Mövenpick Hotel Auckland — Hotel in Waitematā

I’m a former Accor Platinum member and have stayed in many Mövenpicks around the world— this is the least impressive one.

I stayed two nights on two separate occasions, here are my observations:

Pros: The location is excellent. Just around the main shopping street and 10-15 minutes walk to the harbor and bus station.

The rooms, though small, are modern and clean.

Cons:

WIFI is poor. It’s very slow and you keep having to log back in. Definitely not up to a five star business hotel standard.

The hotel is often sold out with group tours. You know a five star has gone downhill when it caters to mass market tours. Elevators are blocked. Tour leaders speak with microphones in the lobby to their group. When the groups get back from dinner at 11 PM or so you’ll know it. Ditto when they leave in the morning.

Soundproofing is poor. Even on a high floor you can hear street noise. If you check in late (this means everyone arriving into NZ after a 16 hour plus flight as these arrive early in the morning) you’re lucky to get a room on a higher floor. Plus on both occasions my room was directly opposite the lifts. The area around the lifts is not carpeted—probably as it sees a lot of traffic and they want something that is easy to clean. However this means that you’ll hear high heeled shoes and the cleaner carts. Management says they only start cleaning at 9 AM to give their guests better sleep time. That’s small consolation to those getting in at 6:30 AM and desperate to sleep.

No complimentary bottle of water. You do get complimentary milk though. Seriously?

The Mövenpick is an international chain hotel and bills itself as a five star. Yet, they only have NZ sockets. And no ability to charge phones using the latest cables. You have to go to the HI-FI shop around the corner to buy NZ plug converters.

They impose a 2% surcharge for using credit cards and advise you can avoid this by paying cash! Hmm. Most modern businesses are going cashless… Again, not in keeping with five star hotel standards. This is what budget businesses that cater primarily to domestic travelers do.

Other than the Asian night staff who are superb, the day staff while friendly haven’t been trained to do anything other than the bare minimum—ie check you in. As other guests have noted, you aren’t told about where the restaurant is, opening times, if there is a gym, the happy chocolate hour people write about (why have it if you don’t inform your guests about it?); no one asks you if you need a map or restaurant recommendations.

They require a deposit of NZ $100 which you only get back after 3- 5 days. Why? “For incidentals”. Ok, then just block my ability to sign charges to my room unless I pay at the restaurant. “Sorry no, it’s our policy.” Ok charge my credit card the NZ$ 100 as a purchase and the refund me upon check out. “We can do that but still need to enter your credit card details into our system.” Why? A supermarket doesn’t keep your CC details in their system after you buy something…. “It’s our policy. You can pay cash.” Ok can I get back my cash at 11 pm the night before if I’m checking out at 5 AM to be sure I get my cash back? “No only upon check out.” Why? Bar is closed so I can’t charge anything to my room and you don’t check my room for damage in the morning before handing me back the cash right? And NZ$100 isn’t enough to cover room damage anyway right? “Fair point, but it’s our policy”. Ah, “our policy” , the last refuge of people who have to justify non rational things they do…

Hotels need to protect themselves from charge backs and therefore require a credit card hold. But this can be managed for security conscious customers nervous about having their cards compromised.

I...

Cannot compare to other 5 star hotels! Originally booked a Deluxe Queen room with 2 beds on upper level with an ocean view for a stay with my adult daughter. Deciding we would change the booking to interconnecting rooms we accepted rooms on the 2nd floor, which was a great set up and close to the same price. Had we known this level had extremely loud street noise we would not have done so. I actually bought noise cancelling ear buds to sleep. The seal was actually broken on my window and the draught at night was very bad with only single glazing. However the beds and pillows were extremely comfortable as were the rooms. We stayed 3 nights and each day when we returned, our rooms were not serviced. We phoned to request fresh towels at least, this request was ignored twice on the 2nd day. We were told there was a button to push at the door to request room service, there was no button (apparently this is only available on the upper levels). The 3rd day we arrived back at our rooms at 4pm to find no service to the rooms. We phoned again. When we arrived back we did not have fresh towels still, after phoning again these were finally replaced but had to phone for a 3rd time as we had no toilet paper or teabags/sugar. We chose a package that included breakfast and the 1st day breakfast was lovely, the 2nd day the juice machine was filthy and lying broken. There was no hot food in the trays and people were returning to their seats to wait. The only bread for toasting was fruit bread, which was nice. The egg bar was a nice touch but on both days people had left before their order had been filled and the staff were trying to find who ordered food but they had left as they had waited a long time. I ended up with cereal and fruit bread which was lovely. My daughter ordered an iced coffee as we were seated, which arrived just as we were about to leave. The manager was also very rude to his staff and they looked very unhappy which was sad to see. I actually asked at check out if Movenpick was a serviced hotel and the receptionist had to look on her computer before she confirmed it was. As a treat escape to Auckland for a concert we were happy to pay these prices but for no room service, ridiculous noise level during the night and obviously a staff shortage at breakfast, no way is this acceptable. Also to see other guests go looking for their happy hour bar drinks that haven’t arrived does not make for a relaxing stay. So very disappointing for a hotel that has a great brand at a prime location. I am also very sad to have made this complaint to your reception on checkout and on your website but other customers need...

The room itself was good. However I was discouraged by how my husband and I were treated when we finally figured out how to drive in as it was not clear and quite confusing and we had to drive past a couple times before parking out the front and I walked in and asked if we drove up into a walkway cafe area or not and the lady told me to stay and wait for valet yet another told us to just drive in. We made some suggestions on how it would be profitable to put signage out which was meet with a staff member who was not helping say aloud, "well it's pretty obvious" there was no need for her rudeness as we were the ones not given clear instructions and being it was out first time we have never seen or knew what/where to drive as it looks like a cafe area not a driveway. The manager made us feel as if we were making trouble but we weren't we just wanted to give some suggestions on how to improve communication for first timers but we were made to feel like we were just dumb and a nuisance to deal with. It was our 20th Anniversary and my husband was so discouraged and it almost ruined our night away. Every time we've stayed somewhere we've been given complimentary things and even a platter with Happy Anniversary written in chocolate with a small dessert for free to show their kindness.. others a small card.. but here we got nothing, not even a acknowledgement.. which is not mandatory but it is the difference between great customer service and mediocre service; so I guess this hotel has a lot of growing and learning to do in their customer services at front desk. However the staff in the restaurant were lovely and gave wonderful service and effort. I was also grateful to the young man who helped us get into our room as our door handle was not working either and when I had to go back to reception to get a new card he offered to come along with me to see if we were okay. We discovered that the door handle wasn't opening normally and that it had to be lifted up in the opposite direction (pull upwards) in order to gain access, a nuisance but again the manager never bothered to check in on us, offer us another room nor fix the issue.

More welcoming and friendly service would have gone a long way and things like this can be overlooked but when you're treated like you're a nuisance rather than a guest then these things could potentially ruin what was suppose to be a beautiful night away; which in our line of...