+ Our top floor room was great
+ Self service laundry is a plus
+ Great view to the church

We chose this hotel for the central location as we wanted to be able to recover from the long haul flight and see Christchurch before setting off to see the rest of the country. The staff were great and took our luggage as we arrived in the morning and rooms weren't ready. We were really pleased to be told we'd been given a free upgrade but should have been more wary - our room was large and lovely but had a view over the service yard and backed onto the lifts which were clearly audible for most of the night - not much help with the jet lag and the vibrations were less than restful as there'd been a large aftershock a few days before which made them very un-nerving. Ask for a front room looking over the square - hopefully what's left of Christchurch will not disappoint, it was a beautiful city and hopefully will be again soon

Beautiful hotel, in a beautiful city, and a great location.
The staff were great, the room was lovely and the hotel is right in the middle of Christchurch.

Fortunately we visited before the Earthquake. The hotel was right in the CBD were the earthquake struck worst, so I can't say how up to date the review is.

We stayed here just before the earthquake and had a suite in the Old Government Building beside the main hotel. It was large, with a bedroom on a mezzanine and a large living/ kitchen area. It was well eqipped but there was no air conditioning and the couches, chairs, carpets, etc were stained and had seen better days. Whilst it's great to have old world charm, and this building has it in spades, it shouldn't be an excuse for failing to replace soft furnishings and fitments when they start showing their age!

My other main bugbear was the alleged washed/dryer hidden in the bathroom - it washed but it most definitely did NOT dry, despite using that function for several hours!!

The hotel is brilliantly located right on Cathedral Square with tons of shops, bars, restaurants and places of interest on your doorstep. There was 30 minutes of free wi-fi in the lobby per day and the concierge helped us arrange the free bus transfer to the station for the Tranzalpine Express.

Despite the condition of the fitments, we enjoyed our stay and would have been hapy to stay on another day - just as well we didn't though as that was the day the earthquake struck!