You may ask what dodgy or privileged situation might have led me to staying in a five star hotel within two kilometres of my home?  Well, helpfully my cousin managed to muck up her dates for staying at the Cordis on a non-refundable, pre-paid rate…so I selflessly stepped in to help her out the day after she left this fine city.

The Cordis, known to nearly everyone as “The Langham” or if you’re actually from Auckland, apparently also known as “The Sheraton” once upon a time in the early 2000’s, is home to one of Auckland’s nicest high teas to take your Mum to on Mothers’ Day.  Or, for baby showers, where everyone except the hapu one can swill champagne and eat delicious tiny morsels of tasty savouries, raw smoked salmon and fine patisserie. 

It’s also for the “classy” hen’s do, where you tell the mother in law and aunties that this is the “actual” do, when in fact there is a second event involving a bottomless brunch at Lula down in the Viaduct the following week – guaranteed to end by being denied entry to Dr Rudi’s and more woefully with a dilute vodka tonic nightcap, nasty sticky shoes and being hit on by a slurring, drunken 33 year old married guy at the only remaining option, Danny’s around 2.34am.

In any case, I was more than happy to see what my city had on offer for a five star staycation night during which I could use all the towels, order room service with a movie, and an apparently epic, indulgent spa.

So, the spa option didn’t quite work out.  Seems I should have tried to book a massage during my working day, instead of navigating the boring corporate beige-ness of standardised templates of torpor from the unimaginative and inexpressive pedants who are stifling creativity and individualism in my workplace. When I use the word beige, it’s not in a stylish Ralph Lauren way, it is seriously, averagely beige.   Silly me, I really should have called in sick, feigning dodgy squid from Sunday dinner at Amano.  But that would have been a huge disservice to the only place I go to when I don’t want to cook, especially when any dodginess after the fact is most likely due to copious amounts of their superb seasonal cocktails and not the high quality seafood.

But, I digress (I’ve had three Syrahs and two Negonis before starting this at 8.15pm).

When I checked in, I had every intention of ordering room service and plundering the mini bar from the comfort of the lush King-sized bed.  But an anthropological curiosity about who stays here during These Pandemic Times kicked in and I found myself drawn to the lobby bar, also called The Chandelier Lounge (there is actually an enormous chandelier), which is also home to the aforementioned baby shower High Tea before 4pm.  I also figured the lobby bar wine selection was far better than the room, and without the room service charge.

I have just levered myself out of the comfy cocoon of this bed (wearing the terry towelling bathrobe) to investigate the mini bar red wine situation. It’s a Babich Cabernet Merlot.  Not really my first choice after a few Craggy Syrahs from downstairs but thank fark it’s not the pedestrian nastiness of the Kopiko Bay “merlot” $12.99 supermarket offerings found in the likes of Palmerston North’s “premium” 3 star hotels i.e. the ironically-named “Distinction” and the Copthorne, which has somehow escaped being a Managed Isolation facility despite its averageness and availability.  Anyway, I can confirm this is not too bad a drop five drinks deep into my evening.   I had hoped they might have Laurent Perrier, because that was maybe the best minibar find ever the time I was in Bora Bora, but alas, not here.   It’s not a French hotel chain.

I do wonder what the rich people on the upper floor have in their fridges though.  Perhaps they go to the special club on the top floor instead, which is a ball-ache to have to leave one’s room.  I bet they don’t have Pringles though.  Maybe they have salty nuts?

Anyway, this is a review, so let’s start with the mini bar. There’s a pull-out top drawer with a soft-closing mechanism with the offerings laid out extravagantly, which contains the “heavy” stuff. The gin is Bombay Sapphire, the vodka Absolut and the whiskey Johnny Walker Black label. All of which are actually quite acceptable. In Palmerston North it is Gordons and Woodstock RTDs.

There’s Pringles! I was quietly relieved to find them. Every mini bar in averagely-corporate business hotels in every country I’ve travelled to has Pringles, and I would be quite surprised to not have the old late night salty snack that tastes close to date code, but you want it anyway when you need to consume unnecessary calories after drunkenly fake smiling your way through a work dinner, causing normal grimacing hurts for days after.

Anyway, let’s cut to the chase of the anthropological observations from the lobby and/or massive chandelier bar. 

Let’s be honest, Monday is an odd night to stay anywhere. I half expected to see lots of luxury label leisure suits, but in the end there was only one. It would seem that people from New Zealand travelling within New Zealand aren’t really down with that shit. No, it was an assortment of boomer couples spending their property investment earnings (clearly they cashed in before the ten year brightline rule came in), a couple of small work groups who were either in finance or IT based on the morbidly dull conversational fodder, and a couple of family groups who seemed a little uncomfortable at having a wee drinkie in a bar and disappeared relatively quickly. Perhaps it was the pricing, although the drinks list was better than most for a hotel, including their own Urbanaut craft beer.

There were also the Lion King attending out-of-towners. I knew this because they told everyone they were going. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I saw it twice overseas. The people who came from outside to dine at 8 the “fine dining food hall” were more fascinating. The restaurant concept is great – you can literally choose whatever cuisine you want and it’s all particularly good quality. It does appear to be a special occasion date night choice though, and daters on their special (Monday) night abounded. The daters were from across Auckland’s microcosms – it’s a similar group to those who go up the Sky Tower for special occasion dinners.

Oddly, there were a couple of people who brought their baby along to a date night restaurant at 8pm. Not going to judge too much, but it must have served as a contraceptive to the dating couples around them.

I was feeling somewhat disappointed that the international brand-bashing, perfectly manicured and coiffured overseas glitterati were no longer travelling to these fine shores to stay in places like this. Notably, One Direction did hole up here once on their world tour, blatantly avoiding their weeping teeny fans lining Symonds St.

Thankfully, around my third Syrah in, a beautiful Gucci-wearing and exceptionally fragrant extended family group turned up for dinner. They were all flawless. I think I saw a Birkin. I regretted wearing jeans, a biker jacker and my favourite brown daywear boots from two years ago. Nothing about their attire was Auckland mortgage friendly. They seemed to waft in on a magic carpet of style and grooming you really don’t see every day in the weekday downtown pedestrians of corporate drudgery. Even the ten year olds were impeccable. I watched on wondering if I should have packed a cocktail dress for the sole purpose of lobby drinks, but then reconsidered on the basis that a woman in such attire on a Monday would look like she was on the game. Sad, but true.

Style-wise I actually think the Cordis is quite understated compared to the five star glossy glam of hotels in Asia and China. It’s shiggy, but not in a brash way, which is absolutely fine. Some places are like walking into the sensory assault that is Sky City, which is just nasty, tacky, noisy glam. The Cordis is not that. There is a nod to art deco in some of the styling, but none of the under bed neon strip mood lighting of similarly tiered hotels across the seas from here. In fact, there wasn’t any LED strip lighting, which should be applauded.

This is a nice place to stay. It’s not overly glam, the bed is super comfy with decent thick memory foam-like pillows, and there’s none of the five-star tackiness of some of the hotels I’ve stayed in overseas. It was lovely just for a moment to see a glimpse of the fragrant glitterati that no longer travels here in These Pandemic Times.

I’m now in that space, similar to when I’ve drunk a lot of wine on a business class flight, watching movies I might not have chosen normally, and totally disjointed from my normal sleep space. But this time, there is a cocoon of a bed that I am about to snuggle into and room service breakfast awaiting me.

A very welcome night away from normal.