My husband and I stayed at Aloha Apts with two young children in October 2010 and found it to be fantastic. Yes it is 3 star and is what we expected. Helpful and friendly staff. Best location ever. Few minutes to everything, bus stops, Cavill Ave, beach, park, restaurants and shops. Pool was great and even though it rained most of our 12 day holiday we still enjoyed both the pool and spa on a daily basis.

Would definitely recommend to anyone. As to alot of the other earlier comments, If you want 5 star go and pay for 5 star.

I stayed at Aloha for 6 months at one time, and I have to say I didn't find it as bad as some of these reviews claim it to be. I think there must be a great difference between different rooms (in terms of cleanliness, style etc). Our 2-room apt on the 9th floor was clean and not so run down as some other seem to be. I found the staff very friendly and helpful. But sure, it's not sparkling new, and certainly not luxurious.The room was decent, but not nothing special.

The real reasons to stay here are the view and the proximity to the beach and Surfers' centre. The view, the beach and the hospitality of the staff made our long stay a very memorable one.

It was a waste of our money where accommodation was concerned. The staff can be summed up as "unwilling", any requests were met with barely concealed tolerance and we were made to feel so uncomfortable when asking for anything eg why was the pool icy-cold when it was advertised as heated. One of the reasons why we chose Aloha was because of the pool and we had 1 swim in it over 1 week. The room was dirty, utensils looked barely clean, very tired furniture, archaic washing machine. No value for money here. Should have taken note of the preceding reviews before booking.

Gawd what a nightmare. After a long day traveling from Sydney and being delayed (Onya Jetstar, but thats another story) we arrived at the hotel around 8pm on a Sunday night, to be greeted by a closed reception and a locked door. There was a sign saying the office closed at midday Sunday. At that point I thought we would have to sleep on the beach.. There was an intercom on the wall next to the door, but it was dead.

Eventually one of the guests came down to head out for the night and we managed to get into the reception, use the front desk phone to speak to someone, get keys and get to our room.

Opening the door to our room we were met with heat, humidity and an overpowering smell. We opened the windows and tried to turn the fans on, no airconditioning!?!? The fan in the lounge did not work. We spent the night tossing and turning in the heat and humidity and were grumpy and tired by the time we went down to the reception the next morning.

We were greeted by the office manager Vivian. I told her of our experiences, but was met with an apathetic attitude. Told her of the broken intercom. "oh yeah ive had a few complaints about that i spose i should get it fixed".. Told her of the broken fan "is that still not working? the electrician was here a few weeks ago".. We expressed our disappointment but her attitude was really one of "oh well". We decided that we werent going to stay there for the remainder of our holiday, 3 more nights in that? We found another hotel a few blocks away and canceled our booking at Aloha. Again the attitude was one of apathy and "dont let the door hit you on your way out."