Every room in this hotel has a bath or a shower that works, a window that opens, and blackout curtains that actually black out. What separates the categories is size, aspect and how many doors there are between you and the person you came with.
Rates below are the lowest of the year — June and July, when the bay is quiet and the water is still warm enough to swim in if you are brave about it. January and February run roughly forty per cent above them, and Waitangi weekend is its own thing entirely. We will quote you the real number when you ask.
Check in from 2pm, check out by 10am. Bags held either side of both, at the desk, at no charge. Parking is on site, free, and there are fifty-eight spaces for 54 rooms, which is enough except on the second Saturday in February.
Fourteen rooms along the first floor, looking over Marsden Road and the row of Norfolk pines on the far kerb. You get the 8.15am ferry horn through the glass — all fourteen have been double-glazed since the 2019 refit and it is now a note rather than an announcement — and the rate sits about sixty dollars under the water side because of the outlook. These are the rooms we give people who intend to be out on a boat all day.
- Queen bed
- Shower, no bath
- Desk under the window
- Tea and plunger coffee, Northland milk
- Double glazing and blackout curtains
Eighteen rooms facing east across the water to Motumaire, the small island a few hundred metres off the beach, with Russell behind it on a clear morning. The beds split into twins if you tell us when you book rather than when you arrive. Second floor and above clears the terrace roof; below that you get the water and also the top of the awning, which is honest rather than ideal.
- King bed, or twin on request
- Bath and shower
- Armchair at the window
- Writing desk
- Water outlook, second floor and above
Twelve corner rooms with a 5 m² balcony pointed north-east up the passage toward Tapeka Point and the outer islands. The table out there takes two dinner plates, which sounds like a small thing until you have tried to eat off the other kind. A sofa bed takes a third person without the room feeling like it has been asked to do too much.
- King bed and a sofa bed
- Balcony, 5 m², two chairs and a table
- Bath and separate shower
- Espresso machine and a wine fridge
- Outlook up the passage to Tapeka Point
Seven suites along the north face of the third floor, each with a sitting room behind a door that actually closes. Three of the seven — 304, 307 and 311 — kept the original 1974 kauri sills, which a builder told us we would not get made again at any price. The dining table seats four properly rather than as a gesture, and the desk is a real desk with a real chair.
- Separate sitting room
- King bed, sofa bed for two
- Bath with a water outlook
- Dining table for four
- Original kauri sills in 304, 307 and 311
Three suites at the north end of the top floor, each with a 20 m² terrace facing the run of islands that ends at Motukōkako — the one with the hole through it, forty minutes out by boat. On a still evening you can watch the last cruise come back around Tapeka from the bath, which is the whole argument for the room. There is a reason there are only three: the lift shaft and the plant room take the rest of the floor and there is nowhere to put a fourth.
- 72 m² across three rooms
- Private terrace, 20 m²
- Freestanding bath at the window
- Kitchenette and a wine fridge
- Checkout at 2pm included
- Wi-fi, on fibre, throughout the building and out to the end of the terrace.
- Tea, plunger coffee and fresh milk, replaced daily rather than when it runs out.
- Bottled water, two a day, in glass, refilled from our own filter downstairs.
- Bathrobes and slippers in every category, not only the suites.
- Parking, one space per room, no charge and no ticket.
- Luggage held before check-in and after check-out for as long as you need it.
- A cot, a rollaway bed or a highchair, if you tell us before you arrive.
- Connecting rooms — there are six pairs, all Bay Rooms on the second floor.
- Twin beds — eighteen Bay Rooms split, but only if we know before housekeeping makes them up.
- Accessible rooms — two, both ground floor, roll-in shower, 900 mm doorways.
- Dogs — four ground-floor rooms take one, NZ$45 a stay, and they are welcome in The Longboat Bar but not in The Tapeka Room.
- Late checkout — to 2pm, free if the room is not sold that night, NZ$60 if it is.
- Airport pickup — Kerikeri, NZ$95 each way for up to four people.