My AirBnB experience on way to Hobbiton New Zealand aka AirBnBallin’

Introduction

I realize yesterday I wrote about how I don’t like to stay at AirBnB while I’m traveling…  well I broke that rule on my last trip.  But there are good reasons – 1. there was no chain hotel where I was looking and 2. the AirBnB was so nice that I’ve coined it AirBnBallin’ (I’m sure someone must have come up with this before.)

This AirBnB location was located mid-way between Auckland New Zealand and where the Hobbiton set resides.  I originally was going to just spend 3 nights in Auckland (and wake up and drive 3 hours down to Hobbiton and 3 hours back to Auckland,) but realized it was just better to drive straight from the airport to this AirBnB in Hamilton, New Zealand.  This way, it’s just an hour to Hobbiton and I can book the first time slot available, then drop off the car back to the Auckland airport, and then take an UberX into downtown Auckland (to use up those $10 off $20 Uber credits.)

 

Finding the AirBbB

Essentially, I looked on the New Zealand map for Hobbiton and saw this:

Note that Auckland is about 2 hours northwest of this map.  Sure, I could have stayed in Cambridge, but a) Hamilton was a bigger city and b) it was only an hour away.  If Hamilton was 2 hours away, I probably would have picked Cambridge.  And that’s why I looked at AirBnB locations in Hamilton.

This listing caught my eye immediately – airbnballin.  Just look at it.  That’s when I realized the perfect use of AirBnB – go with a home that is so ridiculously awesome that it trumps a chain hotel.

 

The house

So I contacted the owner and she mentioned that if we wanted to upgrade to the ‘honeymoon suite,’ it’d be an extra $100 NZD when I showed up.  I asked her if I could pay with that via AirBnB, but she couldn’t figure out how.  I told her we’d decide when we got there.  Anyway, on the day of arrival, this is what we drove up to:

Thank goodness it looked just like it did in the listing.  Anyway, the owner wasn’t home, but her daughter showed us in.  She explained to us that the original owners were from Japan and Europe, and so the husband wanted to build a European style home for his wife.  Eventually they moved back to Europe or Japan.

Anyway, while waiting for the daughter to get our room ready, she let us go outside to feed the alpacas and ponies, which was a pretty fun experience.

 

Our Room

Eventually our room was ready and so I’ll leave you with the pictures.

 

We thought the room was a bit nicer than what we had paid for, but didn’t bother to ask.  We went into the city to eat dinner that night, and it turns out Hamilton was a lot bigger and more touristy than we thought.  Our Hobbiton tour was the next day at 9:30, and so we’d have to leave by around 8 or so.  We woke up at around 7:30 and was ready to leave when the daughter told us, “Ehh, my mom said something about paying $100 for the upgraded room.”  DOUGH!  At the end of the day, I think it was still worth the $100 NZD upgrade, but I wish the daughter had told us that when we were checking in.

 

Conclusion

So I realized the perfect use of all my AirBnB GC’s – if there’s a chain hotel, I’m staying in there.  If there isn’t one, then I’m just going to overpay and stay in a really nice AirBnB versus a cheap one that looks like my uncle’s house.