My family in NZ have a unit at Oakridge Resort Wanaka so this will focus on the apartments. They have “normal hotel rooms” but these are basically the rooms inside the apartments, so pretty much the same thing. First up location. As mentioned, Oakridge Resort Wanaka is about a 2-3 minute drive to the town of Wanaka, about a 15 minute walk.
It’s situated on the Crown Range Road that leads to Queenstown. You can’t see Lake Wanaka, but you can see a portion of the surrounding mountains. Not a bad view, but if you want something better you’ll need to consider something by the Lakefront like Edgewater or Lakeside Apartments.
To the apartments. I stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment which has a good size living room, kitchen, and two separate bedrooms (hotel rooms) upstairs. This is ideal for couples or a large family. The bedrooms are ok size but rather small if you were only taking the room. Probably fine for all but the most fussy for a night or two, but if you’re staying longer and spend a lot of time in your room when travelling, then they’re not huge. In my families unit we have a bed in the living room so the whole unit fits 6 adults and you can probably get some rollaway beds in there too.
Whenever I go back to New Zealand and in particular Wanaka, the first thing I do is head to the supermarket (after stopping for a pie), and go large on all the New Zealand food I sued to eat as a kid. So I didn’t eat much at Oakridge Resort Wanaka. Apparently the food is ok so give it a go. On the subject of food – if you’re after fish n chips in Wanaka, don’t get your hopes up. There’s a fish n chip shop next to the famous DoughBin (awesome pies, cakes, and stuff), but that’s absolute crap.
A new Fish n Chip shop has opened on Ardmore Street near the Four Square, but that’s not much better. The Thai restaurant on the corner is ok, if you haven’t Asian food for sometime, it’ll taste alright. I spent $200 in there and they shorted me a Pud Thai! So anyway, if you stay the apartments at Oakridge Resort Wanaka, go to the supermarket, get yourself some nice NZ Steak and other shit and just cook it back at the apartment.
Grobbler and I were just at Oakridge Resort Wanaka for 5 full days and we didn’t see much of the hotel with the exception of the swimming pool. Actually there’s two pools with some hotels surrounding them, and oh yeah, another “adult” lap pool, supposedly for adults only. It’s a good area, nice temperature and you can take food and drinks in there or order something from the bar.
The apartments have a grass area in front of them, and by grass area, I mean NZ grass area, not Hong Kong weeds in between some concrete grass area. You can play a bit of backyard cricket, do some kids olympics, and basically have a wicked time with kids. The pitch needs mowing and if you plan on having a serious NZ-Australia battle, this might not be the best option but for casual backyard cricket where commentary and sliding take precedence over the actual cricket, this is fine. You’ll probably lose a few balls in the bushes so stock up. You’ll have other hotel guests as spectators but it’s a bit like a rained interrupted game at the Basin, only a few will stay around to watch.
The house cleaning do an excellent job, especially considering the shambles we leave the place in so kudos to them. Overall Oakridge Resort Wanaka is not bad. Sure, it’s not right in the town, but there’s not many that are and the ones that are, can be pricey, certainly much pricier than Oakridge Resort Wanaka. If you don’t have a car or haven’t rented one, it’s probably not the best location, but if you do, then it doesn’t matter because nothing is far away. Just know that Wanaka can get busy during Xmas and particularly New Year.
If my parents didn’t have a place here, I’d still be happy to stay at Oakridge Resort Wanaka. Having said that honestly I’d probably end up at Wanaka Lakeside Apartments or Edgewater, which are on or near the lake, but if they were booked, I’d have no worries staying here again. The pool, grass areas, service and good are all good and you’re not going to find much to complain about here with the exception of the shower water pressure, which is a bit eager.
Send us any questions or comments you have about Oakridge Resort Wanaka via email or ask us on twitter.
Visit our Wanaka travel guide here.
