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skyringVentura Inn, Auckland Airport
Dial 31 on the phone in the “i-Site” room. There’ll be a free shuttle bus along to collect you from outside Door 9 in the international terminal within half an hour. That information took me ten minutes and a $NZ4.20 skinny latte from the nearby coffee shop to acquire.
Mohammed was driving the black bus, and he efficiently loaded up the luggage compartment. My two bright yellow bags amongst all the black nylon.
There’s a special desolation of industrial estates at sundown, and it seemed fitting that the airport inn was located here. It’s the same hotel all over the world in slab concrete sides, every interior space planned to the last millimetre. Cheap, convenient and comfortable for a night between flights.
Checkin was painless enough. I’d given all the details over the website, and it was just a matter of sighting my credit card and signing on a form already preprinted with my details. I organised for my morning shuttle to the airport – six o’clock for an eight thirty flight. They gave me a plastic cardkey, and after a couple of trips up and down in the lift with my luggage, they replaced it with one that actually let me into my room.
I don’t even know why I’m bothering to review this hotel. It’s an airport hotel. It’s the same all over the world. The art prints and bedspreads are the same everywhere. Even the brand names on the instant coffee sachets and plastic milk tubs are universal.
Slot the key into the holder inside the door and the lights turn on. There’s a sighing sound, which may be the airconditioner bumping the atmosphere from inoffensive to bland. A bathroom to my left, basin, bowl and bath, white towels and small bottles of gels. Individually wrapped soaps.
The room itself had a queen and a single. Bedside table with telephone and clock radio. Bed lamps and a master switch for the room light. Facing the beds were, left to right, a small table with two chairs, TV with a working remote, three drawers (top one with Gideon and phone book), desk with chair and internet connection, bar fridge with six tiny tubs of milk, electric jug with tea, coffee, sugar and Milo.
All standard. Clean, tidy, inoffensive, anonymous.
There’s a breakfast area in the lobby, free breakfast from 3am onwards for those early morning departures, a pub and a couple of cafes a block away, and a vending machine on the first floor: cold drinks, chips and chocolate.
Dinner for me was nothing to write home about, so I won’t, but let me just note that the vending machine accepts notes as well as coins.
There was a guest laundry as well, washer and dryer at $NZ2 a pop, soap powder vending machine on the wall and an ironing board. After only one day on the road, I did no more than look in, but if I was a week out, I’d be more enthusiastic. All too often laundry means the hotel charging you fifty dollars for shirt, trousers, socks and jocks. Or wandering around getting lost in dodgy neighbourhoods for the local laundrette.
I noticed a swimming pool as I came in, but I wasn’t dipping.
New Zealand television on a Saturday night was as bland as the room. Football well catered for, but nothing much to my taste, even with a selection of cable channels.
The internet came via an Ethernet connection, and my MacAir doesn’t do anything much besides USB, so I declined the $NZ9.50 day’s worth of internet. I could use the wifi in the lobby for the same price, but I didn’t. Instead I prepared a few emails, notes and pictures for uploading in the morning at the guaranteed airport lounge internet.
I called it a night early on, after setting three different alarms for five AM. Slept soundly on a mattress just a little too soft for discomfort. My room faced the silent carpark, but maybe those looking onto the main road on the western side were noisier. All I know is that the alarm woke me, and that was a double blessing, for it meant I’d had a good night’s sleep and I wasn’t going to miss my flight.
Shower and shave, plenty of hot water at a decent pressure, towels white and fluffy.
Breakfast downstairs of drip coffee, individual cereals, toast, muffins, juice, yoghurt. Standard fare, serve yourself and read the weekend papers from the rack by checkin.
Packed up, not that I’d really unpacked, checked that I’d got all my chargers, and was just heading out the door when the phone rang, to remind me of the shuttle leaving in five minutes.
Checkout took maybe ten seconds, and then I was away on the shuttle, concrete hotel fading into the grey of predawn.
This hotel will never make the inflight magazines, and no New Zealand travelogues will feature the bikini models lazing by the carpark pool.
But it was perfect. A night between flights. Restful, cheap, convenient, exquisitely bespoke to the needs of the air traveler, Sydney one day, Hong Kong the next, scenic New Zealand just a glimpse from the plane window and a few twilight carparks.
