We only spent one night in Napier, and stayed at the Tennyson Hotel for 90 NZD. It was a bit of a gamble – there weren’t many reviews, and it wasn’t in the guidebook (we found it on Expedia).  We were having problems finding something else though, so we chanced it.  Even though we were there on a very quiet weekend, the promised off-street parking was always full and we ended up parking on the street. The owner of the hotel pointed us to another parking spot behind a car repair shop, but we chose just to park on the street and had no problems.

The location was fabulous – we were right at the beginning of our guidebook’s Art Deco walk – although the hotel itself stuck out as one of the few non-art-deco buildings on the block.

  The room itself was passable, but was one of the lower quality rooms we stayed at in New Zealand. The carpets weren’t clean – especially for a 10 month old who had just learned how to crawl. The hotel in general looked tired, dark, and old. The bed sagged pretty badly. The phone didn’t work, and the AC remote controller had an issue….

The staff were very welcoming (and offered us milk for our baby at checkin), and took good care of us throughout our stay with advice on wineries to check out, and a good map.

The wifi was the best we had in all of New Zealand – in fact it was the only hotel we stayed at with free, unlimited wifi. Speed wasn’t that good – but it gave us the opportunity to upload some of the video we took in Rotorua – zorbing and doing the bodyflying.

 

The included breakfast in the morning was also quite good, with lots of hot food.