Hotel Review – The Langham (Auckland)

Stayed: July 2017 (2 nights)
Room:
Deluxe Room
Overall Rating:
 9/10
Price Range: $$$$ from NZD$199 – $1534 a night

tlakl-overview-hotel-exterior-1680-945

My lovely boyfriend and I spent two wonderful nights at The Langham Hotel, Auckland in July this year. (Very very late review I know) I’ll start this post off by saying it was definitely one of the best stays I’ve had at any of the hotels I’ve been to in my life!

This time I wasn’t in Auckland for work, more of a weekend away with N where we didn’t really have any plans but to relax, chill out and do a bit of shopping.
I chose The Langham Hotel as I got a good rate through work and they had the well-known Eight Restaurant at the hotel. (A restaurant with eight cuisines and unlimited dining!) which N had been wanting to go to for awhile.

Arriving at The Langham around 7pm, we were amazed at how big and beautiful the lobby was. The smells of ginger flower, rose and jasmine hit you as soon as you entered the room and the grand chandelier hanging from the lobby ceiling really showed how grand the hotel was.
At check-in, we were upgraded from their lead-in Superior Room to a Deluxe Room which was nice of them to do. I personally don’t think there’s too much of a difference between the rooms apart from being higher up in the hotel (better views) and the bed being a bit bigger but we were very thankful for the upgrade.

rs_600x0_tlakl-deluxe-room-1680-945

There are 411 guest rooms throughout the 10 levels of the hotel which aren’t overly large but definitely enough room for two people! The Langham is a very classic hotel, all beautifully furnished with dark wooden furniture, large king or twin beds and big windows with views of the city. The room we stayed in had everything we needed and more. They also had Executive Rooms and Suites which you can stay in which are so much more luxurious and spacious than your usual rooms if you desire.

I Loved:

  • The turn-down service they provided every night. They closed the black-out curtains to ensure a well rested sleep, folded back the covers and placed a Whittakers Chocolate bar on each side of the bed for us. Such a nice touch!
    20170701_182019
  • The bed – it was comfortable and so big I didn’t even feel like I was sleeping next to anyone!
  • The toiletries – they didn’t have your typical small hotel sized shampoos and body wash, they provided decent sized Body wash, Body scrub, Shampoo, Conditioner and Body milk in the bathroom for guests to use which were from the hotels own Chau Spa. Not to mention the amenity box in the bathroom was full of goodies from your usual sewing kit to a toothbrush, shaver and shower cap.
  • The staff!
    This was probably why I enjoyed my stay so much. I always recognize good customer service when I stay anywhere (or eat anywhere for that matter) and I have to say that The Langham Hotel has some of the best staff I have ever come across. Everyone from the valet workers who greeted us when we arrived and offered us an umbrella when it was raining, to the waiters in the restaurant who remembered our faces and asked us about the rugby game they knew we were watching.
    I had enquired about seeing some of the other rooms or suites during our stay to one of the Front Desk staff who ensured if I came back the next day they could try and do something for me. The next day, the gentleman I talked to the night before about seeing the rooms, he hadn’t even started his shift yet but still came up to us to make sure we’d checked out some of the rooms and we’d been taken care of. I just felt everyone went out of their way to make sure we were happy with our stay and we had no problems whatsoever with anything.

20170702_132608

Hotel Facilities:

  • The Langham Club – When you stay in one of the Executive Rooms or Suites you automatically get to enjoy the facilities of The Langham Club. These include fruit and mineral water delivered to your room daily, complimentary pre-dinner drinks and canapés served in The Langham Club Lounge, a butler available for packing, unpacking, shoeshine and the pressing of three garments and not to mention a large breakfast selection for your hunger every morning of your stay.
  • Chuan Spa – With an extensive treatment menu, Chuan Spa is the ultimate in relaxation. From massages to facials, the professional therapists offer it all. 
  • Jacuzzi & Outdoor Pool – As part of the Chuan Spa, hotel guests are allowed to use the outdoor jacuzzi and heated pool as they please. It was raining when we where there but we still enjoyed relaxing in the large Jacuzzi outside. 
  • Gym – As everyone knows, I love a hotel with a good gym. I didn’t get to use the one at The Langham, however I did have a quick peep and it was spacious, modern and everything seemed clean which is a big plus for me!
  • Event Rooms – According to their website, they will help you with small cocktail parties to large corporate dinners and everything in between!

