Good Solid 5 Star property. Staff were attentive. Rooms very new and well appointed. Central location was great. Restaurants were also very good - the Tapas bar was outstanding although had limited wine choices.

Will be back.

This is a great hotel. It's very comfortable, the service is great, it's clean, it's well situated. In fact, it has everything in common with Auckland itself - including its lack of soul or character.

It's perfect for stop overs (and be careful that you don't arrive when the coach loads of OAPs from the cruise ships check in - they take for EVER - not to mention the queues for the lifts), and I'd definitely stay there again - I pass through on business. But, if you're on holiday - go for something with some character.

Good solid premium hotel in a reasonable location. Surprised previous reviewer referred to it as a mainly business hotel. My impression was that it was full of tourists.

Rooms are modern, clean and bright. We enjoyed our two night stay.

Only negative is the size of the pool. Bit small for a hotel of its size.

We stayed at a Deluxe King room for two nights from 26 - 28 February which we had booked via the hotel's website. The location of the hotel is great, right in the middle of things, so no complaints there.

The lobby is impressive, huge and with a very cool and arty design. Check-in was efficient, just like you'd expect it to be in a 5 star hotel.

Our room (1125) was a good size with a comfortable bed, a good A/C but not much of a view. Still, so far so good. But why is it that stylish and cool can't go together with practical? Our room had a beige carpet which looked clean enough but... somehow just didn't feel it. The bathroom was the most awkward design I've seen in a while. When you enter you almost bash into the square washbasin which sticks out, the shower door doesn't close properly and water spills out onto the floor (which may be romantic in a south Italian setting but doesn't quite work for me in Auckland), there is nowhere to hang the wet towels, no glass for the tooth brushes and the toiletteries are in a cardboard box which you first have to slide open to get to the soap. Then what do you do with the box? Inside the big box there were more small boxes, one had two cotton tops and two tiny balls of cotton wool inside. Of course no shower head in the bath tub, so how do you rinse yourself off? You don't but hop into the shower (just avoiding another bruise on the wash basin) and waste some more water. And how I love those bathrooms with a milk glass window to your bedroom. Every time your partner goes for a tinkle in the middle of the night, your bedroom is suddenly dipped into this eerie light coming through. Honestly, what is it with these architects?

I went for a swim in the hotel pool which looks so cool on the website. It's 25 meters long and just two lines wide. It really doesn't feel much like a pool, more like a racing track in water, and there is so little space around the "pool" that swimming feels a bit claustrophobic. The "pool" is part of the gym (which has carpets on the floor) and you must shower first in the really rather spartan shower/dressing room and toilet (extremely uninviting), and then walk with your wet feet through the gym to get to the pool. There's also a sauna next to the pool, and where I come from you usually have some lounge chairs by a sauna to relax and cool down. That's nice for a pool too of course. But at the Skycity Grand they have just a couple of wooden benches and four bare metal chairs which looked like they would be uncomfortable even with a couple of towels on. The jaccuzzi (or spa) is small and looked frankly in need of a good overhaul. Small wonder I was the only visitor far and wide! So after the gym or the pool, you don't clean up in the spa area but get your dressing gown back on and head back as quickly as possible to your room for a shower. Shame that, really. I like a bit of pampering, particularly in luxury hotels. But here, it felt like the wet area was added on to the gym as a kind of afterthought.

Breakfast was good and the breakfast room is lovely and bright. The crockery and cutlery there is also very stylish and fairly impractical. Huge coffee mugs which just don't work for your first cup of Earl Grey tea in the morning. A great yoghurt/fruit mix in a tall glass (I wonder how many of those get toppled over...) You can have a continental buffet with a great choice of dried fruits and nuts among other things for 25 NZD or the cooked buffet for 36 NZD. It's worth it if you're in a hurry or the company pays, but otherwise go outside and find yourself a nice café in the street. There's one just across from the hotel at the Sky City.

I'm glad my husband's company paid for that one: I would certainly not go back there and spend all that money on getting a couple of bruises on my hip in that bathroom. Obviously my husband is more subtle (or possibly stylish) than me: he loved the hotel and would go back tomorrow!