Aotea Motel

My parents arrived for their 25-26.01.26 stay with a 2 pm check-in, but the room wasn’t ready. When they returned at 4, the office was locked, and the cleaners had to call the owner. He took 20 minutes to arrive. There were no pillowcases on the beds, and the bathroom towel rack had fallen off. Later, someone else was parked in their space when we came back from dinner. Disgusting all round. Wouldn’t recommend.

We stayed ten days and the room was never serviced. We had to keep asking for towels, and the shower caddy fell off the wall while someone was showering. One owner did nothing when we first mentioned it. Four days later, a cleaner took a photo and sent the owner down, who asked, “what are you moaning about”. The website says there’s laundry service and a pool, but they have neither. When I asked where to wash our clothes, I was told they don’t offer laundry services. I can tell they’ve never owned a motel before, and I don’t recommend staying here. There were other problems from the start. Check-in was meant to be at 3, but they were still cleaning at 3:15. There was no milk in the fridge or information about nearby shops and services. The TV aerial kept coming out of the wall, and the broken window latch meant we couldn’t leave the window open during the day. The bedroom carpet was quite wet on arrival, and when I told the owners, they tried to blame us. Office hours were listed as 8:30 am to 8:30 pm, but the office was locked during that time.

In Unit 2, there were chunks of carpet missing or burnt, red stains across the unit, and a poor attempt to remove blue gum from the carpet by the window. A kitchen cabinet door and the door between the bathroom and bedroom wouldn’t close fully. Someone else’s used milk was in the fridge, and it felt like we were being bitten through the night. They tried to charge us an $80 cleaning fee after my toddler had an accident. They don’t use mattress protectors, and I honestly think they just didn’t want to change the sheets. I’ve informed the council about the foul conditions. This place should be condemned.

The room was spacious compared with other places we’ve stayed, and it had everything we needed for a night in the city. It was clean and tidy, and the family running the motel were lovely. We enjoyed our stay.