The service we received when we had arrived was absolutely atrocious! Unfortunately, we were unable to get the name of the staff member who we first interacted with but goodness me, did he have absolutely no manners. We had booked a room for two nights, Friday and Saturday, and in the special notes had mentioned that we would be finishing work early Saturday morning, hence why we booked for Friday night as well. Anyway, upon arrival, this staff member did not even greet us and were, instead, landed with a stern “can I help you?” I answered “we’re here to check-in” and he, along with another staff member - in UNISON, I might add - cut in before I could even finish and said “check-in isn’t until 2pm”. I replied “yes, I know. But we booked for Friday night and mentioned in the notes that we had work early hours in the morning and were going to drive down from Auckland afterwards” to which he AGAIN cut in and said “okay. But check-out is at 10.” It was 8am. Firstly, WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE GO TO A HOTEL TO CHECK-IN FOR ONLY TWO HOURS????? I remained silent, only for his colleague to read through the booking and see that we were indeed staying until Sunday morning. When he demanded the bond, I gave over my debit card (whenever we stay at other hotels, they accept it) but he insisted that we give a credit card (to which none of us owned). We told him we did not have one to which he suggested we would have to pay instead. My sister did not even get to finish asking “how much is it?” before he screamed “$100!” We had to pay for parking as well (because we drove down) and it kind of shocked me that it costed $20 for just a day (26 hours, give or take) when there are other hotels that have parking included. Once paid, he gave over our ‘Welcome’ letter and our key, and you would think this would be the end of the terrible service. But no. There’s more. Our room was technically drenched in a strong odour of cigarettes. Even opening up the window did no justice and because it was a little difficult to breathe, my sister went down to ask if something could be done about it. She ended up having a little debate with the guy we had originally ALREADY had problems with, receiving a swift “and what do you want me to do about it?” After telling one of the cleaners to come up to our room to spray it, he switched from English to his own language and no doubt (we do not have to understand what he said) it was an obvious insult. About ten to fifteen minutes later, the cleaner came up and denied smelling the heavy, dense smell of cigarettes and even asked if we had opened the windows. After seeing the windows were already open, she sprayed our room with air freshener. What kind of air freshener, you may be wondering? Lavender toilet spray. So now, we have a toilet spray smelling room INTERLACED with the smell of cigarettes. How lovely? When we left to go to the rugby game in the later evening, he greeted the other guests we had come down with in the lift and paid us absolutely no attention, ignoring us as we walked with the said guests. The parking garage has difficult parking spots and about three or four large pot holes in difficult places to avoid when entering. Skip to check-out time on Sunday morning. The clock had JUST STRUCK 10 and there was already someone banging on our door, asking loudly “what time you gonna check out?” Having stayed in multiple hotels, we usually get called regarding what time or how long we are going to be until we check-out but never have we been approached at the EXACT CHECK-OUT TIME. When we went downstairs into the lobby to check-out, the receptionist was (THANK GOD) someone else who was actually more professional and polite. In sitting there, we saw and heard her call up a guest and ask them what time they were expecting to check-out... which leads me to my next question. WHY DID WE HAVE SOMEONE COME TO OUR ROOM AT 10AM ON THE DOT AND ASK US ABOUT CHECKING OUT WHEREAS WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A PHONE CALL INSTEAD? I would be lying if I said this was an experience I would forget. Where the hotel is located is convenient, but everything else that happened just kind of ruined what could have been a perfect stay.

Location

Terrible customer service! Terrible ventilation and air conditioning