Ponsonby Manor — Hotel in Waitematā

We arrived at Ponsonby Manor at around 2pm , we rung the bell on the front door but no answer, as the door was open we went in to the hall entrance, again no one was around to meet us, we waited a while but no one appeared, then we heard someone hoovering upstairs, i shouted hello but still no answer, i decided to go upstairs and try and speak to the person hoovering, when i spoke to the lady hoovering in the room she asked who i was and i told her i had a room booked here, the lady was a cleaner and said, oh you must be in the Penthouse Verandah Room, she then showed me to our room, i was shocked when we entered the room, it was the smallest room i had ever stayed in and you could just about walk around the bed, no space for our two large suitcases and bags, the room opened out to a small verandah with a nice view to the Sky Tower, the only good thing about the room, however, this was hardly a Penthouse, more like a Dolls House it was so small. The bathroom was also extremely small and you could hardly move around in there, the sink , toilet and shower were all on top of each other, ridiculous.|The lady/cleaner told me the wifi password then disappeared, no other information at all. I checked the drawers in the room to see if there was any information about the property and local area, buses, restaurants etc but there was nothing ? Very poor in my opinion.|Another thing that really annoyed me before we arrived was that I had received a pending charge of £607 on my bank account payable to Hy Holdings Limited, I had no idea what this charge was for and that it was a scam until it was fully deducted out of my account three days before my arrival and then changed names payable to Ponsonby Manor, I was so annoyed how this transaction took place without any prior notification this was going to happen, on the terms and conditions of payment for Ponsonby Manor, it states you will be charged in full if cancelled 5 days before arrival or a no show ??????? |WELL, we shouldnt have been charged for our entire stay until arrival, very poor communication indeed. And who is HY HOLDINGS LIMITED ???? Confusing and misleading !!|The next day i waited for the owner to arrive to speak to her, My wife and I told her about the misleading way that we were charged three days before arrival and to a random name that didnt correspond to Ponsonby Manor, the lady owner was not apologetic at all and didnt give us any explanation on the way we had been wrongly charged before arrival and to a random company name. Just made pathetic excuses about being short staffed and she doesnt have time, We also told her about our arrival with no one to meet us and no information in the room, again just poor excuses from her with no appology .|To top it all off the following day we over heard the Lady owner talking to a workman in her garden , she was talking about us and was very rude about our the complaint we had made to her, little did she know we could hear her talking below our Verandah, a very poor owner with little respect of her guests who needs to take a good look at herself and her operation, it stinks and i would not recommend anyone staying here !!|PS: Major building taking place next door at the church, noisy from first thing in the morning, again, nothing mentioned before...

After a long drive from rotorua to Auckland post a funeral I arrived at Ponsonby manor 4.30pm on the first night checkin. Neither ponsonby manor or Agoda had provided checkin information.

This also happened a second time as I had booked a further two nights stay later in the week as well.

Not providing the checkin information once is not good, but doing this twice in the same week across two seperate bookings is beyond poor and shows a disrespect for their customers.

The accomodation is quite highly priced for what you get. There were other local options of same quality yet much lower priced.

No overseas visitor wants to chase checkin information that we should have been given prior. Its worse when you are dealing with the death of a family member and feeling emotional.

This was frustrating as i could not call them. I found an open restaurant and one of the staff let me use her mobile but the sound was bad and the restaurant noisy. We couldn't communicate. I explained i was tired and emotional after a funeral. Ponsonby manor said they would email but I never received an email.

I had to ask them to connect via fb messenger and I finally got checkin information. It took 45 mins. Now I was late for the Auckland family wake.

I was staying one night. Then checking out. Then back to stay 2 further nights 24 hrs later. And you won't believe it - no checking information provided again - i left phone message *using a friends phone), I also sent message via agoda system and I sent a fb messenger text. No one replied by 2pm checkin time. They eventually contacted me 2 hrs later at 4pm.

So twice in one week they had not provided checkin information which is exceptionally poor. The accommodation was prepaid so I could not cancel and book elsewhere.

Note, I had contacted ponsonby manor a couple of days prior to advise them what time i would arrive and to enquire where the car park is on site.

They responded thanks. So I figured someone would be on site.

Later they said no car park is advertised, which is incorrect as I chose this place because the ponsonby manor website and Agoda website Information stated free parking was available on-site. They organised me to park at some other house 5 mins walk away

I was in nz for a family funeral and i only had data on my mobile as family and friendsare on messenger so the newd for actual ohine calls was not needed.

I will not stay here again because not providing basic check information prior to checkin time is unacceptable.

And it is a shame, because The property is a lovely old house, the rooms small but reasonably clean and have what you need. It's clear they need to improve their systems and...

We stayed in room 1 on the 15th and 16th of Feb, 2023. When we arrived, the front door was open and there was no one around to greet us. Some guests asked us if we were checking in and directed us to a cleaner who was out the back going about here business. She was very nice and took our check in details and got us onto our room. Great. After dropping our belongings in the room, I waited in the front yard for my wife to join me. I was met by a female with no identification, holding a phone in her hand. She asked me if I was checking in (same question from random guests). Since she was not identified and this was the second person asking the same question, I asked who are you? She looked annoyed by this and said, "I'm on the phone", glancing at it in here hand. I found this extremely annoying as she was the one that asked me the question. I assume she was staff, but wasn't waiting around to be treated rudely, so went into the room. I never saw her again. Later that night 21:00 and onward, our rooms door was continually trying to be opened without knocking by guests who were looking to check in. At one point, I had to open the door and ask them to stop. They were doing this because there was absolutely no information about what to do on arrival. No number to call, no instructions. Nothing. Not a good experience so far. The next morning, the whole house was without hot water. Again, the guest were trying to connect with someone to address the issue, but no one and no instructions were available. This experience was unfortunate, because the house and the room are fantastic. The cleaner was doing a great job. Unfortunately, the lack of presence, altercation in the front yard and no instructions for guests on arrival was a real let down. Nice looking house. Nice room. Clean. Good location. Points lost for lack of...