Novotel Auckland Airport — Hotel in Māngere-Ōtāhuhu

This was our 4th time staying at your property in the past two years, and we’ve always had a very positive experience — it’s why we chose to stay again before an early morning flight. Unfortunately, this visit did not meet the standard we've come to expect.

We had booked a room specifically to rest ahead of a 6:15am flight, which meant a very early start at 2:45am. We were travelling with our 6-year-old son and needed a peaceful night’s sleep.

At around 10:15pm, the fire alarm suddenly went off. It was painfully loud. We quickly left our room, confused along with other guests about what was happening. I took the lift down to reception, where I was told it was a ‘false alarm’ and that we should return to our rooms. Other guests started relaying this message to those still exiting their rooms. However, the alarm continued to sound, and there was still no clear instruction or reassurance.

Roughly 15 minutes later, staff began knocking on doors telling everyone to evacuate immediately. The urgency and sudden change in messaging was alarming. My son was scared and crying. We left the room barefoot, descending six flights of stairs in the cold and rain to the outside of the hotel, where we saw three fire trucks.

Eventually, the fire crew informed us it was safe, and we re-entered the hotel via the kitchen, joining a large line of guests making their way back to their rooms. The overall handling of the situation was chaotic and poorly communicated.

We got about 3 hours sleep that night.

My concern is not just that the alarm went off — I understand that safety systems can sometimes malfunction — but that the situation was not managed appropriately:

There was no clear or consistent communication from hotel staff.

Guests, including families with children, were left confused and distressed.

Staff did not provide reassurance or direction, even when it was clear many guests were upset or frightened.

I waited a few weeks before writing this review in the hope we might receive a follow-up from Novotel acknowledging the incident. However, we’ve heard nothing.

I want to emphasise that we’ve always had great experiences at your hotel in the past and genuinely value the service and convenience it offers. But this incident was not well managed, and I hope you’ll take this feedback seriously for future improvement.

You are charging for guests to have a good nights sleep, this was not...

A good place to stay for airport transfers. Check in and check out experience could definitely do with improvement. It took time to find my booking and I was asked to provide booking confirmation email as check-in staff cannot find booking in their computer by the name of the person booked to stay. The search can be done by the name of the travel agent which later the check-in staff showed that it was fight center- nz. It will help put this information in the welcome email (I received about 3 such emails from the hotel) that when I arrive I should declare who booked my stay rather than my own name even if I was the only one staying in that booking . Its a big change in how booking is located at check-in at this hotel but this has not been communicated to all those who are booked to stay there. I was not informed by my travel agent that instead of providing my name at check in I have to provide the agents name/travel company who booked the stay. This seems specific to Novotel Auckland airport as I travel a lot and other accor properties are able to locate my bookings by my name. I was almost turned away and almost looked at making another booking at some other place but the helpful staff after a lot of effort managed to find my name which was booked apparently by flight center-nz which he showed me in his computer and advised I should have said flight center instead of my name and that is what caused the difficulty in finding my booking. I had the booking in my Accor app but it was not helpful. Please have express check out as people have to catch flight and avoidung delay in check out will really help especially for accor members as you already have their details. I had to wait over 10 minutes while my flight was closing and all I needed was to drop the key card. Having some type of bell in...

If any of you have stayed in an airport hotel before It might seem strange to see one given five stars in a rating.They're usually what could be described as functional at best.But my partner and I were pleasantly surprised.From the moment we booked in the staff were friendly and responsive. And when we got to the room, we found that although it's not the biggest in the world, it was fairly nicely done and well laid out.There's a nice restaurant downstairs offering a fair selection of food, that can also be ordered via room service. And if you don't fancy that, then there is the option of walking across to the airport to order from one of the fast food places located in the domestic departures.Another option is Uber eats where you'll find a fair selection of restaurants and even a supermarket that delivers to the hotel.Another unexpected bonus is a really impressive gym on the third floor.We've been to five star hotels that have had gyms that have less equipped and less maintained than the gym, at the Auckland airport Novotel.And if course it's just across the road from the airport. For international flights as you exit through the doors it's less than two minutes across the road, whilst for domestic flights it's a bit further but with decent sign posting easy to get to in about 10 - 15 minutes by foot.Added to that, when we first arrived in New Zealand we stayed at the Novotel overnight, and my partner forgot his earphones in the room.Once we realised what had happened we contacted the hotel. They alerted us that they had found the earphones which had been handed in by housekeeping and that they would be happy to hold onto the earphones until our return to the hotel in three weeks time at the end of our trip.This summed up the helpful and...