Auckland was the end of our idyllic travels around the North Island. This Airbnb was exactly what we were looking for with our stay in the city. It’s located in a happening area of the city with restaurants, bars, and coffee within a very easy walk. The train station (Britomart) was about a three minute walk, which was helpful for us when we braved the train to Howick for the day. The apartment itself has several amenities, and everything you would need for a comfortable stay. The one complaint we had- only one device could be connected to the WiFi at a time. My phone didn’t have any service without being connected to WiFi in a foreign country, so this was kind of a bummer for me as it quit connecting altogether after Day 2.
Parking was unfortunately a bear for us. We got in rather late from Northland, so by the time we unpacked, got situated, and went to park the car it was after 11pm. We entered the wrong garage erroneously which wouldn’t have been an issue.... except the parking garage was “closed.” For those of you not from NZ or a bigger city, this meant we couldn’t pay for our parking at the machine and we also couldn’t exit the garage because the gates closed and locked. We called the assistance number and spent about an hour trying to sort that out without much luck. By the grace of god, a passerby gave us his PIN to get out, but we found ourselves in the same dilemma with the garage suggested by the host as it closed at midnight. We ultimately found a garage to park, but needed to get it at 8am the next day(a weekday) to avoid a ticket and find a new garage to house our car for the rest of our stay. It ultimately worked out, but was a series of unfortunate events. Take away point here: plan to get to the city with enough time to figure out parking if you need to!! Some parking garages also closed for the weekend, so you have to be careful where you park if you need to exit as you will incur a penalty for needing to call to be let out. Factor this into your plans.