Dial 31 on the phone in the “i-Site” room. There’ll be a free shuttle bus along to collect you from outside Door 9 in the international terminal within half an hour. That information took me ten minutes and a $NZ4.20 skinny latte from the nearby coffee shop to acquire.
Mohammed was driving the black bus, and he efficiently loaded up the luggage compartment. My two bright yellow bags amongst all the black nylon.
There’s a special desolation of industrial estates at sundown, and it seemed fitting that the airport inn was located here. It’s the same hotel all over the world in slab concrete sides, every interior space planned to the last millimetre. Cheap, convenient and comfortable for a night between flights.
Checkin was painless enough. I’d given all the details over the website, and it was just a matter of sighting my credit card and signing on a form already preprinted with my details. I organised for my morning shuttle to the airport – six o’clock for an eight thirty flight. They gave me a plastic cardkey, and after a couple of trips up and down in the lift with my luggage, they replaced it with one that actually let me into my room.
I don’t even know why I’m bothering to review this hotel. It’s an airport hotel. It’s the same all over the world. The art prints and bedspreads are the same everywhere. Even the brand names on the instant coffee sachets and plastic milk tubs are universal.
Slot the key into the holder inside the door and the lights turn on. There’s a sighing sound, which may be the airconditioner bumping the atmosphere from inoffensive to bland. A bathroom to my left, basin, bowl and bath, white towels and small bottles of gels. Individually wrapped soaps.
The room itself had a queen and a single. Bedside table with telephone and clock radio. Bed lamps and a master switch for the room light. Facing the beds were, left to right, a small table with two chairs, TV with a working remote, three drawers (top one with Gideon and phone book), desk with chair and internet connection, bar fridge with six tiny tubs of milk, electric jug with tea, coffee, sugar and Milo.
All standard. Clean, tidy, inoffensive, anonymous.
There’s a breakfast area in the lobby, free breakfast from 3am onwards for those early morning departures, a pub and a couple of cafes a block away, and a vending machine on the first floor: cold drinks, chips and chocolate.
Dinner for me was nothing to write home about, so I won’t, but let me just note that the vending machine accepts notes as well as coins.
There was a guest laundry as well, washer and dryer at $NZ2 a pop, soap powder vending machine on the wall and an ironing board. After only one day on the road, I did no more than look in, but if I was a week out, I’d be more enthusiastic. All too often laundry means the hotel charging you fifty dollars for shirt, trousers, socks and jocks. Or wandering around getting lost in dodgy neighbourhoods for the local laundrette.
I noticed a swimming pool as I came in, but I wasn’t dipping.
New Zealand television on a Saturday night was as bland as the room. Football well catered for, but nothing much to my taste, even with a selection of cable channels.
The internet came via an Ethernet connection, and my MacAir doesn’t do anything much besides USB, so I declined the $NZ9.50 day’s worth of internet. I could use the wifi in the lobby for the same price, but I didn’t. Instead I prepared a few emails, notes and pictures for uploading in the morning at the guaranteed airport lounge internet.
I called it a night early on, after setting three different alarms for five AM. Slept soundly on a mattress just a little too soft for discomfort. My room faced the silent carpark, but maybe those looking onto the main road on the western side were noisier. All I know is that the alarm woke me, and that was a double blessing, for it meant I’d had a good night’s sleep and I wasn’t going to miss my flight.
Shower and shave, plenty of hot water at a decent pressure, towels white and fluffy.
Breakfast downstairs of drip coffee, individual cereals, toast, muffins, juice, yoghurt. Standard fare, serve yourself and read the weekend papers from the rack by checkin.
Packed up, not that I’d really unpacked, checked that I’d got all my chargers, and was just heading out the door when the phone rang, to remind me of the shuttle leaving in five minutes.
Checkout took maybe ten seconds, and then I was away on the shuttle, concrete hotel fading into the grey of predawn.
This hotel will never make the inflight magazines, and no New Zealand travelogues will feature the bikini models lazing by the carpark pool.
But it was perfect. A night between flights. Restful, cheap, convenient, exquisitely bespoke to the needs of the air traveler, Sydney one day, Hong Kong the next, scenic New Zealand just a glimpse from the plane window and a few twilight carparks.
