Mercure Auckland Queen Street — Hotel in Waitematā

My partner and I came here for a special weekend getaway where unbeknownst to me, he had planned to propose. He had phoned ahead and told them this so that on arrival, a kind message on the bed with towel swans and a bottle of bubbly in the mini fridge had been arranged by the staff. Fantastic! Already I was extremely impressed. The room was spacious, there was a big bathroom with a great shower and the bed was comfortable enough that we were both able to get a good sleep for the four days that we slept there. However, on the second last night, we found that one of our possessions had gone missing. We hunted everywhere in the room looking for it. In the drawers, behind the curtains and even IN and UNDER the bed by shining light and moving the bed to check. Upon checkout, we spoke to the reception about it and we were offered a reduction of $50 off the total cost to compensate the missing item that we believed must have been accidentally thrown in the bin. These things happen and we appreciated the $50 reduction that would have covered the cost to replace what we lost. However, later that day after we had landed in Wellington, my partner received an email telling us that the cleaner had found it under the bed and that if we wanted it back, we'd have to forfeit the $50 reduction and compensate the hotel for the cost of shipping to our home in Sydney. I immediately phoned the hotel, furious at this, and argued that we had checked the room well enough, INCLUDING under the bed and that the reduction of $50 was staying and that the hotel would cover the cost of shipping to our home in Sydney. After a back-and-forth exchange on the phone, they agreed to keep the compensation and to ship to the the address of the next hotel we were staying at in Queenstown. I gave them the address of the hotel and I believed it would be the last that I'd hear about it. The next day, they contacted my partner by email to clarify the address as it was unclear (I'll give them that, the hotel in Queenstown's address that was online was unclear) and upon contacting Queenstown, we were able to get the correct shipping address. Two days later (this is now three days on since it was agreed that they'd ship it to us in Queenstown) the item had still not been handed to any courier. They emailed us to tell us this along with a photo of the shipping address on the front of the parcel THAT WASN'T EVEN CORRECT. Not only was this a waste of everybody's time, potentially not even getting to us in time before we were due to leave Queenstown, it may not have even reached the correct hotel that we were staying at. Lucky a friend of ours from Sydney had just landed in Auckland for work and was able to end this mess by picking it up in person. Complete lack of customer service and accountability ruined what should have been a fantastic stay at this hotel. Safe to say, we will...

15/09/25. Booked a four day stay and wasn’t happy with my initial room so I approached the team who gave me a much better room on a higher floor with a great view of the sky tower. Hotel is in a great CBD location, easy walking to the hospital where I was visiting relatives. Car parking though limited is easily accessible provided you don’t have a car that’s larger than a sedan. On site restaurant was okay. First time I’ve had room service served by a bot, so I couldn’t figure out how to open it to get my food. When I did manage to get it opened, the plates were placed on top of each other rather than on a tray - little bit disappointed. On top of that the advertised meal on the room service app via the TV was not what I was given. So I had to ring the restaurant again to get the remainder of my meal brought up. Breakfast was buffet style - okay choices and did not change on a day-to-day basis. The lady there every morning, who did the coffees was absolutely awesome - big thumbs up to her!! Room was lovely. Aircon was nice and strong and I thought the room size was okay given I am a large woman (size 18) and I managed to move around the room fairly easily. Bed was really comfortable. Would I recommend - overall...

All in all a disappointing stay. I was in room 501 (a room design for someone with mobility issues) which was the root-cause of both issues I experienced. There was a connecting door that had so little sound proofing the family on the other side on each night may as well have been in the room with me! There has to be a better solution than that. I heard every wail and every scream. The other main challenge was the absence of any shampoo or shower gel until I asked for it. Even then it was just sachets because the hotel hadn't got around to fitting the dispensers in every room yet (according to reception). On the plus side the bed was very comfortable, the shower warm and I liked the decor which was fresh and modern. However the room was an awkward shape and smaller than I'd expect - I guess that's due to it being an office conversion. Reception is also tiny which I imagine is for the same reason. I had one other frustration - reception was left unmanned several times during my stay. I had to ask to check out by peering round the door into the office behind reception. So in summary it felt like a very compromised experience. I...