We have been to roturua and taupu so many times, most of the time I check reviews on trip advisor to select hotel or motel except this time, then it turns into a nightmare. I know that with hotel or motel at this price and cheaper, I would have a much pleasant stay. Additionally, we’ve been charged more! I would talk about it later.
I went to this motel simply because they have mineral pools. When we make a booking on the phone, we've been told that 25% deposit would be deducted from the credit card, which is different from the other hotel or motel. When we entered the room in arrival, we found that it's so average, totally different to their pictures on the website. I found that they forgot to refill the hand wash, but it's not a big deal. It’s a strange summer, it keeps rainy for over 2 weeks, and we felt a bit cold. So we turn on the heater. That’s the beginning of the nightmare. When I used the air dryer after shower, suddenly all the light gone. The same thing happened to my parents’ room, when I tried to use their hair dryer. My husband was having a shower so he had to stop and went to the reception to find the owner with half naked. It’s 9pm and they’ve already closed, after couple mins of knocking door the owner’s wife asked what’s happened behind the door. And my husband told them what’s going on. There was a long silence after that. So he kept knocking at the door again and this time the owner finally respond again and my husband had to repeat what’s happened in the room and told them he’s in the middle of shower so please help ASAP. Surprisingly the owner told us, all the lights will be timed and would turn off automatically, and told us “good night”! After my husband complained about the service, the owner did go to our rooms and solve the problem, after my husband standing outside the door and asking for helps for over 10 mins.
Everything seems fine again. We just wanted to boil some water, since one of the power plugs doesn’t work, so we change to another power plug, this time, it did work, however, all the light gone again! So I learned that with the heater’s on, you can’t use anything like air dryer or the boiler in the room, though we never experienced that in any other motels or hotels, the owner told us it’s a common sense in NZ.
At night, we found that the bed is so uncomfortable, we can't sleep well by changing positions. The opposite is that we can get up very early in the morning as you can’t sleep well.
The owner charge us NZ$149 for the stuido room with queen bed and mineral pool, however, what we got is a double bed with mineral bath, when I asked the owner's wife, she said that NZ$2 internet fee is free for us, I do appreciate that at that time, however, when I checked on the website after I return Auckland, I found out our room should be NZ$135 instead of NZ$149! I felt like I have been cheated. I did double check with the owner about the price when I made the booking, and asked them twice is it supposed to be a double bed and mineral bath?...
Definitely won't go again.
- Lakefront Hotel Taupo
- Lakefront Motel Taupo
