Booking Conditions

1. When a booking exists

When we send you a written confirmation. An enquiry, a telephone conversation or a held date is not a booking, however friendly it was. The confirmation carries the room category, the rate per night, the total, the deposit if there is one, and the date on which free cancellation ends. If any of those four is wrong, say so on the day it arrives and it is corrected without argument.

A confirmed rate does not move afterwards. It does not rise if the season turns busy, and it does not rise because you asked us a question.

2. Deposits

One or two nights	Held on a card. Nothing is taken until you arrive.
Three nights or more	One night, taken at the time of booking.
Any booking in High season	One night, taken at the time of booking.
Packages	One night, taken at the time of booking, whatever the length of stay.
Five rooms or more	Under clause 4, on a signed agreement.

3. Cancellation and no-shows

More than 48 hours before 3pm on the day of arrival: no charge. Any deposit is returned to the card it came from, inside five working days.

Inside 48 hours: the first night is charged. The rest of the stay is released and not charged.

No arrival and no message: the first night is charged and the remaining nights are released at 10am the following day.

Leaving early: the night you leave is charged; the nights after it are not.

Where a cancellation is caused by illness, bereavement, a flight cancellation or a closed road over the hill, tell us and the charge is waived. That is discretion rather than a right, and in fifteen years it has been used far more often than it has been refused.

4. Groups of five rooms or more

Groups run on a signed agreement, not on these standard terms. It sets a deposit of 25% at signing, a release date at six weeks out for rooms not yet named, the balance due seven days before arrival, and the rooming list due five working days before arrival. Rooms released after the release date are charged at 50% if they are not resold.

5. Events and weddings

An event is confirmed by a signed agreement and a deposit. For a wedding that deposit is NZ$2,000, then a third of the estimated total at six months and the balance ten days before the day. A cancellation more than nine months out returns the deposit in full; inside nine months the deposit is retained; inside three months 50% of the estimated total is due; inside one month, the full estimate.

Final numbers are due five working days before the event, and that number is the number charged even if fewer people come. Numbers may go up after that if the kitchen can meet them, and the kitchen will say so honestly rather than promise and struggle.

6. Paying

Cash, EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Credit card payments carry the processing fee the bank charges us, shown separately on the invoice rather than folded into the rate. Card details are taken at the desk, by telephone, or through a secure link sent by our bank — never by email, and never through a form on this website, which has no payment page of any kind.

All prices are in New Zealand dollars and include GST at 15%. A GST invoice is issued at checkout and can be reissued to a company name if you tell us before you leave.

7. Changes we make

We may move you to a different room of the same category or better, at no extra cost, where maintenance or an equipment failure makes the confirmed room unusable. If we cannot house you at all, we find and pay for a comparable room at another hotel in Christchurch, pay the taxi, and refund what you have paid us for that night.

8. Bookings made through an agent

A booking made through a travel agent or an online platform is governed by that company’s cancellation terms, not by clause 3, and changes go through them rather than through us. We honour the rate they confirmed to you. If you want a room moved, an early arrival or a late checkout, ask us directly — that part we can still do.

Questions about any of this: +64 3 337 4166 or [email protected].