Pukehina Retreat and Lodge

The location was beautiful, the outlook and section were lovely, and the house was modern The host was friendly (though unorganised).

The property is advertised (and charged) as 5 star, and while it has the potential to be this, that was not our experience. When we arrived at 3pm the host was still at the property cleaning and still had to come back later with the wine, bath salts, and the towels as they were still drying. She stayed at the property until 8-9pm tidying her attached studio (this has its own entry but also has an internal door into the hallway so really didn't feel like we had the property to ourselves). The cleaning (or lack of) was the biggest issue with our stay. The pool area had not been done and there were still half finished drinks in the pool area from the previous guests. There was cutlery and a serving spoon in the draws with food still on them so we cleaned everything before using it. We cleaned out bottle caps and an empty bottle out of the bar leaners (assumably left by the previous guest). Towels were folded on the beds still damp. The BBQ was not clean enough to be used. Thick dust under the beds showed they are mopped around but not under. Also the coffee/sugar/shampoo/beauty products etc is all communally used by past and current guests. We were advised of and charged an additional $355 in cleaning/linen fees by the host that booking.com 'forgot to add'. Not wanting to lose our booking we paid this. Not wanting to give a harsh or unfair review I did send these and many more examples of where our stay did not meet expectation through to the host hoping our stay was the anomaly and maybe just hadn't gone to plan, but was given the brush off. All in all, given the price paid we were very disappointed with our stay.