Birchwood Spa Motel

Stayed a night at short notice... $160 for a super king bed and a spa bath. Decor is 1990ish and not enough hot water to fill the spa bath, hot water ran out, so I persisted with boiling the jug 20 times to get my bubbles At checkout we left the room better than we found it. It looked like they had some emergency housing tenants.... The place was quiet and the area was nice. TV sucked hard, 3 Freeview channels only

Shower was definitely not up to standard, tv we had didn't work, neither did all of the lights. Not enough carparks for everyone staying as staff took up some of the parking. Floor was not clean. Not worth the amount we paid. Good location for where we needed to be in RotoruaRooms: 1/5

Dirty and very unkept, definitely not worth staying here. Blind are filthy, skirting boards are gross, everything is just so unkept.Rooms: 1/5

Very poor service no t.v heater not working , asked them but no help provided also cockrach in fridge do not recommend at all , charges are not reasonable aswellRooms: 1/5

Disliked · >Communication: Very poor communication. Have to google translate or the man at the reception have to call someone over the phone all the time to translate. > Heating: Outdated heating system. Built in heaters not working. Was provided with portable heating. Very cold room on arrival. When turned on the portable heaters not working. Had to request at the reception to change and then overnight 1 stopped working and another not heating properly. Requested to change 2 more heaters next day. > Maintenance: Hair dryer in the top floor bedroom had a scorched cable which poses a hazard risk. Black spots around the power point. Mould on the bathroom ceiling. Rusty sink tap and loose kitchen tap. When turning on hot water jug and using the microwave at the same time had power surge. Spider webs on the ceiling. >2 bedroom apartment is not friendly for the disabled. I contacted the property after booking, someone translated over the phone, advised me that everything is downstairs and only 1 bedroom upstairs however on the day of check in I found that no toilet bathroom downstairs. All upstairs. Was not happy, requested for alternative and there was none available and requested for cancellation, property declined. Had to liaise with another family to swap room to accomodate disabled senior and which was not great idea as their privacy was affected. >Water: Shower in the 2 bedroom apartment was warm and was getting cold easily. No hot water. >I will not ever choose this property and the rating does not reflect to what we experienced.

Stayed for 2 nights, staff very friendly, we were given a box chocolates as it was Christmas Day. Room was big enough for 2 adults, but no kitchen, although microwave oven, toaster, kettle , fridge were all available. Bathroom and toilet on separate sides. We got one with a spa outside, not very well kept, not like in pictures. Also no light indoors, have to keep curtains drawn, can get quite stuffy during summers. Overall ok for a short stay.

Photos are very deceiving and do not portray what the rooms are really like. Paid $230. Room was very dated and scruffy. Curtains falling apart, 2 wine glasses provided, 1 plastic and 1 glass for a room that sleeps 6 people. Rotten floor and mould in bathroom, head board not attached to bed. Overall not very clean and just terrible. I would suggest a viewing of the room before you decide to book, as you may find you are disappointed. Will not be returning.

Communication very poor, booked online days in advance and received all the email confirmations you would expect to see. Drove 8 hours only to find out the room had been canceled. Manager said that they had called but we had no missed calls, text or emails. Then all blame was put on the 3rd party booking app??? Maybe that was the case which is fair enough, but they did not offer one apology or seem sincere about any of it.

It's a good place to stay maybe one night? It's definitely affordable but not fancy at all and needs some renovation. You feel the room shaking because the outside traffic, not ventilation in the bathroom. We didn't use the spa bath...looked ok. You might have to use Google translate to talk to the friendly couple from reception as they don't understand English. But it's fine and part of the experience too.

I reiterate what the recent reviews have said, if you can book somewhere else anywhere else you'll save yourself alot of grief! The pictures attached only show the state of the room, the actual communication with the owners was appalling. The manager Li and his wife don't speak English and use Google translate which is fine, except they don't actually listen to or action anything you say. We've stayed here a year ago in unit 6 which is 2-storey and had no issues, this time in unit 2. As you can see it's in dire need of repair...the worst being a smoke alarm with no battery installed who knows how long this has been like that!. We've reported this to the NZ fire service and Worksafe as it's a legal requirement to operate a motel. We called Li twice to ask to remediate this, it was only fixed when I walked over to the office and waited for him to get a new battery. We asked for an extra towel and blanket and were told we had to pay more as we only paid for 3 people in the booking - even though we had 4 people staying 1 of them was our 2 year old who is meant to be free, so our 2 year old wasn't allowed a towel. We showed them our booking.com confirmation which they said they didn't recognize/agree with and had a go at my wife saying we would be required to park extra as we used the pull out couch for the kids apparently they now have to change the linen... Not sure when it was last changed then! Too many things that made our stay uncomfortable which was not the case the last time we stayed here. One star is a generous rating of this place and the managers/owners.