Te Puia Hot Springs Hotel 东方红酒店 — Hotel in North Island

We were doing a road trip ( 3 couples) around the East Cape and one of our party had booked 3 rooms at the Te Puia Springs Hotel.||She rang originally and was told to book online on the Hotels website - which she did.||She received a confirmation number so thought it was all done.||When we arrived we were told that there was no booking. ||A bit of a problem (understatement!) as everyone seems to be on a road trip at the moment and there was no other accommodation to be had nearby.||The guy on reception was great and rang the manager who was out and made us all a cup of tea while we waited for the manager to return who hopefully had some idea what was going on, as he handled all the bookings.||When the manager arrived we showed him the confirmation we had received and he them promptly stated that we still had to ring to confirm as well after we received the confirmation. Very confusing system and not one that we have ever struck before- and we do book a LOT online. Our friend had actually rung him after booking to confirm the dinner arrangements and the problem had not been picked up then. Note- restaurant is closed so you have to drive to dinner.||So the first problem is the booking system. ||The second problem was the response by the manager (not the receptionist -he was great).||Rather than say - look I am very sorry this has happened- and try to find us some accommodation- he just got into a heated discussion.||I know mistakes happen but their system is strange and he was the one who would not take the phone booking and said to use their website. ||We were basically stranded and had to find alternative accommodation for 3 couples - not an easy task at 4.30 in the afternoon with very limited accommodation in that area. We spent an hour on the phone and did eventually find a great place (cheaper too) which I can fully recommend below. ||We did have a little time to get a feel for the place and I can agree with all the previous comments left by other people below. ||We do intend to travel this way again as its a great trip BUT we will not be staying here.||The place we did stay at was the Tokomaru Bay Post Office - Postmasters Office.||I can fully recommend it for couples travelling together. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and lovely lounge and is within walking distance of the Tokomaru Bay Pub which is an...

Our stay at this hotel was a pleasant surprise for us both. We appreciated the clean rooms, comfortable bed and large window to let the light and fresh air into the room. Cotton bed linen, beautiful gardens that fresh air of spring was intoxicating. We had the best sleeps there. Hot pool is open and that was just superb. 20 -30 mins was more than enough time in there or else your joints turn to jelly as I discovered on the first night. The smell of the hot pools wafted around the place at times but that was ok.

The place is owned by a Chinese gentleman called Shiu Liu a.k.a.(Job). he's done some major renovations on the place. Put in new bathrooms and fittings, rewired and set up lighting which one can see when you look around. Typical of 100 yr old buildings it's dark inside even during the day. The place however was spotlessly clean although a bit spasely decorated. But, we like the minimalist feel. No TV yeah! Wifi available great. For us urbanites no TV was a blessing because we still had wifi to do our little checkups. Mr Job communicated with us alot because we were the only guests there when we stayed and he was a very interesting character to talk to indeed. The other Chinese personnel are less able to communicate but were very friendly. The new Chinese Chef who had just arrived that week from China was a lucky charm for us. The novelty of have a chef cook just for you was charming. The restaurant menu obviously was chinese and it was up there with some of the best Chinese food we have ever eaten. Lucky we like authentic Chinese food. Sheryl was the front of house local who was very sweet to us and helped with the communication lines. Friday night handle night was when the locals came to the pub, we got invited by Sheryl but we don't drink beer so we didn't indulge.

Our reason for staying at the hotel was because we needed to be close to the Hospital to visit a dear friend. We'll probably visit again but next time we'll get a room with access to the balcony, a private bathroom and away from the pub end...

Do not stay here in winter, it's miserably cold with only a tiny heater in the room and no extra blankets. The beds were comfy but they only had one pillow and a duvet, no extra blankets, and one of the duvet covers was put on inside out which goes to show the attention paid to details in this place. For a village with no food available, it's an odd choice to not have food at the historic hotel accommodation, we had to drive 15 minutes down the road for kai; honestly we would have been better just skipping Te Puia Springs Hotel and getting accommodation in the next town. Apparently the EFTPOS machine wasn't working so cash was requested for our booking which makes it look pretty dodgy, I'm wondering if there's some laundering or tax evasion happening here? The room rate ($140 for 2 single beds with ensuite) was twice what it should have been considering the quality of the accommodation and facilities, at the very least a winter rate should be offered and warning about the lack of suitable heating. I can see the bathroom was recently renovated but no thought was put into functionality, there isn't even a toilet roll holder. The hot water takes an excessively long time to get to the tap, so I guess this was done on the cheap too. The common room closed about 7pm, the doors are locked early, and the facilities around the hot pool are below average.

There is so much potential contained in this historic hotel with hot springs but the Te Puia Springs Hotel completely failed to deliver and thoroughly disappointed. I would not recommend this to kiwis on holiday, and when international tourism resumes I suggest others avoid...