NEW ZEALAND HOTELS.

Shannon News, 6 November 1925, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND HOTELS.

AMERICAN PRAISE. QUIETNESS AND EFFICIENCY. A brightly written article on New Zealand hotels appeared recently in the “Honolulu Advertiser,” evidently written by an American with a sharp eye for certain characteristics in his own country. A copy was sent to the manager of an Auckland hotel by an officer of the American Fleet: — “You feel at home in a New Zealand hotel. Early in the morning a pihk-eheeked damozel of uncertain age tip-toes in with a cup 'of tea. Shortly afterwards she reappears with a copper pitcher filled with hot water, and a few minutes later your razors, towels and soap are laid out for the morning shave. Then she steps to the door of the room and retrieves your shoes, which .you, with many misgivings, left outside the door the night before. Much to your surprise —knowing, as you do, what ’tyould happen to anything except a bill left outside a hotel room door in America—the shoes are there and neatly polished. There is no charge for extras on your bill.

After tea, bath and shave, you dress leisurely and saunter into the dining room. There you are received with smiles instead of the surly look that seems to inevitably accompany the American breakfast either ‘en hotel’ or ‘en famile.’ The breakfast consists of eggs, cereal, fish, chops, fruit and an unfortunately inferior brand of coffee. 1 The waiter appears hurt unless you sample each dish. You have plenty of time for eating. You can even turn your head away for a moment to look at someone at the other side of the room without having your half-consumed cereal snatched away in the waiter’s hurry to get you out of the place. “If you have occasion to speak to the desk clerk, you find him attentive, interested in your comfort, and not manicuring his nails. He is not the dashing very devil of a fellow who is to be found in certain American hotels. He appears to be the sort of person you’d be willing to have for a neighbour. There is no charge for this extra on your bill. The telephone girl is like our American telephone girl; the most overworked person on the hotel staff, and the most courteous. She battles bravely with the telephone system, and eventually wins, gets your number, and keeps it for you. There is no charge for all this on your bill. When you come in in the evening after the theatre, you drift into the supper room, where a buffet meal is waiting. Legs of mutton, loins of beef, hams, salads, fruits, cheese and other delectables wait for you. You help yourself. To any one who has ben compelled to rent a taxi at 5 dollars in order to run down town from the beach for an evening snack, this will sound like a downright lie; but there is no charge for this extra on your bill.

“The hotel rooms are comfortable. There is not the simple and austere tone that is typical of ‘modern hotels, monastic retreats and leading penitentiaries, but there is a homelike auro surrounding each article of furniture. You feel as though you were visiting a friend. The lobby of the hotel is not open to the gaze of snappy dressers and members of the great unwashed, who may want to chew toothpricks directly in front of the building; and the lilies of the lounge, who toil not neither do they spin, are firmly but quietly given the air. “The guests, American and all, save for an occasional yapping lout from ‘Gawd’s Own Country, beelieve me; why this place is a hundred years behind the times,’ are of a character fitting the hotel. In fact, living in a hotel in New Zealand is well.nigh perfection.”