A festive Wellington Airport staycation at Rydges Hotel
Can an airport be an ideal mini break destination?
On a wet and windy New Year’s Eve in New Zealand, the outdoor festivities and public fireworks planned in our home city, Wellington, somehow didn’t seem so appealing. Yet we felt like getting out and about and into the spirit of things. So we considered various options like New Year gala dinners and so on, but we’ve done this kind of thing before. We felt like doing something a little different. It was my better half who had the great idea for an airport staycation.
With thanks to Kath and Kel
To be fair, this brainwave was not entirely original. It was inspired by an episode of the hilarious Australian comedy show Kath & Kim, in which Kath and her husband Kel, meant to be heading away on holiday, were indefinitely delayed at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport. They ended up having just as much fun as if they’d been away, taking full advantage of the airport’s shopping and entertainment, even managing to slip into one of the business lounges to enjoy the free food and drink!
The idea of an airport staycation had a lot of appeal, not least because we happen to be aviation enthusiasts. So we packed our overnight bags and headed off to Rydges Wellington Airport, all of 5 km away from our home. Now I should point out that Wellington Airport is tiny in comparison with Tullamarine, and cannot compete with the amazing facilities over there in Melbourne. So did it have enough to offer for an overnight staycation? Here are our thoughts.
Close-ups of oil paintings by Peter Hackett at Rydges Hotel
Shopping
Shops are located along the eastern wall of the main terminal area. You can buy clothes, gifts, cosmetics, books and travel gadgets. There’s not a huge selection, but what I like is the focus on New Zealand brands – like Icebreaker, 3 Wise Men, Simply and the Te Papa store, a branch of the larger gift shop located at Te Papa Tongarewa – the Museum of New Zealand – in Wellington City.
You can spend a pleasurable time browsing through the artisan gifts, apparel, jewellery and homewares at these stores.
Entertainment
During previous visits to the airport we have enjoyed live music at one of the bars. But New Year’s Eve was a very quiet time at the terminal, with several outlets closed and most passengers having already left to get away to their destinations. However, there was one special attraction that we could still enjoy.
Wellington Airport Christmas Tree Festival
This takes place every year as a fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis research. Businesses, schools, sports clubs and organisations sponsor a tree, which they dress in a way that represents their brand or personality. Visitors can walk around and vote for their favourite. Some are very traditional, while others are rather more imaginative and ‘out there’.
We enjoyed wandering around to see the 60-plus Christmas trees and choosing our favourite. Most of the airlines that fly to Wellington were represented: Air New Zealand, Qantas, Jetstar, Sounds Air, Fiji Airlines and Origin Air. In the end, we both chose the same tree! We thought this fruity delight from Christmas Creatives was the stand-out.
My second favourite was an unusual tree by architects Archaus, featuring mini buildings on a wooden frame. My third was by the Welsh Dragon, a Wellington pub popular with expats. For their tree, the Welsh Dragon invited their expat patrons to write messages to people or things they missed back home. Some of these were written by children. They were funny and poignant. The concept certainly touched me, as a long time expat myself.
Art at Rydges Hotel
And now for the real surprise of our stay, that we didn’t expect: Rydges Hotel is a showcase of great New Zealand art! I overheard a corporate-looking guest, who no doubt has stayed in many such hotels before, exclaiming how impressed she was by the artworks. So was I. Why don’t they make more of this? Why does nobody refer to it in their reviews of the hotel?
In every other way, Rydges is a fairly typical mid-range chain hotel such as can be found all over the world. Modern, spacious, functional and understated – except in this one aspect that turns this one, at Wellington Airport, into something much more special.
The entrance leads you down a long, wide corridor with Rubens-like statues and a tardis. The lounge area has two stunning oversize impressionist oil paintings of wild flowers by Peter Hackett. On the opposite wall is a spectacular work by Jane Brimblecombe, called ‘Te Whanganui a Tara before tall ships’ (Te Whanganui a Tara is the Maori name for Wellington harbour). This hand-cut mirror mosaic reflects the the Peter Hackett paintings in a riot of colour.
The showcase extends to the hotel’s guest rooms. Each one has a one-of-a-kind specially-commissioned black and white photograph showing a New Zealand feature, building or landscape. The hotel’s conference area also has some wonderful photographs. They have been collected together in a book, a copy of which was provided for us to browse on our coffee table.
While it’s not unusual for hotels to display artworks, we had not expected such a bold statement as the Rydges collection makes. The hotel has surpassed itself in its effort to showcase its location and its artists with such pride.
