Galaxy Boutique Hotel Lake Tekapo — Hotel in South Island

We only stayed here for one night and we booked the standard room with a skylight. They are located about a 3-minute drive or a 12-minute walk to a main plaza off SH8 with cafes, restaurants, and groceries. ||The location of this hotel offers guests a panoramic view of the mountain and lake from essentially everywhere, whether it's from the room or the check-in/breakfast area. A simple breakfast was included during our stay, and we got to choose whether to dine in the room or in the main area, they had an ok selection of classic breakfast food. The room itself was spotless and well maintained, as you enter the room you'll face head-on to a wide window looking over the incredible view. The bathroom was also clean and tidy, with a modern design. The shower is nice and they also have a nice-sized tub, however, the pressure of the water in the tub is rather weak, so it took a while to fill up the tub. ||The only downside about this place was the icing on the skylight's outside panel and the condensation from the inside panel. As we stayed here over July which was very cold, that was an inevitable issue but then it also was the disappointment of our trip, because we specifically booked that room with that feature so we could lie down and star gaze. This might not be an issue if you travel here during the warmer months. The other thing was with our breakfast the next morning, which was also the same morning that we needed to check out. When we made our pre-order, we set our breakfast delivery time at 8.30, as we were told to check out by 10 AM, they unfortunately encountered allegedly a sudden breakfast rush, and the kitchen couldn't keep up, so our breakfast delivery was delayed up to half an hour. We would not have been able to find that out if I hadn't called reception around 10 - 15 mins after the promised delivery time. It would've been better if the staff had called us ahead and notified us of the situation, rather than leaving guests wondering what happened. When I asked for a later checkout due to this mess up, they accommodated my request which was nice and appreciated.||Overall, a cute little place, The staff, in general, were friendly and was quick to address any...

On the positive side, warm welcome. (The first time we encountered reception staff of such an expensive establishment in track pants and hoodie.) There were dish towels draped over what we assumed were kitchen utensils as the cramped dining area is in reception. The room was nice and warm. The design team needs to be fired. You have to hunt for the bedside plug to charge phones - pull the table away and do a full bend to reach the plug. Tatty foam tape on the edges of the bedside table. The walls were scuffed quite a bit where the suitcase rack is situated. Bathroom. A large shower with double shower heads. Bottom one you need an engineering degree for. To get the head to stay up you have to really pump water through! The towel rail in our bathroom was so high I could not reach to hang my towel. Only two large towels, and two face cloths, no hand towels. A good idea was the dark make-up cloth. Basin tap was interesting too - little button which you hold in while you move about the tap in the hope to get the correct temp of water. Do not use the bathroom in the middle of the night without switching the light on because after washing your hands on your way back to your bed, and you turn to your right, you will probably bump into the shower corner which is right by the basin. Two toilet rolls provided. The small air BnB we stayed at provided four rolls for instance. Toothbrush kit clearly from a $2 store. Breakfast. In our room. Cold eggs. We selected fruit from the menu. (At the price we paid there was every expectation it would be cut, but no.) No sharp knife either to cut the rather green kiwi fruit. If you kept looking up at the really good view, you could ignore the row of rubbish bins at the bottom of the parking lot. We always give credit and good reviews but we couldn't this...

Consider very carefully before booking a stay at this hotel, especially during the winter months. As we recently found to our disgust, management are unwilling to provide refunds even when, by their own admission, there are genuine and legitimate concerns about the safety of driving conditions in the region.

We regrettably had to postpone our onward travel from WindWhistle (Methven) to Tekapo because SH8 was closed due to snow. Whilst the road did technically reopen at midday both the NZTA and MetService websites continued to advise against unnecessary travel. We contacted the hotel several times during the morning, requesting to cancel our booking due to our concerns about the driving conditions but they were unhelpful and in our opinion unreasonable. Their suggestion to hold off cancelling until 3pm was in our opinion irresponsible and unrealistic as doing so would have meant we had no certainty about our accommodation for that evening if the road had remained closed, or if it had reopened, making the drive in hazardous conditions after dark. The hotel tried to justify their decision not to refund our booking as one of “fairness” to customers who decided to risk making the journey, but in our opinion it had nothing to do with customer care and was purely for operational reasons (profit). We find this attitude very disappointing, especially given several recent weather related road accidents in the Mackenzie region.

There are plenty of other accommodation providers in Lake Tekapo to choose from, many of whom likely have a more enlightened and professional approach to the wellbeing and safety of...