My partner and I stayed in a Studio at Quest on Gilmer as we found it was the best deal to be found on Expedia.co.nz for a weekend stay in Wellington when we attended the Homegrown music festival this weekend. After seeing the hotel was rated 4 & a 1/2 stars on their website, I was looking forward to a stay in a nice hotel for our weekend away.
The location of the hotel is pretty good - just off Boulcott St and about a 2 min walk to Lambton Quay (via the Plimmer Steps) and about a 10 min walk to all the bars and restaurants of Courtenay Place. But I really don't understand how this hotel can be rated as four and a half stars. The room had a full kitchen (not that we used it but this could be handy for longer stays) but also came with a slight odour of fish that I can only figure as having come from someone cooking fish at some point in the room with a lack of ventilation.
The room only had one window that opened a tiny bit and didn't have air-conditioning so it was stiflingly hot during the nite. For four and a half stars I would have expected a wee bit of a view from the room of some sort, but the hotel is flanked by 2 taller buildings and we looked out onto an office block next door, which made the room rather dark - with only 3 floors of rooms I don't imagine it would be any better in any other rooms.
The website lists "leisure features" as a fully equipped gym, lap pool, spa and sauna but if you read the "fine print" this is stated as being "off-site" and is actually a health centre up the road from the hotel which you can use with a "pass" from the hotel. A bit misleading.....
The matress was quite soft and appeared to be larger than the bed base as it overhung the bed on each side...meaning a night trying to keep as close to the centre of the bed as possible to avoid having to grip on for dear life!
The bathroom was incredibly small - you could almost touch all four walls standing in the centre - but was clean enough. But I think the biggest problem I had with the property on the whole was that they are not serviced on weekends. At all! There is a notice on the wall in the bathroom to say that it is "Quest policy" not to service rooms on Saturday and Sunday. While I am sure the property is aimed mainly at corporate travellers who stay longer than weekends, it doesn't seem right to penalise weekend travellers by not giving the rooms at least a basic clean during their stay (empty the rubbish, change the towels, maybe make the bed). It was easy enough for us to get some new towels from reception (as the thin white towels they provided in the room had barely dried from our shower the previous night before we needed to use them again the following morning) it seems strange that a hotel with a four and a half star rating won't do even a basic service over weekends...
Overall, it was functional enough for our needs for the weekend but I wouldn't be rushing back to stay there in a hurry - there are better options in Wellington for a similar price. And I'm still scratching my head as to how this hotel has a four and a half star rating - when I was under the impression that a hotel had to offer just a wee bit "something extra" (maybe some nice toiletries in the bathroom, a bit of a view, room service, nice modern decor, leisure facilities) for this type of rating.