Kennedy Point Vineyard — Attraction in Waiheke

We stayed in the guest house at Kennedy Point during January 2013. Upon arrival it was clear that the website does not do this place justice. The setting and views are great and the accomodation was comfortable.||||Good points:||||1. Accomodating hosts during booking period i.e. arranged for port-a-cot and happy birthday banner in the room||||2. Good value for money (we chose the return ferry package)||||3. Lovely gardens and sea views - more views like this should be on the website as it doesnt do it justice||||4. Clean - unit was clean and gardens were kept beautifully||||5. Some nice items of furniture had been added i.e. sofa's, lamps etc||||Bad points:||||1. Lockwood style building which made lots of expanding noises late at night and early in the morning when house heated up and cooled down - this woke the little one||||2. Accomodation is in two parts, both parts can be used independently and have an internal door that is locked of course. Walls are thin and we could hear the guests in the next house talking and making coffee - this made us paranoid with our little girl and was constantly telling her to be quiet when she was up at 6am||||3. Both guest houses have their own semi-private area's, however like another reviewer we closed our curtains so we didnt look out onto next doors garden area.||||4. Outdoor eating area and BBQ are shared and in full view of one of the accomodations lounge area - we asked if we could use it and took it around the front of our accomodation to give both parties some privacy||||5. Was very hot in January and had no air-con or fly nets on windows, had mosquito plug-ins though so braved windows open and fan on with plug-ins||||6. There wasnt any meet and great - we were instructed to go straight to the accomodation and keys would be left in side. We were however invited formally to visit the winery which we didnt do (as we had baby) so maybe we would have met with the owners then. Upon check out winery was closed so left key in room||||7. TV was in bedroom, we moved into lounge, think it would be better placed in there||||Overall this place is great value for money, and with a few tweaks: fly nets or air con, host meet and great upon arrival (i.e. hand key over and show you to your accomodation), own BBQs and eating bench for each unit and a sound proof internal door between units, it would be an even greater experience! I would stay there again, but I think it would be with another family where we wouldnt mind sharind some facilities and having the internal...

It wouldn't take much to make this a five star review, but it won't take to much more to make it a one star either. ||||We stayed at Kennedy Point before an 18 day cruise around New Zealand and Australia. We decided on the property because of the reviews and the fact it was on a winery property. And the price was right.||||Most of the reviews were stellar, although some of the more recent reviews on TripAdvisor waved red flags. We should have given them more weight than the past ones.||||The rental property is kind of like a duplex with bedroom, kitchen, a nice sized living room and a wonderful porch with views of the bay. The bed is comfortable, the shower and bath are dated but quite acceptable. It's kind of like a very nice summer cabin with great views and privacy. There are ancient trees and native shrubs surrounding the property and you can see that someone, sometime had loved it and took care of it. Now the garden was in pretty sad shape, overgrown and untended to a large part.||||The condition of the yard was not a big deal and wouldn't have taken off one star of this review. There were three things that took off three stars. The first and worst was the god awful urine smell coming from underneath the house. It was the same smell we had had under our house that got infested with rats. In this case it may have been cats. The previous owner left their two cats there who count on renters to give them food and water. They are in bad shape, we did the best we could to feed and comb them,... we asked the people at the winery if someone fed them, and they said they did, but we didn't see any sign of care. The cats need to go to the vet, or they probably won't last out the year. In fact, I just took off another star thinking about it.||||The second reason is the mosquitos. They come out just as the sun sets and before you know it you'll be covered with bites. If you didn't close the windows, you'll have a miserable night. There are no screens on the windows. So it gets hot and stuffy with the windows closed and there's no AC. And in our case no fan -- It was in the apartment next door we found out the next day.||||And lastly, there doesn't seem to be anyone there who cares much about the rental or the customers. No one visited us to ask if everything was OK. We picked up the keys from the winery and that was it. Wam Bam Thank You Mam. ||||Fix those three things and Kennedy Point would be a star on the Island and not the one star I'm giving it here. If they don't look for a lot more reviews...

It wouldn't take much to make this a five star review, but it won't take to much more to make it a one star either. ||||We stayed at Kennedy Point before an 18 day cruise around New Zealand and Australia. We decided on the property because of the reviews and the fact it was on a winery property. And the price was right.||||Most of the reviews were stellar, although some of the more recent reviews on TripAdvisor waved red flags. We should have given them more weight than the past ones.||||The rental property is kind of like a duplex with bedroom, kitchen, a nice sized living room and a wonderful porch with views of the bay. The bed is comfortable, the shower and bath are dated but quite acceptable. It's kind of like a very nice summer cabin with great views and privacy. There are ancient trees and native shrubs surrounding the property and you can see that someone, sometime had loved it and took care of it. Now the garden was in pretty sad shape, overgrown and untended to a large part.||||The condition of the yard was not a big deal and wouldn't have taken off one star of this review. There were three things that took off three stars. The first and worst was the god awful urine smell coming from underneath the house. It was the same smell we had had under our house that got infested with rats. In this case it may have been cats. The previous owner left their two cats there who count on renters to give them food and water. They are in bad shape, we did the best we could to feed and comb them,... we asked the people at the winery if someone fed them, and they said they did, but we didn't see any sign of care. The cats need to go to the vet, or they probably won't last out the year. In fact, I just took off another star thinking about it.||||The second reason is the mosquitos. They come out just as the sun sets and before you know it you'll be covered with bites. If you didn't close the windows, you'll have a miserable night. There are no screens on the windows. So it gets hot and stuffy with the windows closed and there's no AC. And in our case no fan -- It was in the apartment next door we found out the next day.||||And lastly, there doesn't seem to be anyone there who cares much about the rental or the customers. No one visited us to ask if everything was OK. We picked up the keys from the winery and that was it. Wam Bam Thank You Mam. ||||Fix those three things and Kennedy Point would be a star on the Island and not the one star I'm giving it here. If they don't look for a lot more reviews...