This hotel is a lot further out from town than I expected and it is not walkable to the town of Frans Josef. BUT, the view is spectacular and the rooms were great.
Would definitely recommend someone staying at the hotel as long as they had a vehicle which I did not due to me arriving with a tour group.
This was probably our favorite place to stay in New Zealand. It's out of town so you definitely need a car, but the rooms are HUGE and modern and comfortable and immaculate. Unbelievably quiet at night. Breakfast was fantastic, fresh and delicious with a nice variety. The person who managed check-in was friendly and helpful. Would stay here again in a heartbeat.
The place was beautiful. Lived up to expectations. I did check in late, and they had taped an envelope with my name to the reception door. Inside the envelope was a key and welcome letter. The letter was informative, but had no obvious notation of my room number. I was perplexed, and unsure of what to do. Thinking it may have been an oversight, I checked a couple of obviously unoccupied rooms, trying my key. This did not work. Upon re-examining the letter, I noticed two small hash marks at the top of the page in the center. There was no other information. Marks were small, but I read them as 11. I checked around and found a room 11, and this indeed was my room. It would have been helpful if they had just written the word ROOM before the hash marks as to me, the hash marks were not obvious as a room number.