Dining:

Now this was a massive highlight for us. The breakfast was an all-you-can-eat buffet served daily which N and I definitely took advantage of. We even set our alarm so we wouldn’t sleep in and miss out! They had everything from bagels, cereals, toast, croissants, muffins, fruit, waffles, pancakes, yoghurt and an Omelette station where they had someone making omelettes. I haven’t even covered half of what they were offering so hopefully my pictures will show the yummiest of it all!

Dinner was even better, the Eight Restaurant is based on having Eight Cuisines from Asian to Western food and it’s again, an all-you-can-eat buffet. They have a chef at each station cooking up the most delicious meals.

At the Pasta station, you choose your own pasta and what you sauce you’d like and they make it right in front of you. You can select your own seafood and have it arranged into whatever you’d like at the Seafood station. If you love your meat, there’s about 8 different meat selections you can choose from and have cooked to your liking in front of you. They have Beef, Chicken, Venison, Kangaroo and even Alpaca! Personally I stuck with the Chicken.

20170701_213835Once you’ve enjoyed dinner, there’s all these desserts available for you to eat! I’m not gonna lie, I think I sampled everything. I started off with sticky date pudding and apple cinnamon crumble and finished off with cheesecake, salted caramel mousse tarts and macaroons.

20170701_213813The restaurant costs $119 per person, so it’s definitely a lot more than your usual dinner date however it’s quite the experience! It’s also open to the public for Lunch and the Dinner so if you’re staying at the hotel make sure you book Breakfast with your stay and organise a night to enjoy the dinner so you don’t miss out!

Overall I had a wonderful time. As I now work in the travel industry, I always recommend it to clients of mine that are staying for a couple of nights in Auckland. It isn’t super close to the airport (about a 45 minute drive away) so if you’re just stopping in Auckland for a night it’s probably a little too far to travel as a quick stay. 

I know they’re currently doing a renovation of the hotel to make it more ‘modern’. Personally I like it how it is but while we were there we got to have a glimpse of a mock – up room. To describe it in a few words “fresh, white, clean and classic” is what springs to mind with and “touch of glamour”.

 

Life Update, WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Short answer to that heading, I’ve been nowhere!
With my major absence on the blogging front and lack of activity on here you’d think I was off on some big amazing trip meeting so many new people that I didn’t have any time to log on and tell you all about it!

I’ve actually been a combination of super busy and my laptop crapping out on me. I think I stopped blogging when I turned my laptop on one day to actually write a blog post (a follow up on my Rarotonga posts) and the letters Q, E, T, U and P had stopped working. I assumed it was a once-off thing as my laptop is about 6 years old (ancient in computer years) but when I tried re-starting it and waiting a few days it’s still got the same problem. I went out shopping that weekend to ‘look’ at new laptops but there’s literally nothing out there I like. Anyone have a laptop they can highly recommend to me?
Everything looks cheap and plastic-y that I don’t want to spend my money on any of them. HOWEVER there is one laptop that I was really sold on, the HP Envy (touch screen and everything!) but the price tag is around $2600 which I definitely can’t afford to buy right now 😦 so it’s currently on my ‘wish-list’

c04942653

Another thing that’s been keeping me busy is I’ve got a new job! It’s technically not new as I’ve been there about 4 months now but i’ve been up to my eyeballs in work. It’s all good work though! I’m a Travel Agent 🙂
Obviously with my last few posts I was talking about becoming a Flight Attendant and then it not working out because of my eyesight etc… I then decided maybe it wasn’t meant to be right now so I applied at a big Travel Agency and surprisingly got the job. I have absolutely no major experience in Sales but they gave me heaps of training and as I’m passionate about Travel it’s starting to come quite naturally to me. I love planning someone’s holiday and believe it or not, Travel Agents in New Zealand are kept quite busy. I know not everywhere in the world it’s as big of a thing as it was many years ago because of the internet and everyone booking their own travel, but there are still heaps of people out there that actually don’t want to do it themselves. Plus we can make up some awesome packages and recommend tried and trusted hotels that we personally have been to which takes out the nervousness of going somewhere new.

