CityLife Auckland

On TripAdvisor, CityLife is ranked higher than the Crowne Plaza, but both Earl and I prefer the latter to the former.

The main draw is that this hotel has a really great location - it's right on Queen Street so there are a lot of shops, restaurants, and even two supermarkets that are all an extremely short walk from the hotel.

There's also a bus stop right outside where you can catch the Link Bus (to get around the city) and the Airbus Express (for those taking the airport shuttle).

And while both the room and the bathroom were clean, they felt a bit cramped. The bathroom, for example, had a heated towel rail, but no other towel bars in the room. I prefer having more space to hang the towels (and not have to fold them just so they fit).



One huge negative for Earl was the fact that they did not provide free wi-fi. It's NZD 15 for 24 hours which irritated him to no end as he had to work while on vacation.

There's no direct flight from Queenstown to Singapore so we had to spend an extra night in Auckland before catching our return flight. This was the reason we needed another hotel and though CityLife's room rate was slightly higher, I wanted to try it out thinking its location would be more convenient. In hindsight, if we had to do it all over again, I'd stick to the Crowne Plaza.