Distinction Palmerston North Hotel & Conference Centre

It was conveniently located, bed was comfy, the hotel has all you need. The staff are mostly incredibley friendly and helpful.

Only bad thing was When I checked in at 9:30 pm, the man who served me was incredibly rude. Didn't greet me or say a single word. I had showed him my ID and he didn't even look at it. Then he abruptly threw my room card on the counter. I apologised for being slightly later than I was expecting due to flight delays and he made a grunting noise. When I asked if he would like me to pay at check in he grunted again and was incredibly condescending about me asking. I was concerned that this was setting the tone for my stay but it was the only bad thing. I hope that man is ok and I was sorry he seemed to be having a bad night.

The staff are wonderful; friendly, attentive, competent, the best! Yes, it is not a sparkling new building but the kai is delicious, the linen fresh, the pillows just right.
We were here for 3 long hard days of work, but we have been treated with such care and attention. Definitely made the days easier.

I booked many months ( 10) earlier as we were coming for a wedding and had booked 3 rooms. By chance happened to be in Palmy the weekend before the wedding and thought I’ll just check on our booking as we needed to change the number of people coming. To my surprise our rooms were not booked even though I had a confirmation email to state that it was all confirmed for those rooms and dates (3 nights) To our rescue was a lovely lady Julie who was on reception that day. She managed to change and sort everything so we had the rooms we needed. Thank you Julie.
Oh but after such hard work by one member to make our stay great it was let down by the rooms themselves. The bed had stained sheets, a very loud and noisy air conditioner, a coffee machine provided as we had a suite, but no coffee pods to use in it. The next day I noticed our bed wasn’t made just pulled up and areas of the room were dusty. It did improve for the other days. Not a 4 star hotel at all more like a 2 star. We felt it was over priced and so won’t be staying again .

Ok but not the cleanest. Dated. Restaurant food below par. 3 meals were enough as they got worse each night. The limited menu was not posted in rooms and all information in room and lift pretty out of date. Room was not cleaned much each day and a general tardiness in presentation.

Visited one night stop over oct 2023
The rooms are dated, especially the bathroom with it's blown plastic metallic blue counter top. The beds were comfortable though and it served it's purpose.
We ate in the restaurant for both dinner and breakfast.
Dinner was good, wine was very good and service was likewise.
Breakfast was unfortunately mediocre to say the least. Food wasn't that hot and in the main was tasteless. The coffee was probably the worst coffee ever experienced. When asked for a proper filter coffee, the waitress reluctantly provided but with the comment "I'm not supposed to do this".
One massive plus point was the free secure parking on site which allows to to wheel your bags in the dry straight to the car.
Like I say, it provided a nights sleep on our way to Wellington but as a hotel, the rooms need some updating.