Ocean View Raglan — Hotel in North Island

Further to the review of Lauren Rose on the 19th January 2020: We are the girls who’s privacy was invaded.

On the 17th January 2020 myself, my younger sister and three friends checked into Ocean View Bed and Breakfast. My friends and I were all there for the Soundsplash festival in Raglan that weekend. When myself and a friend returned from the festival at around 12am we were alerted by two girls who were staying in the next door room that the owners of Ocean View had entered our room while we were not on the premises. Both girls witnessed the owners IN our room and proceeded to ask them if they had any right being in there - they replied: “it’s their house”. We returned to our rooms which were unlocked with alcohol confiscated as well as being told the owners had been caught going through our bags. On a side note, myself and my friend who’s alcohol had been confiscated are both 23 years of age. To begin with entering our rooms without our permission proved a definite issue with the added notion that they physically went through our belongings making this situation utterly disgusting. We returned to our room and found our belongings misplaced or in different areas to where they originally were. When the rest of the girls, who are some years younger than us, returned from Soundsplash they were extremely frightened and shaking with shock to the absolute invasion of privacy to which at that point we decided to all stay in one room due to the concern of what had happened/could happen while we were asleep. We were told by the two girls that the owners entered our room because they were alerted there was a ‘mess’. In my opinion, if there was a mess the decent way to go about the situation would have been to get in touch with the cellphone number provided at booking time or leave a note on our door either telling us that this supposed mess needed to be removed before checkout or that they had entered our room - this was not the case at all. The owners acted extremely inappropriately to the situation at hand and took complete advantage of the fact that we were at a festival.

In the morning we as a group decided we would leave as soon as we could without making a fuss as we had already been through enough stress after returning from the festival. We asked the owner if we could have our alcohol back to which they returned SOME reluctantly with labels stating the room number they were taking from. However, this was also matched with a comment threatening a cleaning bond as she “had our credit card details” - this was also unsettling.

Being a paying customer we expected maximum privacy and clear communication from the owners. Never have we felt so unsettled while staying in any paying facility. As a group we are absolutely disgusted in what we were alerted to as well as the treatment after. We felt that our age, gender and reasons being in Raglan were taken advantage of and absolutely refuse to accept that this kind of behaviour should be tolerated by anyone.

For any future customers, we would absolutely not recommend staying here. This experience has tainted what was a great weekend and has alerted to us what could happen while customers are out. There is something called human decency and respect and we were completely denied that once they entered our room and rummaged through our belongings. Thank you for instilling fear into a group of girls who would have rationally sorted this supposed issue out if we were given the opportunity - WE WILL NOT BE BACK EVER.

Unfortunately due to the rating system it requires me to give 1-star, please take...

We booked this b&b for one night (23/6) via booking.com.when we reached there at around 2:30pm no body was there. It looked like a ghost place. We rang the bell,knock the door went all over the property. No sign of anyone. We called the person , reached the voice-mail. We left msg and text nothing at all. And we were travelling with 2 little kids. When there was no response at all, we decided to look around called few places and fortunately got one place to stay ( thank God it was a wk day).||Next day when we were on our way to Whanganui , a lady called us from this b&b and saying that she is waiting for us. She was in a lalaland definitely, didn't had a clue that booking was for 23rd not for 24th. How they are doing business I have no idea!!||Just a request to these people don't do it to the people. We were fortunate enough to get a place same day. People with kids and babies have many other things to do.dont spoil it.||Will not recommend...

Following on from the reviews from Chelsea Walsh and Lauren Rose. I was sadly one of the girls who arrived back after a long night at a festival in Raglan hoping to just hop straight into bed. However we learnt once we arrived back from the lovely girls in the room next door too us that in fact our room while we were out had been searched, including our bags! such a horrible feeling someone you do not know what so ever going through a teenage girls bag, especially since we had no idea this was taking place because we were not there and they did not have our consent to search our belongings. Such a disgusting violation of privacy, we all felt very uneasy that night, quite frankly terrified, and rightly so. We payed for respect and privacy, not a bag search. Definitely not even worth the one star but no stars is apparently not an option. I definitely DO NOT recommend Ocean View Raglan as a place to stay, I will not be returning, that is...