Kawaha Point Lodge is one of the most delightful places on the planet! My husband and I were fortunate to stay there during our honeymoon. The moment we arrived we were greeted by Margaret and Tony, our lovely Kiwi hosts, who acted as if they were welcoming us home. After we were shown to our wonderfully appointed room, with its crisp clean colors, beautiful flowers from the garden, and own balcony looking over the garden and the lake, Margaret asked us what we wanted to do in Rotorua. We told her what we had in mind. In a matter of minutes, she and Tony had made all the necessary arrangements for our day-long hike through a national park, our traditional Maori-village dinner, and started us thinking about the menu we wanted for our personal, in-house chef-prepared dinner the next night. And when we returned from the Maori dinner that evening, we found our fridge stocked with sandwiches (made to our request), fruit, and water (all gratis, by the way) to take on our hike the next day. It was like having fairy godparents!

After our day long hike the next day (really a mountain climb), during which we ate ALL that they packed for us, we returned to the lodge to be told that dinner would be ready whenever we wanted it. By sheer luck, we were the only guests there that weekend, so the chef was cooking for us alone and would serve us at our leisure. After we washed up and rested, we had cocktails with our hosts and shared stories and travels with each other. Then, my husband and I sat down to the table elaborately set for just the two of us and had the best meal of our lives - scallops, fresh salad, and rack of lamb to die for!!! It was incredible. We swore we’d never eat again. Of course, the next morning, we had an incredible breakfast, with Tony making us each a wicked omelet.

The grounds of the lodge are spectacular - it is has both a Roman type garden with greenery and vines and a spectacular arbor that runs the length of the backyard, with much stonework, and an English garden, with a riot of plants, flowers and trees, in full bloom as it was Spring in NZ. And all this runs along lovely Lake Rotorua. Notably, none of the sulpher spring smells reached the lodge. Though, truth be told, we hardly noticed them anywhere in Rotorua.

After expressing a desire to do a some laundry which had been building up from earlier parts of our honeymoon, Tony took it all, washed it (for a fee) and handed it back to us the next morning folded for us to pack away. Now, that is what I call service.

Needless to say, we did not want to leave. If we had known it was such a delightful place, we would have planned to have stayed longer. The rooms were luxurious but comfy, the food amazing, and the service incomparable. Tony and Margaret love what they do and are good at it. And it shows!! We absolutely love Kawaha Point Lodge and look forward to flying half-way around the world to stay there again some day. After all, it is our Shangri-La.