This will be a very quick and cursory review of the Crowne Plaza. We didn’t eat any meals there or use the gym or any other facilities. This was booked as a convenient place to stay in Christchurch for a night that was walking distance to restaurants and provided a place to park my rental car for the night.

I booked this stay with my IHG Annual Free Night Certificate, which covers up to 40k points. I added on 14k more points to cover the room. 54k IHG points is worth about $270 and the rooms were going for more than that when I booked, which was still lower than some other hotel options I looked at in Christchurch. I was glad to be able to use the Free Night Certificate for what looked like a fairly nice hotel from the pictures and reviews.

When we arrived around 4pm after first visiting a local beach, I asked about parking and they said that their small lot was full, but that I could park in the public parking lot across the street where they had about 14 spots reserved as Crowne Plaza overflow spots. I did that, but then didn’t get a chance to provide my license plate number to the hotel when I went back in as there was a line at the front desk. In the end, they didn’t charge me the $25 daily parking fee and I didn’t get any type of citation so I guess we’ll call that a win.

We were proactively upgraded to a King city view room thanks to my IHG Platinum status. Check-in was fairly quick and we were able to get up to our room and take a nap. The room was fairly standard, with the annoying glass window between the shower and bedroom, but we lowered the shade there and it was fine.

Views of Christchurch from the window were nice, but we quickly closed the curtains and closed our eyes for a couple of hours.

That evening, we walked to Riverside Market, a collection of food stands and bars which reminded me a bit of Time Out Market in Lisbon (but smaller). We ended up seeing a Chinese restaurant called Midnight Shanghai on the top floor and decided to sit outside and eat there.

The food and drinks were good as was the people watching. On the way there and back, we walked along the river and took some pictures of the murals, statues and buildings in the city center.

The next morning after a decent night’s sleep (except for me randomly waking up at 3am, checking the ongoing Liverpool match and seeing them lose before going back to sleep), we went to Belle, a coffee shop on nearby New Regent Street. We had some good coffee and a ridiculously indulgent peanut butter caramel banana bagel thing.

We checked out of the Crowne Plaza around 9am and left Christchurch. Overall, the Crowne Plaza was a solid place to stay as there’s plenty of restaurants and sightseeing places within close walking distance. We just needed a clean, quiet place to catch up on sleep and get ready for our further adventures and it met those requirements nicely.

Up Next: Driving from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo

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