my main mistake was thinking that a two bedroom apartment would be the size of an actual apartment. the bedrooms were a good size and comfortable but the 'living' area had two functional but uncomfortable arm chairs, a small table with two chairs and a desk. we were far too cramped. which is disappointing given that i had asked the hotel what room i would need for three adults and two children.

you also won't need to be a math wizz to figure out that there weren't enough seats for the number of people in the hotel room.

the apartment also claimed to have a 'super modern' bathroom. it was certainly new. but super modern? it was a serious oversell. unless super modern means super small.

in which case the kitchen and the carparks are also super modern.

the staff were friendly and the actual highlight of the apartment. but there were heaps of niggly things: like the fact that i had ordered a cot and noone had any record of it. and how we were asked to repark our car back within the white lines (fair enough) but the main reason we couldn't park was that a staff car was making parking impossible in the tiny ('super modern') carparking area.

I foolishly decided I'd like to stay mid-city on a family visit to Christchurch. This was a big mistake, especially the location I chose! i should have realised this on check-in - the place was poorly signposted and entrance hidden behind frosted glass frontages. there was no parking close by, so unloading baggage was not easy and having to ask the receptionist to let you though the doors to the lift every time was a hassle. Luckily, we ended up getting a 3 bedroom unit for our family of 4, but it was very cramped. The main bedroom with a double bed had nowhere to put bags, just enough room to climb onto the bed. Other rooms had slightly more space, but only because they had a single bed each. Bathroom was small and not much space to hang things to keep them dry.
Living are had limited seating and was not somewhere you'd choose to want to spend much time.
A poor nights sleep caused by paper thin walls and lots of "boy-racers" practising on the streets outside and thena rubbish truck noisily doing its job at 5am. I was up at 6.30 am looking at the wot-if website to find somewhere else to stay the next night, I would rather forfeit my prepaid night and get decent sleep and some room and comfort.

Oaks Smartstay is a great new apartment hotel right near the centre of Christchurch. The studio apartment we booked was very modern, clean and in good condition. The reception staff were friendly and helpful. The in-room broadband is a reasonable price. The hotel is less than 10 minutes walk from Cathedral square. I would highly recommend this hotel, We got it on Wotif.com for $99/night.

We booked through their website and asked for a 1 bdrm apt. What we got was a 2 bdrm apt with one of the bdrms locked! Unusual.
We paid only $119 per nite, which is not too bad but it was very small, very basic and next to some very active pubs so was quite noisy.
The other thing that was a bit annoying was the fact that the beds are only doubles, I expected them to be at least queens and would make sure before booking again anywhere that they had queen beds as that contributed to not great sleep!
Not sure if I would go there again, we were there for 4 nights so perhaps we noticed more of the downside cos we were there for longer - it is very close to city and reasonably priced so for one night would probably be worthwhile trading off the downsides