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Due to unforeseen circumstances, our family was unable to follow through with our booking at 'The Dwellington' for two nights Thursday 20th - 21st of April. According to 'The Dwellington's' cancellation policy, us being out of the 24-hour period, we knew we would be charged for our first night regardless. We were happy for this to take place. However, we needed confirmation that we would receive a refund for our second night. In the hope to speak to someone at 'The Dwellington' I rang 6 times on Thursday evening, and 7 times on Friday morning. I was most upset that no one answered their telephone, or took the time to call us back ( although their answering message says that they would call us back). We didn't have a lot of time but decided to go to The Dwellington in person. The crazy one-way street systems in Wellington are mind-blowing, and frustrating to say the least. After the trouble we went through to get to the Dwellington the receptionist told us we had been E-mailed to inform us we had received a refund for our second night. If you had spent 5 minutes giving us a phone call (the same amount of time it may take for an E-male) I would have appreciated this, and you would have saved us a lot of trouble and stress.

I can only say that had I read other reviews on here I would not have booked this place and for the price we paid (near $200 pn) it was by far the worst we had during our six weeks in NZ. Room was not as advertised, carpet was old, worn and stained and had not been vacuumed. Only one sofa and mini table for eating on - room would not fit anything bigger. On arrival we noticed sink was filthy and benches had not been cleaned. Stovetop and oven were also both dirty. Had to do clean it myself (when I complained after we left, was told everything was clean, yeah, well I cleaned the bench tops and stovetop). Bed was OK but sheets were unironed and whilst they might have been clean certainly had not been commercially laundered, more likely just washed and dried in the provided washing machine/dryer. We also found wet sheets in the washing machine (and no, I don’t believe the manager’s story that the previous guest left them there - more likely the owner who uses the place during the week). Shower leaked water all over the floor, no bath mat provided, hand towel and face cloths were thin and stained (fit for rags). Paintwork was dreadful, could see where bits had been patched and colour painted over with white. Whole place needs renovating (manager said it was 20 years old, yeah, well it should be being rented out at the price). As an added insult I asked the owner/manager via intercom, if we could leave our bags and collect later. He said yes, cleaner would collect and take them to the office (which was not open even thought this when it was advertised as being open). Double checked he would be there on our return as we could not ring him. On return manager was not there (again when office was supposed to be open), so, fortunately we kept the key and found our bags still in the room. Manager denied this conversation and reckons he said we just leave the bags in the room and take our key with us. What he said was nothing like what he says he said. As I could not discuss any of these issues with the manager before I left, I contacted him afterwards asking for a partial refund ,but he refused, simply offering a free night in the future (an empty promise as he knew we were from overseas and probably won’t be back, and it would be easy forget or not honour the offer anyway.)

Very close to Wellington Botanic Garden and Beehive. It is also very convenient to go to the station and the beach. The lady at the front desk is tall and beautiful, just like a tap dancer who dances the ”Dance of the River”. The decoration of the hotel is a bit retro.