Had to stay at 2 different hotels while in Darwin. The first was the highly recommended Mirambeena, the second was this hotel. For the $6 price difference, I'd definitely go with the Holiday Inn! After camping for 4 days in the NT, it was wonderful to come back and bathe and shower! My only complaint was that the a/c in our room wasn't working well despite their best efforts to fix it. We got a great recommended tip from an employee where to go for a great Mayalasian, Indian, and Thai meal! It was the best! Plus we stayed during the Darwin Cup tour and had no problems with the staff. In fact, my husband left his shoes behind at the camping site and they called us at the Indian Restaurant to see if we wanted his shoes delivered to the hotel! Talk about personal service despite a very busy day! So I'd can the Mirameeba and go to the Holiday Inn.

Comfortable Hotel, but a few problems in their Restaurant, Sirocco. The lunch/evening staff were a bit disorganised and forgetful - we had four visits there and four complaints. The supervisor tended to shift blame.

We stayed in this hotel for one night. Our flight got in really early and we were at the hotel at around 6am not expecting to get into our room 'till mid day however the staff were very helpful and let us check in there and then which was brilliant. My luggage had also gone missing, I mentioned this to the reception desk and by the time we woke up my case had been delivered and was taken up to my room. Fantastic!! One point to note is that there are two Holiday Inn hotels in Darwin right next to each other. I stayed at the other one the following week, it was pretty similar in terms of quality of the rooms but the rate was cheaper and included breakfast, it's worth comparing the two before booking.

Well, we never even got to this hotel. We booked a room on Advance Purchase and when Qantas changed our flights the reservations manager refused to refund the money we paid. I'm aware that the conditions of the reservation were that no monies would be refunded but this was 2 months out from our scheduled stay and the change wasn't a result of us merely changing our minds but because of the airline messing around with us. The Esplanade was to be the first stop on our honeymoon and this has left a bad taste in our mouth. The manager basically said the conditions are the conditions and that's all there is to it. Very poor service. So they got our money for nothing! After writing to the Intercontinental Group (who own Holiday Inn) to let them know of our predicament, guess what response we got? Nothing. And that's exactly the service and assistance we got from the Esplanade Darwin.... nothing.