Road Sun Tourist Lodge

"Rooms literally look like 5 star. Spa, sauna + pool 5 stars. The fact that they were able to cater bfast + lunch for our group was great. Location was great for getaway, surrounded by trees and a pond. Even if weather isn’t great you can eat inside and out, plenty of options. We really are impressed by the place. The host/ owner also is reachable by text, so we were able to just message him whenever we needed something. Eg. What time we were ready to have bfast etc. Tea was amazing. Plenty of car park. Very clean. Downside: Although the 2 men were friendly, his friend creeped us out a bit. It would be great if they weren’t inside the Bnb and hung around somewhere else. ( the Bnb was big, i guess it was just because it was a group of girls in bikinis we felt weird ) but w/ out taking out of context they were friendly!! And very kind. The butter was expired. Didn’t really bother us since we didn’t eat the butter. We asked for a late checkout 1pm and this was discussed and approved by the owner. I guess prior he wasn’t booked up for the night and then maybe woke up the next morning all booked up, it still was annoying he reminded us check out by 11am. He did let us leave at 1 when I reminded him, we could check out at 1pm."

"We booked to stay for the Guns n Roses concert (we are from Auckland). Yes we booked the only option available via booking.com of "non refundable" but I've had really high confidence in the hospitality sector that if we were unable to travel due to COVID then an arrangement could be made for a refund or deferred booking. Sure enough a few weeks after booking, COVID reared its head and the concert was cancelled, then AIR NZ cancelled our flights 3 weeks out. Thus we had to cancel the booking. I immediately sent off a request via booking.com for a refund and did so again another two times with no response from the Road Sun Tourist Lodge. I then phoned them and spoke to the owner who said it wasn't his decision but was booking.com's. This is rubbish as booking.com don't hold the entire payment, they only take a booking commission. I pointed this out and emailed the owner the relevant data from the booking.com site. I have had several trips canceled due to COVID over the past two years and never had an issue getting a non-refundable booking refunded. This has up until now given me confidence to book trips. Road Sun Tourist Lodge have now eroded this confidence and I would urge anyone considering staying with them to stay literally anywhere else. I'm very sad that my $1100 is gone - we have all had a tough time with COVID and in Auckland we have been locked down for over 3 months!"