Legacy Te Waonui Hotel Franz Josef

Stayed at Legacy Te Waonui Hotel for 2 nights over Christmas. Because it was Christmas the rates were quite high, over 1000 NZD a night. However, I was overall quite satisfied by my stay. The hotel is really the only luxury option in the area, so there's not much choice. With that said the rooms and service is generally up to standard. The room is large and quiet, and the bed is very comfy. On Christmas Day the dinner was a buffet, although personally I would have preferred a course meal. While there was some seafood, otherwise the spread was quite mid and the taste so-so. The same goes for the breakfast buffet spread. Although, given the remoteness of the location, I suppose this is expected. The full course meal at the dinner the next night was surprisingly good. Whilst not fine dining level (and it wouldn't be fair to expect that anyway), it was generally quite well presented, and tasted pretty good with a good selection of NZ ingredients like salmon or venison. Obviously the location is unbeatable, you can see the ice capped mountains from some parts of the hotel and there isn't a more convenient place to stay if you're coming to visit the glaciers.

Overall, we were very disappointed with the stay. Despite the hotel’s branding and pre-arrival messaging, the experience felt much more like a motel than an upmarket hotel, with noticeable gaps in service, maintenance and overall quality. What stood out: • Service: many staff struggled with English, which made even basic interactions difficult at times and gave the impression that requests weren’t always fully understood • Overall feel: very few thoughtful touches and no real sense of quality or refinement anywhere in the hotel • Breakfast: very basic and poor quality, well below expectations for the price point • Dinner: the strongest part of the stay and better than expected given the rest of the hotel, though still underwhelming versus the hotel write-up and pre-check-in expectations. The restaurant felt more like a dining hall and lacked atmosphere, with only the small outdoor terrace offering pleasant seating • Location: the main positive — proximity to Franz Josef Glacier and limited nearby alternatives are likely what drive demand Overall, the hotel relies heavily on its location rather than the quality of the experience. Without significant improvements to service, food quality and overall presentation, it doesn’t justify its positioning or pricing.

Excellent location! The hotel would deserve maybe a 4 1/2 stars! The hotel itself, and the rooms, not much to impress, but decent, apparently the best of what is available in Franz Josef. Staff very nice and friendly, except one that welcomed us and wanted to "ship" us to a nearby restaurant, because we arrived (from Christchurch) 30 minutes late to our reservation at hotel's restaurant! Fact is the restaurant of the hotel still had some tables available, when we checked. Restaurant which, by the way, even if it serves some fixed menus, offers food that is very good and tasty! Breakfast is very good, without being somptuous. Special thanks to Brenda, extremely nice and always ready to help, who promptly replied to our requests for reservations and helped with any of our inquiries. We felt in good hands! Overal I would recommend this hotel.

What an incredibly beautiful hotel, very luxurious and high end ! The food is beautifully prepared and delicious, the staff are very very nice and the rooms are beautiful. The rooms are more rustic than modern but still very tasteful and luxurious. We had a minor glitch with our reservation, but the manager James was incredibly gracious and went out of his way to make amends for the error. I highly recommend this property if you want a unique and upscale experience.

Stayed two nights in November 2025, very good experience, five stars when compared to other options, clearly the nicest place to stay in the area. Staff is very good, surprisingly so in such a touristed and remote area. Included breakfast is fine. Five-course degustation dinner was surprisingly good with lots of options and the chef's choice chocolate dessert is one of the best desserts I have had anywhere. Rooms are nice and hotel goes the extra mile with the little touches to set itself apart. Rooms are also wonderfully private even with blinds open due to lush central area. Once parked here you can walk to pretty much anywhere in the village, very convenient.

We stayed here for four nights, and could not have had a better experience. We had a room on the first floor with a balcony. Immaculately clean, with very comfortable beds. Staff outstanding, very friendly and very helpful. Service was brilliant. Breakfast was lovely, with lots to choose from. Location is fabulous, and as we were celebrating my mother's birthday, the staff went out of their way to make the stay incredibly special. If you stay in Franz Josef, be sure to stay here. Absolutely brilliant experience.

I really want to love this place, but it just falls short. The service is good. All of the staff are very young and inexperienced in life, they make up for that in their enthusiasm. And all the employees seem to be from somewhere else (Romania, India, Germany). It feels a bit like a cruise ship. We didn't find one kiwi on the staff at all. Anyway, here's the reason for the 3-star review. The value is just not there. We paid roughly about $1100 NZ dollars per night for our room which included breakfast and dinner, which were decent. However, this property is essentially a slightly upgraded roadside motel. To be fair, the rooms look out into a beautiful greenspace and are relatively well-maintained, but the walls are paper thin and you can hear everything your neighbors are doing. We could hear every word of their conversations and their coffee maker at 5.30am. I just expected way more for the price we paid. We have stayed at lots of places in NZ around this price point and you get a more luxurious experience than this.

Overall the hotel rooms and facilities are excellent and beautiful. We were only able to “kind of” stay one night, on Christmas Eve. By “kind of” I mean we were awakened at 11pm by a fire alarm, the entire hotel evacuated and sent over to the neighboring hotel lobby while the fire department cleared the hotel for safe re-entry. There was an actual fire incident, albeit small, but one nonetheless. To their credit, the staff did their utmost in calmly trying to herd a hotel’s size mob of half asleep confused people in all different levels of dress (I forgot to mention it was pouring rain) across the street, provide dry towels and warm beverages while waiting to get permission to re-herd everyone back to their rooms. I was impressed with how well the staff and management handled everything and did their best to accommodate our needs. I would definitely stay here again, but make sure to keep a rain jacket and umbrella ready to grab by the door.

