Did a recent three night stay here at the beginning of January. First off, my kids fell in love with the house dog (a black lab) named Beau. The dog is the calmest one I've ever met.

The hotel honored the connecting room request, which I appreciated as I was traveling with my two young kids. Rooms were spacious - the wife and I had an actual balcony room and the kids one had a juliette balcony. The latter had an additional seating area. Both rooms had a table with a wrap around bench. It would be easy and comfortable to fit four around the table if we wanted to have dinner in the room. Only real complaint was the bathtub in the balcony room. Unlike the kids' room (which was a standard, but sizable, built in tub), it was a freestanding tub. While it looked great, it was designed by a moron. The drain was a pressure drain (press to open and close) in the dead center of the tub. If you wanted to submerge your body, your rear end would open the drain. Very annoying, but definitely a first-world problem.

Staff was great. I'd like to give a special thanks to housekeeping - one day we left the room with our vault door wide open. We had cash, passports, computers, etc. all visible in there. Nothing was touched. We appreciate the honesty and integrity.

Breakfast was fine. There is a limited buffet and you can order off the menu. The best thing on the menu was the pancakes, which used corn flour and were cooked in a special pan that gave them crispy edges. Staff was friendly and helpful in the restaurant, but clearly overwhelmed by the volume of people. They did their best under the circumstances and I don't fault any of them considering the heavy load. As I understand it, there is a staffing shortage in Auckland in the service industry. Still, I'd like to give a special call out to Max who made my kids chocolate milk when they ran out of the bottled stuff - that's above and beyond.

Fitness center is clean and new, but limited. Pool is very nice and you could do laps in it. However, because there are no lines on the bottom or dividers, doing laps during the day would be difficult if there are any families in it. There is a sauna, steam room, and hot tub that is accessible with a room card from the hallway leading to the gym. It's nice that you don't need to actually go into the spa to use it.

Overall, a nice stay. The hotel is definitely in an appropriate price/category classification. If you stay there, strongly suggest going to Cassia for dinner. It is a 20 minute walk. The restaurant is modern Indian and was the best meal we had in either Australia or New Zealand.