Creel Tackle House & Cafe
Reviews
I have stayed for two nights and felt like home. Awesome place all around. Would definitely recommend and stay again. Wifi services could be improved.
We stayed at two motels on this trip, so I'm going to do a direct comparison. Creel Lodge has a qualmark of 4 stars. The other motel, in Te Kuiti, has 4 1/2 stars. Creel Lodge was $20 cheaper than the other motel. At Creel Lodge we had a full kitchen with full-sized oven and kitchen sink. The other motel had a microwave and toaster and no kitchen sink - we had to rinse cups in the bathroom which seemed a bit icky. Creel Lodge had a very nice garden setting with attractive barbeque facilities, no traffic noise and the river at the bottom of the garden. It was conducive to staying a while. The other motel had a row of doors around a carpark and was more like a storage facility to store humans overnight. At Creel Lodge you could go out for tea and keep the heating turned on to keep the place warm. With the other motel you had to turn off the power in order to lock the place. Creel Lodge had some small friendly touches - the units are named after fishing flies, there was a pack of playing cards supplied in the room and there was a lounge suite. The other motel was utilitarian with no lounge suite. The other motel had king sized beds, which are a lot better if you have to share a bed. Creel had queen. We were given a 300ml carton of milk at Creel, but were given two 300ml cartons of milk at the other motel. We weren't able to successfully use wifi at Creel - couldn't get the newspaper or googlemaps to download. When we stay at Turangi again, we won't bother looking for any other motels - we would stay at Creel again. When we stay at Te Kuiti, we'll probably have a shop around. And there ends the comparison.
What a perfect place to stay. Accomodation is clean and comfortable, The owner and managers are friendly and helpful. Walk through the beautiful landscaped gardens and exit through a secret gateway to the shores of the magical Tongariro River. My husband loved the close proximity of the fishing and I loved the quiet peaceful walks. Will definitely recommend to others and will definitely be back again.
