Queenstown · Lake Wakatipu · New Zealand
Copper Bluffs
A five-star lakeside retreat on the schist bluffs above Lake Wakatipu, with refined rooms, a restaurant and lounge bar, a spa and a private gaming lounge for adult guests — ten minutes on foot from the centre of Queenstown.
Welcome
A lakeside casino hotel in Queenstown
Copper Bluffs takes its name from the weathered schist that colours the hillside behind it. The hotel has stood on Lake Esplanade for nine years, stepped into the slope so that the upper floors clear the trees and look straight down the lake towards Cecil Peak.
Seventy-six rooms and suites sit above a restaurant, a lounge bar, a spa with an indoor pool, and three event spaces. This is a working five-star resort first. Most guests come for the water and the mountains, and the concierge desk spends more of its day booking jet boats, gondola tickets and Milford Sound coaches than anything else.
The gaming lounge is one part of that, not the whole of it. It occupies a single floor, opens in the afternoon, and is reserved for guests and visitors aged 20 and over in line with New Zealand law. Everything else at this casino resort — the rooms, the dining room, the spa, the terrace — is open to guests of every age.
The Resort
Everything under one roof
Six parts of the hotel, each with its own character. Follow any of them for hours, menus and full detail.
Rooms & Suites
Seventy-six rooms across five categories, from a Classic Room at NZ$265 to the Bluffs Penthouse with its own terrace. Lake or mountain outlook in every category above Classic.
Bannockburn Restaurant
Our dining room, built around Central Otago produce — Cardrona lamb, Fiordland venison, stone fruit out of the Cromwell basin, and a list that leans hard on Gibbston Valley pinot.
The Casino
A single-floor gaming lounge with slot machines, blackjack, roulette, poker and baccarat, plus a small VIP room. On-site play only, adults aged 20 and over, photo ID checked at the door.
Promotions & Packages
Stay-and-play weekends, the winter ski package, a spa escape and midweek rates that include breakfast for two in Bannockburn. Packages change with the season.
Tussock Spa
Four treatment rooms, a steam room, a sauna and an 18-metre indoor pool on the lower ground floor. Open to house guests from 6:30am, treatments by appointment.
Meetings & Events
Three spaces, from a ten-seat boardroom to a room that seats 140 for dinner. Conferences, weddings and the sort of company weekend that ends out on the terrace.
In Detail
How the hotel works
Level One
The gaming lounge
Ten tables and a bank of gaming machines, laid out so the room stays quiet enough to talk across a table. The casino games run to a posted schedule: blackjack and roulette every day the lounge is open, poker and baccarat on set evenings. The Bendigo Room, off the main floor, takes private bookings for higher-limit table games.
Doors open at 2pm and close at 2am, later on Friday and Saturday. Entry is 20 and over with valid photo ID — a New Zealand driver licence, a Kiwi Access card or a passport. Smart casual dress. There is no play of any kind away from the floor: everything happens in the room.
Ground Floor
Two rooms to eat and drink in
Bannockburn serves breakfast from 6:30am and dinner from 5:30pm, with a short lunch menu in between. The Nevis Lounge next door is the softer option — a long bar, an open fire, Central Otago pinot by the glass and a supper menu that runs until midnight.
Room service covers the full lounge menu 24 hours a day. Private dining for up to twelve is available in the Cellar Room with a day’s notice.
Lower Ground
Tussock Spa & wellness
An 18-metre indoor pool, a sauna, a steam room and four treatment rooms. The spa menu is short on purpose: deep tissue, hot stone, a facial built for dry alpine air, and a two-hour treatment aimed squarely at people who have just walked off the Routeburn.
The gym alongside it is open around the clock to house guests, with cardio equipment, free weights and a stretching area facing the water.
Level Two
Three event spaces
The Kawarau Room seats 140 for dinner or 190 theatre-style and opens onto its own terrace. The Arrow Room divides in two for breakouts, and the boardroom takes ten around a single table. All three have natural light, which is rarer in this town than it should be.
Weddings, conferences, product launches and the occasional 60th. Our events team quotes on the room, the catering and the accommodation block together.
Accommodation
Rooms & suites
Rates below are the lowest available for two guests, room only, and move with the season. Breakfast in Bannockburn is NZ$36 per person.
Classic Room
from NZ$265 per night
25 m², queen bed, courtyard or hillside outlook. The sensible choice for a short stay.
Superior Lake View
from NZ$345 per night
31 m², king or twin, full-width window over Lake Wakatipu.
Executive Room
from NZ$449 per night
39 m² with a separate sitting area, a proper desk and a Nespresso machine.
Cecil Suite
from NZ$655 per night
56 m², one bedroom, a real living room and a balcony facing Cecil Peak.
Bluffs Penthouse
from NZ$1,180 per night
104 m² on the top floor: two bedrooms, a private terrace and the best outlook in the building.
In every room
Free Wi-Fi, blackout curtains, underfloor heating in the bathroom, a minibar restocked daily, and a laundry service back the same day if it is in by 9am.
Queenstown & Central Otago
What is on the doorstep
The concierge desk holds current timetables for everything below and books most of it without a fee. Ask the night before if you want an early start.
Lake Wakatipu
Two minutes down the steps. Scenic cruises to Walter Peak leave from Steamer Wharf, kayaks launch from the bay below Lake Esplanade, and the lakeside path runs the whole way into town.
The Remarkables
Forty minutes by road to the ski field, and visible from most of the building. In summer the same road takes you to the Lake Alta walk and the Wye Creek track.
Coronet Peak & Cardrona
Coronet is the closest field at twenty-five minutes; Cardrona and Treble Cone are an hour or so over the Crown Range. Ski storage and a drying room are on the lower ground floor.
Gibbston Valley
Twenty-five minutes east along the Kawarau Gorge. Half-day and full-day wine tours run daily, and the cycle trail through the valley can be ridden one-way with a pickup at the end.
Milford Sound & Fiordland
A long day — coaches leave around 7am and return after dark — but the one trip most guests say they would do again. Flights cut it to half a day when the weather allows.
Town, and the rest of it
Ten minutes on foot to the town centre and the gondola. Bungee at the Kawarau bridge, jet boating on the Shotover, Arrowtown for the afternoon, Glenorchy for the drive.
Host Responsibility
We look after our guests
Copper Bluffs holds host responsibility obligations under the Gambling Act 2003. In practice that means the gaming lounge is 20 and over with ID checked at the door, our staff are trained to notice when someone has stopped enjoying themselves, and anyone who asks to be excluded from the lounge is excluded — quietly, and for as long as they want.
There are no clocks-off-the-wall tricks here. The lounge has clocks, windows and posted closing times, and cash machines are not sited on the gaming floor.
Free, confidential help
NZ Gambling Helpline — 0800 654 655
Free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Need to Talk? — 1737
Call or text, any time, to speak with a trained counsellor.
Problem Gambling Foundation — 0800 664 262
Text 8006 · choicenotchance.org.nz · safergambling.org.nz
76
Rooms & Suites
9
Years of Hospitality
31,400+
Guests Welcomed
★★★★★
Five-Star Resort
3
Event Spaces
Reservations
Make an enquiry
Send us the shape of the stay and reception will come back with availability and a price, usually within a few hours. For same-day arrivals please call +64 3 441 7250.