Motueka Garden Motel — Hotel in South Island

Hmmmm. Sadly..the Motueka Garden Motel..is in a serious time warp..and it was a surprise to encounter a motel that clearly was just begging for a substantial upgrade..everywhere you looked. So much so that the "deal" price offered online was not a deal after all.. While it was clean and tidy..as most motels are, it was a chilly evening when we arrived...and we looked for heating..any heater at all, in the unit, and there was none. No electric blankets, In fact nothing that suggested warmth except the electric jug . The bathroom and toilet facilities had not seen any upgrade or improvement..I'm guessing...since around the 60's . And apart from a reasonable fridge and a budget white microwave on top ......the kitchen appearance.... bench, sink and taps were also from a long gone Formica top era, decades ago. The motel was actually quite a large complex..with what looked like newer units in one area, however there were numerous other similar looking units to ours, and I suspect they would have been in much the same condition. 2 out of 5 stars is probably...

The stoves are dangerous. Maybe it's obvious to a Kiwi, but to us tourists there's no indication if the stove is on or off except for the indicator light... And when the light is broken, well then you'll get a serious burn. The owners reply to this was that we turned on the stow. Agreed, but the point is that there's no way to know it the stow is on which the owner doesn't see as a problem. Aside from that, the room has no AC (though it could be pretty quickly cooled at night by opening windows), the soap despenser is placed in a way so it's hard to get soap, and the shower head is placed really low. You need to be below 1,70M to wash your hair comfortably. And you only get a limited amount of Gb for the wifi, so forget about backup:ing...

First of all, the accommodation is good, but quite dated... I think based on the photos we did see when we booked it we had quite high expectations. The room was clean, kitchen and bathroom felt like from the 80s a bit... The beds were comfy so no issues here at all. |The pools was good, kids used it couple times. |The outside space looked like a bit abandoned and the bbq area got quite a bit of cobwebs. |The internet was a pain as we were given codes with a 2GB or 20GB value. Some were already used up... and often we had to log back into again and again to get it going. |Overall good place, but...