Hotel berhampiran Bond Reserve, Auckland

We had a delicious lunch here to celebrate a birthday. It serves Asian fusion, and as the chef is Korean, I believe it has a lot of delicious Korean inspired dishes. We had the Grilled Prawns, Fried Chicken and Meat Balls. All served beautifully, the tastes a delicious explosion of flavors in the mouth, and so yummy, I could have kept on eating. The views are enormous!! So lovely - soaking up the sun, being served by a lovely friendly chatty waitress, and eating delicious food, with amazing views and eating yummy food with great company. We will be back.

Holiday Inn Express is one of my favorite hotels during my 2-week stay in New Zealand. It is located in the heart of Auckland’s cbd area and close to everything (shops, restaurants, bars, harbor). It is a 6-minute walk to the Sky Tower where you can pick up the Airport Express bus for $17 nzd. The hotel entrance is on a significant incline. The reception is on the 2nd floor which you can take either an elevator or escalator up. The cafeteria and small lounge are to the right of the reception desk. Breakfast was the usual scrambled eggs, sausage, ham, toast, yogurt, cereal, fruits, muffins, and other pastries. Due to the high volume of clients the 2 coffee machines were usually low on milk to make certain coffee drinks. I love the room set up. The closet is across of the bathroom and had plenty of room for your luggage. The shower is enclosed in a glass cube with wave designs. A nightlight in the bathroom saved on electricity if you need a little light to move around the room. The bed was comfortable and the a/c worked. The reception staff was kind to let me stay an extra hour past the check-out time for the room that I had with my tour. The room that I booked after the tour was ready early and I got to settle in at 11 am before my afternoon tour. Construction is happening around the hotel with the streets being torn up and a new building under construction next to the hotel. The hotel is well insulated that I couldn’t hear any of the construction.

The main advantage is the location, just off the main shopping area of Queen Street, less than 10 minutes walk to the Viaduct and Britomart areas. Supermarkets less than five minutes walk, SkyCity just up the road, etc. The building itself is nothing flash with a small reception area and two small lifts. We stayed in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment on the 7th floor and the apartment was quite comfortable and had plenty of space to relax. The WiFi worked well. The small kitchen had the basics we needed to have breakfast and prepare a light meal and snacks. One bathroom was an en suite off the main bedroom whilst the other bathroom was larger and contained the washing machine and dryer. Unfortunately we suffered from the construction noise in the street outside which of course is nothing to do with the hotel, but meant we had to sleep with the air conditioning on rather than have a window or sliding door open. There was less noise on the weekend but there was still some construction taking place.

Stayed at Lylo for 3-4 days and it’s probably the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at. You check in on a device however there is a receptionist near in case you need anything. The design is amazing as well as the communal rooms/work spaces, it’s very new and renovated at the moment so it looks really great. There’s free wifi, a communal kitchen and bathrooms on each floor. There’s also a restaurant and bar, you get a card for one free drink too! I stayed in a private room and shared bathroom, the floor was super clean and quiet. The room itself was cute and tidy, we were missing a few things such as a rubbish bin (didn’t know the rooms came with one until we saw someone else on our floor with one). I think it would’ve of been nice if the room came with a television or a safe, however the room was great for the price so can’t complain too much :) location is central and easy access to everything within the city.

Quite pleasant, well set out , would book there again. Right in the centre of Auckland, handy to everything in the CBD. Parking is a problem, rang ahead to try and book, was told it's ”first come first served ”, when we got there my partner asked about parking and was told there was none available, but the people arriving after us were given a spot...the parking was in the 10min drop off spots...so be aware if you arrive late but before the freeman ends finding a spot to stop and book in might be difficult.

