April's place is clean and immaculate. She also sends details of checking in with photos that are helpful in locating the right building and following the check-in instructions easily. It is very close to Ponsonby road do there is a lot of choice for eating out as well as to enjoy shopping /window-shopping those boutique stores. At night, you get to see the well-lit skyline of Auckland through two floor-to-ceiling windows of the room.
Having said the above, I won't be going back to this Airbnb and the host because of the following reasons based on my 1-day stay on 12th Feb 2020 -
1. I found the room to be extremely hot despite a little table fan being in use. The two glass windows, the floor-to-ceiling ones, bake the room all day long. You know the difference as soon as you get out of the room to the living room. It is the side that this room is at makes it unbearably hot to be in.
2. Being close to three fly-overs, it is also very noisy. One will need ear-plugs to have a chance of a good night sleep.
3. Most previous reviews give an impressionof a friendly host. Unfortunately, my experience was different. It was my last day in NZ having spent a month travelling all over the country. And I had a late confirmation of two rounds of interviews with a firm scheduled for the afternoon of the 12th Feb and the morning of the 13th Feb (just before heading to the airport straight after to board my long haul flight back to London). As a result,I had to slightly change my plans and take an earlier flight from Queenstown to Auckland on the 12th Feb. I requested to be able to drop my luggage off at the apartment at 2pm (two hours earlier than scheduled 4pm check-in), which was refused by the host, despite clarifying that all I needed was to drop the big suitcase and that I was going to be in the apartment much later in the evening. She gave me another address for paid storage service, which made my life difficult with all the extra time and commute for the interview. Then, in the evening I messaged by Airbnb app first enquiring about the possibility of borrowing her iron for literally a couple of minutes in readiness for next day's interview round. The dress was already ironed, but got a few creases due to being in the suitcase. I didn't get any response for several hours until it was night. The message stated the host did not have an iron in the apartment and that iron wasn't listed as one of the amenities (which I knew and was simply requesting on friendly, human grounds because I had no other option available outside to pay and get it done). Based on my experience, I found the host to be inflexible and unwilling to help. It is not bad, or unfair. She is not obliged to meet those requests, but the easy nature of my requests, the time taken by the host to respond, and the tone of the responses came across as curt. My entire previous Airbnb experience in NZ had been fantastic. When I compare those to this experience, I am unable to rate this any higher than 3.5 out of 5 on overall experience basis.
It will still suit a lot of people because it is a neat bedroom to crash out at.