Conway Motel

Winds in Wellington left me, like a lot of other people, with an involuntary two-night layover in Auckland. I wanted an inexpensive room fairly close to the airport. The Conway Hotel did the job, but the room smelled bad and wasn’t entirely clean, so I probably wouldn’t return. I definitely wouldn’t bring my family here.

The price is good and most things about the place were fine, but cleanliness was a real problem. I found a live cockroach in the freezer, an earwig in the kitchen sink and a toenail clipping in a corner. There was a suspicious stain on the duvet inner that looked like old blood, too. When I went looking for a bowl for soup, there were only plates, so I picked up a mug and found lipstick around the rim. It would be fine if it were clean 😭

The manager was excellent and handled all our concerns. We needed plugs for NZ, so we bought a couple of adapters from the property. The location is handy, within walking distance of Pack and Save and other useful shops. We were in room 9, where the air conditioning suddenly stopped working. After we reported that it was dripping, the room became uncomfortably warm. The internet was also patchy, disconnecting repeatedly.

It’s about a 15-minute walk to Manukau center, and the airport bus stop is around 7 minutes away. Laundry was useful, with one working washer at $3 a load and two working dryers at $1 for 20 minutes. Detergent was provided. The room had a toaster, microwave oven and some cutlery, but it’s Japanese hotel-room sized, so don’t expect much space. The balcony door had no curtain and let in a lot of light, though it was okay for us. We checked in late and left early. Noise was the main issue. People using the community pantry were loud and having fun late into the night, then continued gathering in the rooms, shouting across the hall and knocking on each other’s doors until midnight. The owners didn’t tell them off, and I didn’t dare confront them. It got quiet after they went to sleep. During the day you can hear cars revving from the auto workshops nearby.