MCentral Serviced Apartments — Attraction in Ōtara-Papatoetoe

I booked MCentral Apartments based on the description from their website, which says:|“Enjoy the luxury of staying at Manukau’s brand new apartments with modern styling and well laid out facilities for the best experience you ever had.”|and|“MCentral Apartments are premier serviced apartments with a prime location for your stay...”||However, I strongly disagree with these claims.||From the moment we arrived, the experience was frustrating and disappointing. The building is filled with small businesses, and the reception was difficult to find. Signage pointed upstairs, but it turned out to be tucked away downstairs in a corner. The reception area looked like a makeshift kiosk – two old windows stuck together, with a printed “reception” sign taped on. The staff member behind the counter was uninterested and wouldn't check us in a minute before 2pm.||There is no included car parking – this comes at an additional cost, which wasn’t clearly communicated.||As for the apartments themselves – they are not serviced, despite what’s advertised. All they do is dump fresh towels on the dining table in the morning – yes, the very table you’re supposed to eat at. I found this incredibly unhygienic and culturally inappropriate. When I called reception to raise this, I was told “I apologise” – only for the same thing to happen again the next morning.||The so-called “luxury” is non-existent. The blinds barely cover the windows and were filthy. The lounge couches were worn and uncomfortable. The kitchen plates were mismatched – not even from the same brand – which felt more like a flatting situation than a hotel.||There was a wardrobe in my room but not a single hanger – what’s the point? The aircon was a noisy mobile unit with a hose sticking out the window – it was louder than it was effective. My colleague’s showerhead was hanging on by a loose screw, and mine made a rattling sound every time it was used.||There is zero soundproofing – you can hear people walking around and talking at all hours. To top it off, the whole building smelled strongly of marijuana, which was off-putting and completely unprofessional.||This stay was genuinely disappointing. Despite our company footing the bill for two of our team members (we represent a multi-million dollar company), we will not be returning. This was meant to be a comfortable and professional experience, but instead it felt chaotic, careless, and low-quality.||This is, without a doubt, the worst accommodation experience I’ve had, and likely the only time I’ve ever left such a negative review.||MCentral Apartments is well below standard, misleading in its advertising, and not worth your time or money. I absolutely do not recommend this place.||Rating: 1 star – Pathetically...

I suppose you get what you pay for, the price was cheap and we were only staying for 2 nights before heading back to Australia. We’d had a busy few days of travelling and this place was convenient enough, and you can’t argue that the location to public transport is practically at the front entrance. We were able to safely store our luggage there first, as we needed to return our rental van. When we went up to our room we waited for a bit as someone had thrown up in one of the elevators. Entering the room we already could feel the cold, the windows didn’t close tightly so there was lots of cold air coming in. The portable air conditioner wasn’t working and the hose was resting against the wall. There were little heaters in each bedroom wardrobe which helped a little. The glass sliding doors for each bedroom were unexpected and one couldn’t close properly. The beds were reasonably comfortable and there was sufficient bedding and towels available. We had the 4 bedroom apartment which has 2 reasonably sized bathrooms. There was a selection of complimentary toiletries such as soap, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. At first I thought there was only 3 cups and 2 plates, but there are more in the cupboard above the stove. They provided some essentials such as dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, milk, tea, coffee, salt and pepper. The fridge was cleanish but looked like someone had beat it and the rubbish bin up. It seems strange to only have one 3 seater lounge in a 4 bedroom apartment. One bedroom had a window with a view straight into an office. There were actually people working there when we arrived, so we had to keep the curtain closed. The dining chairs are uncomfortable and resemble a 70’s style house. As the area is quite busy, there was a lot of external noise and on 2 separate occasions people were fighting outside. The place definitely doesn’t match the online photos. We didn’t have any issues with the staff at reception. As I mentioned earlier the location is the main asset of this building. There’s a Westfield shopping centre which is literally 5 minutes walk away. It’s also not far from the airport, plus there’s a bus directly across from the building that goes to the airport. Room service arrived at a reasonable time in the morning, although we didn’t need anything done. Oh there’s a washer/dryer which worked fine. Yes there was signs of staining, and wear and tear. I feel that it could be such an amazing place if someone had the funds to repair and...

The two of us payed over $2,900 for 26 nights. When we arrived we were then told that we would have to pay for parking at $12 per night ($312) which is ridiculous and then we were only given the one key which was terribly inconvenient as the both of us worked at separate times. After signing a contract warning us that we’d be charged for any damage we entered our room to disarray. At least 90% of the furniture was damaged, the fridge was dented, light fixtures were hanging off the wall, there was massive stains on the floor, the heaters didn’t work and the room was ice cold, also one of the beds had no duvet just a spare thin blanket. Housekeeping is lovely staff but there is no such thing as a do not disturb sign and they will come in the room whether you want them to or not. We figured we’d just cope until a week into our stay we discovered that our shower seal was covered in black mold and decided enough was enough. When we complained we were immediately met with an attitude. The man at the desk (in the photo) was very argumentative, he decided it was our fault that we didn’t complain on day 1, he knew the heaters didn’t work and told us we needed to ask at the desk for some and when we asked for a partial refund or at least a discount on parking he refused and would only offer us a new room. There was no apology or an attempt at decent customer service. As we had nowhere else to go we took the new room. Although our new room was more spacious and less stained it still had issues. In this new room there was no knobs on the oven making it unusable, one of the pans in the cupboard was still dirty, the fridge was also dented with most of the shelves cracked or missing. The air con unit had a massive tube rammed out of the window so the window couldn’t shut, this led to the room being freezing as well as birds flying in all day. The towel rack in the bathroom was hanging off the wall and the TV didn’t work. Furthermore, we later learned through other reviews some rooms supposedly contained cockroaches in addition to learning the building was used for emergency housing which as two women travelling alone made us feel very unsafe and there was many unsavoury characters in the building. There was zero security and it was not hard to use the lift without the key card. Overall considering the price we payed for a supposedly 4 star hotel the rooms were disgusting and the reception staff incredibly rude and unhelpful. You couldn’t pay me to...