struggle. But don't let that put you off, it may only be confined to that room, as I think overall it's a good establishment with staff that really did want to help me, so all-in-all I enjoy my 3 days at Karana Palms.

I stayed in Karana for two nights and had a terrible experience. Management was rude and unfriendly. I was asked to pay $5 extra per day for air con in my room. Which other 4 star hotel have this condition. I have never seen any.
Cant believe I was even asked to empty my own rubbish even after paying some $95 a night.
Bathroom was filthy. Shower was not cleaned. There were hairs in the bathroom. I never got any hand towel and face washer in my bathroom. In fact I didn't even got any basic amenities like shampoo and conditioner.
Definitely not a 4 star.