Cosy Cottage Thermal Holiday Park Rotorua — Attraction in North Island

IF YOU CAN HANDLE ROUGH, THEN THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU. (Their website photos are cunningly deceptive.)

PROS: The Cosy Cottage is walking distance to the beautiful lake, and handy to shops. The Tourists and cleaning staff are friendly and polite. Cold pool is great for kids. The camp has a dozen Pukeko birds living there, adding a charming quality. Three mineral hot/spa pools (non-bubbling) are relaxing and wonderful. CONS: Our campsite looked private but was next to a cabin with a huge Rottweiler. (picture att) We set up our tents and the Rottweiler barked at all of us every time we moved, it got very vicious at times. The kids were stressed at times, so was I. This Rottweiler set off three other dogs on the other side of the creek in the neighboring houses (picture), DAY AND NIGHT. Pukekos call and squawk through the night too. Bring your earplugs. On the last night, a strong sulphur smell and steam just poured and billowed out from the nearby grate (picture) in the road near our tent, which flooded the tent and all the adults could hardly breathe. We all woke up at 10.30pm VERY ILL. After checking the children, adults went for a walk to get some clear air. Pressed the’ after hour’s emergency’ button at head office at 11pm, but no one came. We went back to our site and were thinking of leaving but thought to cover the grate with an old mat (at midnight now) solving the problem temporarily ourselves. It was another hour before all adults felt well enough to try to sleep. A noisy hedgehog woke us up at 3am hunting through our belongings for food it was his second visit. He managed to get away with a chocolate mellow puff! So glad when the morning came, but with it - the Rottweiler barking at every move we made. Showers very narrow, no shower curtain so dress area always wet - great environment for foot fungus. Bathroom cleaned daily, but no smell of bleach to kill bugs/bacteria. THOROUGH clean/scrub needed. My dress zone was ok till the water of the shower next door spayed into my area bouncing from the floor up the walls and wet it. You dare not drop your clothes! Putting on dry clothes in this area is a challenging exercise. Campsites cramped but suitable for a quick RV overnight stay. Facilities: dated, tired and budget, and Kitchen / women’s facilities, not shown on their website photos. Their website photos are cunningly deceptive. There is a walkway between the camp and lake, but you go at your own risk because of the hot thermal activity there and erosion of the track in places, not safe for small children hence a code lock. The SMELL of SULPHUR can be overpowering at certain times of the day and night. TV room – no food or drink allowed, ceiling joinery a worry. locked at 10pm along with kitchen. Kitchen Zip hot water - rusty leaver didn’t turn off when refilling zip, boiling water spluttered all over bench. (Happened to another person day before) I went and asked reception for help, they said they would get onto it. When we left it was not fixed but people still managing to jimmy dripping leaver for their hot water. Would I go there again? The main draw card is that the Cosy Cottage is conveniently located, but HELL NO!! I would not stay there again, too noisy, smelly and budget. When asking around, seems as though this camp was sold and new owners have run it down - just don’t care and in for a fast buck. Long stay tourists can do...

I've been in New Zealand since November and this is by far the worst experience I've had with accommodation (and you can see from my reviews I'm lucky enough to travel a lot).

The facilities here are reasonable, the Kitchen is pretty small for the amount of people here and the TV lounge really is basic to say the least (and it's boiling hot in there so you won't last too long without having to leave).

The hot spas are actually quite nice but you're only allowed to be in there for 20 mins at a time (not sure if this is for health reasons or just for sharing reasons but fair enough, I guess).

But unbelievably, when we were playing Uno at normal talking volume at 10pm, we were interrupted by one of the rudest staff members I've ever encountered.

Now, I have no issues with someone telling me that I'm being too loud (even though I really can't see how we were), just be civil about it, but this guy literally shouts at us YOU NEED TO BE QUIET OR I'M GOING TO HAVE YOU KICKED OUT OF HERE, CONSIDER THIS YOUR FINAL WARNING. There was no need to be like that and I certainly don't appreciate being threatened on my vacation.

What makes this worse is they don't offer you an alternative, you either go to bed at 10pm like you're in some sort of prison (I say this because their TV lounge is the only other place you can go and this is shut at 10pm).

My girlfriend then tried to go to the toilet and the same man was loitering around in the women's toilets, supposedly trying to clean them, he then made her feel like SHE was being a burden for trying to use them.

What makes all of this worse is that he was walking around the camp sites at night and walked straight passed some tents with people singing and shouting and he didn't say a word to them, this just leads me to believe that he is was just being ageist.

This is my second time in Rotorua, the first time I stayed in Top Ten, which I have to say, I had a MUCH nicer experience and it wasn't even that different in price.

Please have a word with your staff as we weren't the only group of people offended by this (the table behind us were also shocked...

Sorry in advance - it's a bit of a rant. We haven’t stayed here. This is about a booking for March 2023. I don't normally write about bad service. This is only the second time I have done so and only after trying to fix the problem dealing with the place directly, but because they are unwilling to engage, I have put this review out. I have asked outright for them to acknowledge my emails but they are remaining silent. Booked (8th Feb) to stay here for one night on our way to visit friends at Mahia Peninsula, Hawkes Bay Area. Since the booking the cyclone and flooding have happened so we had to cancel (17th Feb) our trip to the north island, as the primary reason for the trip was to stay at Mahia with friends. We just threw a night in Wellington and Rotorua in on the way. Cosy cottage did not refund any of the money saying it was less than 30 days notice. How can I give 30 days notice when I only booked this 9 days before I had to cancel and March is not peak season. I cancelled giving them 20 days notice. I know storms etc are not their fault and was happy with the $25 cancellation fee thinking that was what the deal was, but NO they kept $160! They seem to only answer emails after 10.30 at night which makes me think they don't want to deal with it. I have asked if they aren't willing to refund the money, can they at least reinstate the booking... this is so I can gift a night to a couple who have had a hard time with the cyclone and flooding. Someone may as well have a night away. I find Cosy cottages behaviour GREEDY. Everyone else was understanding and kept their refund policy's reasonable. I don't care if this is a nice place or not. I won't be rebooking to find out. I will be telling friends, family, colleagues etc NOT to book with cosy cottage, there are A LOT of other places to spend...