Nicely appointed rooms, if a little small. Good bathroom space. Wardrobe a little small for two people for a few nights stay. The staff are friendly and accommodating. We had excellent service during our entire stay. Housekeeping staff were lovely and checked each day to see that we had enough coffee, etc. Parking onsite is helpful, if cramped, and does need good driving skills and a small vehicle. It is easy to get to places from here. A short walk to K Road, only 2.5km from New Market (walk, don't use a vehicle). An easy walk to Britomart and even though we did not use the buses this time, on a bus route, with the stop almost outside the door. We would easily stay here again.

TLDR: no aircon, constant power cuts, paper thin walls.. Where do I start. First off there’s no aircon so the rooms are hot and uncomfortable. There are ducted low speed fans which don’t do much. But the biggest problem is the fact the rooms are on what I believe to be motion sensors or some kind of timers so ALL power turns off every 25 seconds, this is not an exaggeration. This includes the lights, jug, the fan - everything. I stubbed my toes in the dark because the lights turned off while I was walking around, and they wouldn’t turn back on. Showering in the dark due the lights constantly on and off. Good luck making a coffee, showering, watching TV or anything without that being interrupted by constant power cuts which drive you mad. I booked the small room. They look small in the photos but even smaller in person and I felt like I was suffocating, the rooms are tiny so heat up like crazy. The smallest hotel room I’ve ever seen. Also the walls are paper thin so I could hear my neighbours conversations word for word.. even with ear plugs. If there was air con and sound proof walls, I could have put up with the extremely small space. Terrible experience. Don’t even bother with this place. The Abstract had a lot of potential as they have decorated it very nicely but they have let themselves down. It is also in a dangerous area of Auckland central so you will want to make sure you are back in your room by dark, lots of drunk homeless people around. After my first night of zero sleep due to the heat, stuffiness and neighbours chatting, I complained and had my room kindly upgraded to a larger one, but the same issues remained of constant power cuts and no air con in that room too. At least it was a bit cooler due to being larger and an extra window, also had no neighbours.. The customer service was pretty good. There is no parking on site so you have to park in a carpark building across the road. The food in the restaurant was average but has a beautiful outdoor dining area which was the highlight.

Totally disappointed in our two night stay here. This premise also goes under the name 'Auckland Airport Kiwi Hotel' and Auckland Airport Kiwi Backpackers', the Backpackers has now been turned into what is called 'Premier studio apartments'.'. When we arrived the lady at reception stated that she had only debited our card for the first night, we were to pay for our second night when checking out. Our 'Premier Studio Apartment' was clearly an ex backpacker room, our lawn view was 2 mtrs of unmown grass which looked straight into the rooms across from us. The room was clean enough but extremely under equipped. We had booked for 3 people, we had 2 towels, 2 facecloths, no hand towel, no tea towel or dish cloth. After the 3rd ask for these items we finally received two extra facecloths to be used as a tea towel and dishcloth, eww! The kitchen had 1 fork, 1 teaspoon, 3 knives and large spoons, 1 glass, no wine glasses. Odd cups and plates of various sizes. There was a microwave and hotplates but no other utensils at all besides the bits and pieces mentioned. No Ice tray. No coathangers. The bathroom light flickered constantly, there was rubbish under the beds, and on further inspection, the fire alarm did not contain a battery. (illegal) On checking out was told that our account had been settled. Inspection of bank account showed that our 2nd night had been deducted two hours after we had checked in and an extra $4.50 had been taken. Asked on their chat window (which is how we booked our stay due to no one answering the phone, ever) and was emailed back, them stating that this extra cost was due to paying by Visa. No mention of this throughout our booking or on their website. Would not stay here again.

Second stay in 3 months. Service was great at reception and the restaurant. Food was exceptional. My room had everything I needed - comfy bed, good shower, clean and spacious. I was well rested for early morning flight and caught the free shuttle. Thank you for a great stay.

The Service was good, the air con didn't seem to be working, we told the desk about this and they said they would look at it, nothing changed. It was around 18-20degC outside and 24DegC in our room, also VERY dusty, dust coming out the vent.