Clearly visible fom the main road on the edge of town, this big hotel (by NZ standards) provided a very welcome night's comfort for us. Our room was large and light with double opening doors on to a patio (upstairs rooms have balconies) with a queen bed and double sofa. The decor and furnishings are a bit 1970s, bu everything worked and it was very comfortable. Attached is a public bar, cafe/bar and restaurant, and there are delightful flower-filled gardens. One bonus was the free guest laundry, but a bigger one was the friendliness of the all the staff, from the receptionist to the those in the bars.

We stayed here for one night during a tour in Nov 2009.

The Golde Gate lodge is more of a motel than a hotel. The rooms are spread around in different wings with little courtyards between the wings. Sometimes it was a bit hard to find your way around as some of the doors were locked and some were not.

The room we had was basically OK: fairly big, passable but uninteresting decor and fairly clean. However, the room configuration was really strange: there was a tiny bathroom with a bath and a toilet seat, but the basin was in the room, in the "kitchenette". I found this a bit strange and not too convinient or hygienic. The bathroom was a bit of a let-down: it was small and old, with a loud fan.

Even though the room was basically OK, the disappointment was the service: because of a conference, the main restaurant was closed and the meals served in the bar. It took over 20 minutes for our drinks to arrive and a further half an hour to get our food. The mussels in coconut cream with chilli and coriander were quite nice, but we didn't dare to order dessert as it would probably taken yet another half an hour to come. The dining experience was probably the worst we had in NZ, all due to the slow service. Having a full house of conference guests is no excuse for a conference centre: they should have more staff if they can't run the business with the staff they have. The breakfast was OK: there's a buffet of cerals, toast, coffee and juices and you order your hot breakfast from the staff. Again the food took quite some time, but was OK.

One of the few positive aspects was a reasonably priced internet connection (as opposed to most of the hotels in NZ). We took a stroll in the town after dinner, and noticed that there are quite few accommodation alternatives there, and next time I would stay somewhere else.

While we did not stay at the Golden Gate Lodge accommodation we visited the Pisa restaurant in mid afternoon. The dinner menu began at 6pm and because this menu was more robust than the lunch time menu we asked the young bar girl if it was possible for the chef to make us something from the dinner menu. No joy there. The young girl said "no way, that can't be done". No apology, or could she suggest something from the lunch menu instead? Or perhaps we might like to come back at 6pm? Two other establishments on our travels throughout the Sth Island had willingly accommodated our request or at least provided us with an apologetic explanation. It was this young girls attitude that we found so appalling. She was more interested in polishing the glasses. Disappointing. What ever happened to customer service?

We stayed for one night at the Golden Gate Lodge during a 16 day journey through New Zealand. Of the 9 different places we stayed during the trip, I would place the Golden Gate at the bottom. The room we stayed in was very outdated, the carpet was something akin to gross, and one just had the feeling things weren't all that clean. This is probably the reason you really don't see much in the way of room photos on their web site.

The staff was very pleasant, but otherwise we avoided the entire place with the exception of sleep.

If you are in Cromwell, though - I would HIGHLY recommend the Lazy Dog Cafe (ask for directions). Unlike the motel, the Lazy Dog was at the top of our dining list.