70 Tory Apartment

I can’t safely use the shower because the ceiling above it is filling with water. I’ve contacted reception several times. Once they said they’d find a fix, but I haven’t heard back since. I asked to change rooms or get a refund and was ignored. There’s also a huge crack in the balcony, so I won’t go out on it because it feels like I could fall through. This has been the worst place I’ve ever stayed. Avoid it if you can.

We paid $475 for two nights in a place we couldn’t properly use. We arrived at 6 pm to find a dirty, unmade room and waited two hours before asking a local to call the number for us. We only had data, no NZ number, and the apartment phones didn’t work. After a long wait we were moved, by then past 9 pm. We went for dinner without checking the new room, and later found the car park gate shut, so we had to park on the street. Back in the room, water drops were falling in the bathroom and toilet, with what seemed like biohazard water pooling on the floor and a foul smell reaching the living room. At 1:54 am my family and I still couldn’t sleep in a clean room. The first room, 603, hadn’t been serviced either, with full bins, used towels and stained surfaces. We booked on Booking.com and were told to check in online through another site, ‘urban rest’, where I had to enter all my personal details. With identity theft these days, that felt unnecessary. There were too many entry codes to keep track of in the instruction email. We also saw a homeless person living in the car park, which worried us, and the urine smell there was unbearable. The photos are misleading, and then they send more emails telling you how to tidy the place before checkout. What a shocker, with an eerie, faceless reception. Booking.com let me down by not checking what it advertises. Don’t trust this place on any website.

The apartment itself was great, but the service was disgusting. We booked the penthouse suite and spent hours trying to check in: nobody was at reception, no details had been sent, and the Urban rest number didn’t reach a person. We nearly had to find somewhere else before eventually getting through to someone. The next day, other guests were going through the same stressful check-in mess. During our five-day stay the room wasn’t serviced, so we had one towel each the whole time, and the dryer didn’t work if we wanted to wash them. The pool and gym were closed for maintenance, with no warning until we arrived. There were homeless people sleeping in the underground car park, which made the long walk through it unpleasant.

We booked a two-bedroom room with city views, but got a one-bedroom facing a concrete wall. The furniture was filthy, so I had to buy cleaning products before we could even sit on the couch. The jug leaked boiling water onto the bench, and half the cutlery was missing. I tried calling the number they gave us, but nobody picked up.