This is supposed to be a four star hotel but beware if you have booked with a travel agent. We booked with Qantas through Thomas Cook. This hotel has a floor of rooms which are very overdue to be refurbished and these are the ones they give to Travel Agent bookings. They have no air conditioning and our rooms faced the sun for most of the day making it necessary to close the curtains to keep out the heat. This was the worst room during my four weeks stay in New Zealand.Our stay coincided with a local public holiday followed by Waitangi Day two days later. This was blamed for the closure of the cafe and the Japanese Restaurant for our entire stay, although we were given no advanced warning of this. The swimming pool had obviously not been cleaned out for days, being full of leaves, insects and a beach ball which was definately there the previous day. It also had a green slime round the water mark on the sides of the pool. Having had enough of these problems on our penultimate day we complained to the manager who finally agreed to up grade our rooms for the last night. He was adamant that travel agents knew precisely what they were getting in the way of rooms at his hotel. The up graded rooms were what one would expect for a four star hotel so if you are given an inferior one, complain until you get an upgrade.

Comfortable room which had been newly and tastefully refurbished. Good location as it was near to everything but not in a noisy location. Breakfast and dinner were quite good.

Nelson is certainly not blessed with many hotels of this standard so if you want about a 4* hotel you probably don't have much choice although I found the hotel to be entirely satisfactory in all respects. It is at one end of the city centre near to the main and imposing church. It is one of only two high rise buildings, the other being the municipal buildings. The hotel has a very large and imposing reception area with 2 lifts . I had an Executive room - 814 which had lovely views over the city, church and the tree lined hills. A good sized room with a double and single bed and decent bathroom. Adequate room for clothes. Whilst OK decoratively the room was perhaps a little tired and maybe in need of a refurb. Has a very large restaurant which served good evening meals and breakfast. You may have to be flexible re restaurant times as in peak season the hotel does have regular coach parties who as in most similar hotels seem to have priority. A good sized bar is next door to the restaurant. Was most impressed by the Gents here and in reception. Plenty of car parking. I got my check out extended by 2 hours free of charge and my luggage was securely stored until 4.15pm. Nelson has a great Arts & Craft market on a Saturday morning and a visit to the Abel Tasman Peninsula is a must - suggest boat trips from Kaiteriteri. Overall the Rutherford is a good quality and comfortable hotel.

The Rutherford is a big modern boring hotel in a great charming town. It seems the tallest building around and therefore out of place. The new rooms are very nice and its location to the center of town is great. In the middle of summer season, the hotel felt empty, even with people around. We would have enjoyed our 3 day stay in Nelson a bit more if the Hotel had any characacter.

The Rutherford is the only highrise building in the city, and it is worth it for the higher level floors which have a wonderful view across the cathedral and city. The room seemed to have been updated recently, which was emphasised by the sound of building work and banging during the day. We did wonder what we had done to get that free upgrade! The decor was lovely and the room clean. The shower was ok, although the water jets had a mind and direction all of their own! The other problem, which was made worse by the time of year and humidity due to the storm about to break, was the ventilation. This was a fan, not A/C, and it did very little to move the air around. Under normal NZ summer conditions this would probably be fine, but it was a disappointment in a top-class hotel. Overall it was ok, but left me a bit disappointed, especially if there has been modernisation going on.