7e20e88c6a9d08a03caa50c32deb0d52

We genuinely want you to have a good and stress free time, so if your travel agent gives you a flight price and it’s a bit higher than what you saw online, there’s a reason for that! The amount of times I’ve given someone a price of flying to say, London or Bali for a few weeks and they’ve come back and been like “Well I saw it for $200 cheaper online!!” there’s always a reason why. The most common reasons are because you have a terrible layover time (eg, 8 hours until your next flight) or you’re arriving at your destination at a shitty time and still have to pay for a night’s accommodation because you arrive at 1am.

Travel-Cartoon-Agent

 

My company Price Beat prices you find online or through another travel agency so we’re very competitive on price. The flight has to be departing New Zealand though so there are a few conditions behind it… if you find anything online, go to your travel agent and see if they can either price match or price beat it. I know all don’t do that but we definitely do.
Plus, you have that reassurance knowing that if anything goes wrong we’re actually here to help you. We have a 24 hour support line of travel agents that can access your booking and help you with flight changes or sorting out hotel problems so it doesn’t have to impact your holiday.

Meme1

That’s really my reasons for being very quiet lately. I haven’t given up on the blogging, I just need a new laptop and some more time in my life! I’ve been so full-on lately everything is Go-go-go!! If I’m not at work, I’m at the gym trying to lead a relatively healthy lifestyle or at home sleeping in on the weekend until 11am! What can I say? I loooove my sleep.
My boyfriend and I are still together, we were even at the jewelers today and I tried on a ring! Hahahaha, it definitely isn’t what you think though. He was there trying on watches (as always) and I got bored of waiting so asked the store person if I could try on the most expensive ring they had. The boyfriend didn’t even bat an eyelid because he knows I’d be gutted if he got my ring from the place we were at – I’m such a Princess I know.

Snapchat-724990773

Not this weekend but next weekend we’re off to Auckland for a romantic getaway (more like Jetstar stuffed up our Rarotonga flights so gave us vouchers to use) and then the weekend after that I have my Travel Agency ball where we all dress up and spend hours getting drunk at a massive arena and clapping our hands when all the top sellers gets awards, yay!
I need to buy new shoes and I’m really thinking of getting my eyelashes done and maybe even a spray tan so I’m all save, save, save right now.

Hopefully I’ll have some interesting stuff to write about soon!

xx

New Year, New Plans

Finally, I have something to look forward to!
I’ve booked flights to go to Rarotonga in February 🙂
As a Christmas Present, I got tickets for my Boyfriend and myself to spend 5 days on this beautiful island.
I decided on Rarotonga because Jetstar was doing a really good deal on flights. So good in fact that I contacted my friend Kerri and asked if her and her husband wanted to join us for 5 days away too and she said yes 🙂

muriaerial

A quick break-down on the people we’re holidaying with – I met Kerri back in 2014 when I was studying to be a nanny (yes you can get a certificate in nannying believe it or not) she wasn’t in my class however, she was my Nanny mum that I was placed with.
So I was actually looking after her 3 boys while she went to work.

20130809_094007

When I was finished my 6 months of study, her and Glen (her Husband) offered me a full-time job with them and I accepted. For some reason, even though I don’t work for her anymore, we stayed really good friends. She literally lived down the road from me so I’d house-sit for them all the time and pop round randomly for chats.
Now that they’ve moved about 5 minutes away, I still pop round randomly for chats but stay for literally 5 hours and drag her to the gym with me for some company from time to time.
So yes – we’re all off to Rarotonga in February!

In other good news, I have a new job 🙂
I don’t start until I get back from Rarotonga which is still around a month away, but I’ll be leaving the Radio Station I work for and go on to become a Travel Agent. Pretty suited for me don’t you think?
It’s a little bit nerve racking because of everything I have to learn but I’m looking-forward to getting my foot in the door with a career I’m actually really interested in.
In terms of the Flight Attending path….I’m holding off on that at the moment. I think everything happens for a reason, and I’m sensing that right now just isn’t the right time for me to become an Air Hostess.
I’ll see where this Travel Agent path takes me instead. I could end up hating it or absolutely loving it but either way I hope I get some good travel deals.

20170105_151242.jpg

I hope everyone had a good break over the Christmas/New Year holidays.
I had a wonderful time spent sunbathing up in Mount Maunganui – so much in fact that I’m about to write a post on all the things you can enjoy there. Even if you’re on a budget.

Happy New Year!
xx

img_20170109_110257.jpg