InterContinental Auckland, an IHG Hotel Reviews

On March 13 to March 15, I stayed at the Intercontinental Auckland. My first night at that hotel was probably the worst of any hotel stay in my life. We arrived at 930AM from international flight from the US. The hotel did not have a room ready, which was understandable. There actually were rooms ready, but the front desk did not want to assign an upgrade. The bell hop held our bags and was to place our bags into the assigned room. We come back at 515PM, get the room keys. We go to the room and we cannot enter the room because the security flapper was closed. We go back to the front desk. The assistant manager goes up with us to the room. Of course, he cannot open the door. We are told to go to dinner, and the hotel would cover half of dinner. At 630PM, we are given another room, and told that dinner would all be comped. We wait in the new room for 4 more hours. Just after 1020PM, a bellhop brought us our bags. We waited 5 hours for our bags. We were tired after a 16-hour flight. We needed our meds and our CPAP machine. During this period there were numerous conversations of we’re doing the best we can. Hogwash! I spoke to the assistant manager at our room’s door at approximately 730PM. I told him he needed to drill the locks on the interconnecting doors. Because you see, our room was identical to the previous room. We only reserved one room. The assigned rooms had interconnecting doors. We suspect that the person who put our bags into the first room, exited from the other room after closing the shared doors. That person never checked our room’s security flapper. Comping our dinner, did nothing for the situation. The hotel should have put us in the nicest suite available. As that would have been the best service recovery! I know they were available, because I checked the IHG app. Instead, we get verbal apologies that never addressed our needs!!! Hello, we could have had a medical emergency, and this hotel plays with keys? There was no formal apology from the general manager, who never seemed to get involved. The comedy of errors and lack of empathy was astounding. At one point, I felt that the hotel was insinuating that somehow, we did this! Like really, how is that possible? The actual hotel is very nice. The room was very clean and the bed comfortable. The location cannot be beat if one is leaving on a cruise from Auckland. BUT, we would never stay at this hotel again! The actual operation of the hotel is very poor for a 5-star property. There is no good reason for what happened to us. I left after our 2 night stay, furious, aggravated and disappointed!!!