Bay of Many Coves Resort — Hotel in South Island

If I could give 6 stars to this review I most certainly would. This place was like a dream. My wife and I were on our honeymoon (in fact we still are as I write this review), and we had no idea what to expect. Pip is the manager, and she already was helpful a day before our arrival as we had no plan of how to get there from the train, so she personally arranged our water taxi and even ate half of the cost! Arriving guests are received personally by Pip and her wonderful staff who greeted us and helped show us around and to our room. The rooms are private chalets each separately strewn amongst the trees on the hill, overlooking the private portion of the bay that is ONLY for this "hotel". There is literally nothing in that entire enclave of the bay but the hotel itself, so it's like you're in your own private island, absolutely incredible, and beautiful. The staff continued to be warm and incredible. There are only 11 rooms/chalets total, so the personalization to the care is sublime, everyone knew who we were before we introduced ourselves. By the time we got to dinner at their own restaurant, the server and chef had already been informed of my food restrictions, and came to talk to me about it at the table. The food was incredible, first rate both in presentation and taste as well as creativity. Additional things we loved about the place include but are not limited to: -Wood hot tub by the pool, with towels already folded and ready for you. -Kayaks on their dock that they will happily take out for you to go for a ride, no extra charge -Laundry. Every hotel we'd been to would charge about 5 dollars for a pair of socks it's so obscene. When we asked them what their cost for laundry was, they asked us to just separate them into whatever instructions we had (colds versus hots, colors versus whites), and they would happily take care of all of it. Free! They returned them all the same day nicely folded. Wow! -Wine tasting. Some days they invite all 11 rooms of guests to have a complimentary wine tasting, and it was really lovely. A delicious assortment of wines, a classy pairing with ceviche, and a great way to get to know the managers as well as the other guests. -Pip (the manager) also happily took my next few days of upcoming reservations on our honeymoon itinerary, made the calls for us and confirmed everything. -Merlot, their dog, never barks, and is always happy and hoping for a guest to play fetch with. -Hiking is beautiful. They have a short 20 minute loop you can take to a cute little waterfall, glow worms at night, and plenty of nice NZ bird-life along the way. You can also take a long and steep hike up to the Queen Charlotte Track, right in their backyard. -The beach that borders them is not one with sand, but rather one with rocks and tons of sea creatures, we had so much fun finding sea cucumbers, crabs and an awesome living starfish.

I've never raved about a review this much, and that's saying something considering my many 5-star reviews. It's hard to believe we'll be able to afford to come back, because it is quite expensive, but you can take it from us that it's worth...

We stayed at this beautiful location with a fantastic view from our apartment. We arrived here by water taxi and sailed for about an hour from Picton. We were greeted by a very friendly staff member, shown around, and given our apartment.

We thought the apartment was nicely decorated, but the entire resort is starting to need maintenance. It’s in no way a 5-star experience.

The food at their evening restaurant was nothing special – definitely not close to 5 stars. The food was very average and really expensive for the quality. The pictures on social media are highly misleading and don’t reflect what we experienced. It’s not something we would recommend to others. The waiters also didn’t seem to be properly trained, more like young people working to fund their travels in New Zealand. While that’s fine, it’s just not what you’d expect from a restaurant that describes itself as 5-star. So, the food didn’t meet our expectations.

The breakfast buffet was never replenished and often had nearly empty trays. You’d have to be there early to have more options. However, the egg dishes that were ordered were good. The coffee was definitely a highlight of the breakfast.

In-room dining was very limited and didn’t meet the expected standard for what this resort is trying to present itself as.

Actually, we would suggest that guests buy groceries before arriving for a light lunch, as there are utensils and plates in the apartment. We didn’t know this until we had already sailed there and had no alternatives.

Our overall feeling after staying at the resort for 3 nights is that they lack quality given their excessively high prices. On our trip to New Zealand, we’ve experienced much higher quality for significantly less money than what we got at...

We went to Bay of Many Coves for dinner rather than to stay (January 2018). Sadly the restaurant was a LONG way from being anywhere near 5 star quality.

The Good: Excellent/friendly staff on the phone to book (as we were “dinner only” rather than staying there) They were happy for us to berth our boat on their jetty Setting was lovely (calm wind and beautiful) Staff were professional and courteous through dinner Good wine list

The Bad: Pre-dinner Drinks: For our party of six it took more than 15 mins between the first person getting their drink and the last person when all were relatively simple drinks, all ordered at the same time and we were the only ones in restaurant/bar at the time and lots (3+) staff hanging around the bar talking to each other Overcharged: one person ordered the “chef’s special menu” and we reminded them of this at the end of the meal when ordering desert, but they still charged for all the elements of it individually so worked out more expensive than it should have been (had to have a long conversation with someone when paying when we noticed, and they weren’t getting what mistake they had made and weren’t going to correct it – they finally got it) Biggest issue of the whole evening was that the food was very average: Very minimal choice of seafood (lots of cod and salmon but nothing else, even the “terakihi” from the menu was cod on the night we were there) Beef was overcooked In general it was all very average and nowhere near 5 star quality Crème caramel was ordered from the menu but what came out was actually a crème brulee which wasn’t on the menu at all – no kidding!!! (how could you get...