Fable Dunedin — Hotel in South Island

Overall the hotel itself was disappointing. The arrival experience was below standard and the room was definitely not 5 star. Dark and dingy was my first thought, very small high windows that made the room feel like a small dark cave. My husband and I were both travelling but the room was not suitable for two people. No space at all for 2 suitcases. My husband had to place his suitcase in front of the mini bar which left next to no space to move around the room. My side of the bed had no space so I had to squeeze between the wall and bed to get in and out. My side also had no bedside table so nowhere to place your phone, book or tablet other than the floor. Good luck if your phone charger cable doesn't reach the floor, you'll need to sleep with your phone near your pillow. The bathroom was probably the worst I've ever come across for space and usability. A huge sink but nowhere to place your toiletries. A small table was provided underneath the sink but it had a mirror and glassware on it that took up all the space... we ended up placing these items elsewhere to make space. There was zero water pressure and the water temp constantly ran hot and cold. I gave up trying to adjust the temp and suffered through either extreme heat or cold.... but both with no pressure. The made in China shower curtain didn't even make it all the way around the shower so water went everywhere. After showering I went to grab a towel only to find they are placed in a cupboard near the front door because there wasn't anywhere in the bathroom to place clean towels. And then there was the electronic tablet that was supposed to act as the in-room telephone and compendium... which in theory may be a fantastic upgrade in hotel technology if it actually worked. Ours didn't. At all. Unable to contact Reception when we returned to our room and it hadn't been serviced. Unable to order room service, unable to call to have our car brought around, unable to arrange anything as it never worked. This was brought up 3 times with Reception staff who were polite and tried to assist but could not actually fix the tablet and were unable to provide an alternative. Other than to make our way down to Reception every time. Absolutely not 5 star. Even a 2 star motel has the ability to contact Reception when needed. That leaves me with the non-serviced room debacle. I'm told that Housekeeping reported our room was on DND hence the non-service. However our blue light indicating the room was available to be serviced was on all day with the exception of a 20 minute period when I was showering. Again, hotel staff tried to assist but by then I was over the whole stay and couldn't wait to leave. There was one particularly helpful lady at Reception who really did try to help us and she should be commended for her customer service and efforts to improve our experience. Unfortunately I didn't get her name. Overall it is the worst stay I have had in a 5 star property and would...

This is a revised review. We had a mixed experience with our stay. It started out so nicely. We were celebrating our anniversary, and it was a nice touch to find a card, and a plate with two little desserts waiting for us in our room. A really nice personal touch. ||Our room was nice and spacious, although there was no view. The windows had a film over them so we couldn't see out. Everything was nice and clean as you would expect. Lovely facilities. We didn't sleep well though. Although we were away from the traffic, the extractor fan in the bathroom never turned off. It just went the whole night and since there was no bathroom door, we had a disturbed night. ||The next morning a staff member asked if we wanted help checking out and we said that we were staying for two nights – not just the one. It appears "a junior staff member" had double booked our room! Upon looking at other Trip Advisor reviews for this hotel, it would seem that this is a recurring issue!||That said, it wasn't all bad. The staff were very attentive to our needs. When the TV and all the power points in our room stopped working, this was fixed within 15 minutes. ||The room on our second night was smaller but it did have a sliding door to the bathroom so that we could shut out the noise of the fan and slept much better that night. ||We struggled with the fact that all room/hotel/food info is on an ipad, and not in printed form. There was also no phone in our room. It's all done from the ipad. And some of the print was very small. We did not like this at all. ||There were many light switches in the room, and it took a while trying to figure out what everything did – nothing was labelled – or if it was, the print was very very small. ||The food at the restaurant was lovely – top class, but the restaurant is very small – it seats approximately 30ish people?? – at a squeeze that is. If you're planning to eat at the restaurant, you will need to book. ||As we were checking out, the lady on duty said "it's lucky for you there was accommodation available for your second night". Lucky for us??????? What the heck does that mean???? What would have happened if we had been unlucky?? Would they have simply chucked us out with nowhere to go??? – despite us paying for the accommodation in advance and it being their error. This left a sour taste in our mouths which was a shame because there were some really nice things about our stay which we appreciated. ||This is a revised review due to being contacted by management after the first one. We feel that the issues we have...

The experience has been super disappointing this time. 2022 Jan, we visited again based on the great experience we had last year. This time we booked the 701 wains suite for 5 days 4 nights. The first night we missed out on the housekeepers, so we asked the reception for new towels, that never made it to our room. Second night, we put the cleaning light on and asked the reception to let the housekeepers know to change the bedsheets. We also left a note on the table in our room asking them to change the bedsheets, that didn't happen either. The concierge wrote us a card to apologise for the 'misunderstanding'. Only valet parking is available here, but the reception is not always available to pick up phones or getting our car ready for us, which is opposite to what they intended to offer for valet parking (which was $20/night last year and $30/night this time). The breakfast (especially compared to last year) is small in portion with little variety for people staying longer. The kitchen messed up our a la carte order twice, forgot to put the sauce on the side. The team is dysfunctional, the communication between reception/housekeeping/customers are obviously lacking, leaving an impression of everything is just so disorganised.

Upon arrival, we were greeted with cookies and mocktails at the reception during check in. It is a newly renovated (work almost done Dec 2020) and rebranded hotel, used to be the Wains hotel. Reception staff were friendly and attentive, always welcomed us back at night and wished us a great day in the morning, house keeping also did an amazing job at getting rid of the sand from the beach every day. No guest parking available, only Valet parking, in a secure and locked car park, which is $20 a day for multiple entrance. Continental breakfast was included in the room rates, you also have the option to get it delivered to your room in the morning. Very well decorated interiors and hotel rooms, contrasting the historic looking exterior, which is beautiful too. Smart tv in rooms with chrome cast available on free wifi. Our stay (at the Wains suites) was amazing, but the photos on bookings is only one room out of the entire hotel that had double basin in the toilet/shower (not even in the...