This an amazing space near the glacier on the west side of the South Island. The rooms are contemporary overlooking nature with excellent amenities. It is a short walk to town or you can eat in the lovely restaurant on site. The beds are very comfortable and the linens are very luxurious. This Forest Retreat has been our highlight of our trip through New Zealand. The Scenic hotels are very special.

An absolutely stunning hotel located in Franz with great service and a really good breakfast. Its quite surreal to wake up and see little birds flying around and chirping right outside your balcony. The food is solid and the restaurant at the hotel was okay. Nothing that blew me out of the water though. I would go into Franz to eat (much cheaper).

Very cute forest retreat. Our room had a balcony overlooking a patch of rainforest. One of our neighbors saw a kiwi bird hop onto her balcony and hang around - super cool! While we did not get a kiwi encounter, we still enjoyed the digs. They do have possum pillows in each room. I felt it and it was soft, but then remembered it was possum fur and immediately tossed it onto the couch. Sorry, I just can't. The restaurant here is also very good. Overall, loved the experience!

Wow! Customer service doesn't get any better than this and its all due to Richard, manager extrodinaire, and his amazing team! We pulled up after driving 6 hours from Queenstown, and as the car stopped Richard was there to greet me. I felt like a celebrity with his warm welcome and friendliness. And then when I told him how disappointed I was that the weather wasn't cooperating, well, I think if could have changed the weather he would have! Instead, he suggested some bad weather activities ( like the hot pools or spa) gave me some free coupons and offered to be at my service in any way he could. . . . But instead of changing the weather ( which probably was out of his sphere of control), he introduced me to Mel who was a local and shared some culture with me, all the while getting my bags to my room and making sure I inderstood the nuances of that room. He and his colleague are dressed in native wear which makes you feel like you have really entered a special place! And he had no problem answering my questions about his tribe, his culture, and even offering up some personal info about his family which I found to be just delightful! My room was quite nice, overlooking the glacier, and was outfitted quite comfortably with a great bed, functional work area, bathroom with heated floor and free in room wifi and coffee. I also liked that they had a guest laundry on the first floor so I could get some laundry done while I was there. Tokens are available at the front desk for $5 a load ( wash or dry) for the laundry which is considerably cheaper than sending it out. Breakfast was included in my package and they had a great breakfast buffet which included both hot and cold items as well as fresh fruit, rolls and meats. And when it was time for me to leave, Richard was there again, this time offering me a complimentary book signed by the artist of beautiful pictures of New Zealand . . .what a thoughtful gesture to give that to me. While the hotel itself is nice, what made it stand out for me was the incredible level of care I got from Richard and his amazing team! If you have a chance to stay here, you should!

As good as it gets, Jay was amazing. This hotel was a highlight of our NZ trip. I booked our itinerary around the availability here and was not disappointed. The rooms are cozy but the bathrooms are large but comfortable with a private balcony and outside entrance. The service and the food were what really set it apart though. The food was included in our room fee and was superb - wine pairings, multi-course meals, inventive, eclectic offerings. I was floored by how good and varied the food was - like dining in an elegant, 5 star restaurant every evening. Breakfast is a buffet set up but had all that you'd want to select from - pastries, cereal, porridge, eggs, beans, fruits, yogurt, etc. Great coffee as well - French press. When we told them we had a bus to catch when we checked out they offered to pack us up a complimentary lunch box. They also drove us to the bus stop directly even though it was only a few minutes walk. They knew our names and greeted us cordially every morning and evening. The only downside was we had to do our own laundry but this ended up being a good thing since we decided to wash several loads for $5 - way cheaper than having a hotel wash it. The setting is tranquil and set just off the main path so still close to everything in FJ. We were celebrating our anniversary and they left us a chilled bottle of complimentary champagne. I could not have been happier with our stay here, only wished it could've lasted longer.

Given the name 'Forest Retreat', one might expect Te Waonui to be a bit more recessed and removed from the rest of the small village that springs to life during peak tourist season. However, it's just a quick turn off the main highway, and at night, you can hear the drunken reveling from outside the compound quite easily enough. It's a proper microcosm of our experience at Te Waonui, which I found overall to be a good experience but not quite worth the price (which clocks in at a pretty hefty level, much higher than the other accommodations in town). Getting checked in starts well enough, with a serving of kiwi juice and porters unloading your bags and parking your car for you. We also had a bottle of NZ-made Brut on hand, which was a nice gesture for what was merely a regular vacation (not a special occasion) for us. The only extension of this kind of service, though, is the turndown where you are brought water bottles and some chocolate truffles packed in individual boxes. The service at Canopy Restaurant (which I will review separately) was rather inattentive for a place styling itself to be fine dining, and otherwise the hotel staff were pretty much a non-entity. As for the room itself, it's a bit larger than your average room, but not noticeably so. The 'rain forest' that you look out upon is simply just a central area between all the rooms, and given that it is easily viewable by other folks from their window or balcony (which you would never stand on anyways given the amount of bugs during the summer), you will likely not have the blinds fully open while you are in the room anyways. Creating this illusion of being in a secluded rainforest adds to the drawback of the hotel design; we were put on the furthest side opposite the lobby, meaning that it was always a little bit of a hike (even if short) to get to the lobby to eat our meals, and as noted above, did not always entail peacefulness. The one positive is that you do have all of your meals taken care of ahead of time as part of the booking; as such, we never had to think or worry about breakfast or dinner. It was also nice to have a little bit of space and privacy. However, given the rather exorbitant price for even the base rooms here, I would question if I would stay at Te Waonui again if I come back to these parts. It seemed like a very steep price to pay for what is billed as luxury but did not quite come off as such.