The Smartstay apartments are obviously designed for functionality rather than luxury. Despite that the rooms are not unpleasant, and I would imagine on higher floors you would get a fair view as well. On the first floor we only got a view of police headquarters next door. Hobson St itself is not one of the world's great boulevards, its one of several streets in Auckland which have been turned into defacto motorways, but its close to the centre of town. The reception staff are friendly and helpful. For less than NZ$100 a night you couldn't ask for more really.

The Oaks Smartstay Apartments is a convenient, inexpensive option for travelers wanting a little more room and the convience of self contained facilities. The Apartments are modern and tastefully furnished. However..... ...while one bedroom had good ventilation, the other bedroom (where our 2 boys slept......for at least part of the night) was frightfully stuffy even with the airconditioing running at full fan speed. There are no opening windows in this room either so there seems to be no way to turn over the air here. ...it seems common in NZ to sandwich the bed "quilt " between 2 sheets which is fine except that here, while the sheets appeared to be clean and fresh, the top edge of the quilt (the edge closest to one's face) was stained yellow with sweat or....goodness knows what. ...the front office staff were less than impressive or knowledgable. We arrived on a Friday evening and there was no hotel car parking available. The front office staff told us we could park in the street and that there was no need to pay for street parking on Saturday....Wrong. After several trips around the block I did eventually find a carpark and while parking was free over Friday evening, the parking fees applied from 0800 Saturday morning and there was a time limit on the duration of parking too. A local guy said that parking officers do chalk tyres in the area but the parking fine was just $12 whereas hotel parking (if available) was $20. Sunday parking is free but weekdays the road outside the hotel is a clearway during designated times. ...we were told that the internet was $15 per hour and that we could log on and off and the account would keep a running total of our usage. Wrong. We used the internet for about 5 minutes the first night but when we spoke to the receptionist the following morning we where told that once logged out all remaining time is forfeited. ....the washing machine.....aaaarrrrrgh. we could not get this thing to do what it was supposed to do no matter what we tried. The [-] thing kept going trogh its wash cycle...for hours. Then we couldn't get it to apply any heat to the dry cycle. (it was a combination front load washer/dryer). So next morning we had damp washing strewn all over the apartment trying to make sure our kids had something to wear next day. Of course we tried to get help from reception but as there is only one person in attendence she could not possibly offer any assistance other than to tell us to read the instructions.....which we already had....numerous times. ...it would be a big help if the reception staff spoke English. I'm sure some people could get really frustrated by this. ....and what's with that annoying buzzing sound that other reviewers have commented on. I think it has something to do with the lift but we were quite some way from the lift. It's not too bad in the living area or during the day, it's just reeeeaally annoying in the bedroom at night and morning when one just might be trying to sleep (with 2 sweaty boys who had to escape that stifling second bedroom) Other than that, it wasn't too bad.

We found this an excellent place to stay. Superb facilities include a full kitchen' dishwasher and washing machine. The rooms are quite new and spacious. The hotel itself was very peaceful throughout the stay. The only gripe we had was them attempting to charge us $60 for a cot for three nights, despite them never telling us there was a charge when we asked for one. Otherwise an excellent stay.