Plane spotting
I mentioned earlier that we are aviation enthusiasts, and this is where Rydges really delivers! We booked a runway view room on the south-western corner of the fourth floor, which gave us a great view of Lyall Bay and the Cook Strait, the runway and part of the domestic flight gates area.
At the risk of boring the non-plane spotters among my readers, we enjoyed watching Airbus A320s, Boeing 737s, ATRs, Dash-8’s and Cessnas coming and going. We had a tantalising view of the parked Boeing 737 allegedly belonging to SnapChat founder Evan Spiegel, whose yacht had also been spotted in Wellington harbour a few days earlier. Nice. We also watched the surfers catching their last big waves of 2024.
After dinner – of which more later – we settled into our lovely comfy bed and tuned into Wellington Flights Live. This YouTube stream of arriving and departing flights, run by local enthusiast Kevin Eagles, was a special New Year’s Eve countdown edition, which even managed to catch some of Wellington’s midnight firework display over the top of Mount Victoria. Amazingly, it turned out that Kevin was streaming from the room next door to ours!
Food and drink
On a normal day, there’s a wide selection of cafes, bars and food outlets at the airport serving different types of cuisine. As with the shops, there’s plenty of local representation: Wellington craft beers such as Parrot Dog, Double Vision and Garage Project from the Tuatara Bar; Wellington coffee from Mojo – best coffee in the whole world in my opinion – and even vegan bakery delights from Belén. Being New Year’s Eve, not everywhere was open, including Rydges’ own main restaurant, Whiskey Lima Golf.
Luckily, our favourite bar in the airport – Peloton, which is part of Rydges – was open. We love Peloton for its views, its relaxed vibe and its friendly staff, so much so that it’s probably our favourite bar in all of Wellington. So we were only too happy to defect to Peloton for our New Year’s Eve dinner. Best of all, the usual menu had been extended for the festive season, so there were new dishes to try. I decided to go for pork loin chop marinated in cider and brown sugar, served with black garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. It was absolutely delicious.
Next morning, gales were still blowing and rain was hammering against our windows. Thanks to triple glazing we didn’t hear a thing, not even when the jets were taking off outside. After a bit of plane spotting we headed downstairs for a delicious buffet breakfast. All too soon it was time to check out and make our 10-minute journey home.
Final thoughts
We really enjoyed our airport staycation and were pleased we’d done it. As we’re regular visitors to Wellington airport, there was a comfortable familiarity to our stay, but then there were the unexpected surprises too – the amazing art show at Rydges and Kevin’s livestream from the room next door. All of which added up to a perfect New Year’s Eve of great entertainment, food and wine and luxury!
Given the terrible weather, we were happy to be tucked into a very comfortable hotel room with good amenities and lots going on outside.
Timing
New Year is both a good time and a bad time to travel, wherever you are in the world. Fun festivities and special events may be happening, like the Christmas Tree Festival. However, Wellington in January is a little bit like Paris in August – everyone goes off on summer holidays and many businesses close for days if not weeks. So there are pros and cons to weigh up, depending on what’s important to you.
Weather
Wellington’s weather is notoriously unpredictable, even in summer. The nice thing about our staycation was that the weather didn’t matter!
Where to stay – Rydges
We really enjoyed staying at Rydges. It’s currently the only hotel in New Zealand housed within an airport terminal. Access is easy, either via escalator from the main terminal level 1 or an overbridge from the covered carpark. Its style is neutral and corporate, but with a touch of bling and extravagance here and there that really stands out, especially in the public areas.
If you are travelling, Rydges is well geared up for guests taking the ‘red-eye’ early morning 6 o’clock flights to Australia. You can check in for your flight down in the terminal, then go back up to the hotel for your breakfast! And if you’re flying in on the very late night flights from Sydney or Melbourne, it’s nice to roll off the plane and into bed without having to worry about finding an Uber.
Rydges Wellington Airport
If you’re a plane spotter, we can recommend room 415. Kevin tells us that room 416 is pretty good too. And yes, that is a tardis at the end of the corridor in the photo, for time travellers!
If you’re interested in an airport staycation in Auckland, we recommend the following hotels located next to the international terminal:
Pullman Auckland Airport
Lovely hotel with tastefully decorated rooms and interior design featuring Maori motifs. The 9th floor bar and restaurant has great views of the runway and Manukau heads.
Novotel Auckland Airport
Right next door to the Pullman is the more affordable Novotel. We have not stayed here but Kevin tells me that there are some great runway view rooms on the higher floors.
If you’re spending more time in Auckland, why not check out our post One day in Auckland – 8 top activities for slow travellers? For more posts on Wellington, New Zealand and this part of the world in general, check out our Oceania page.
More hotel art in WEllington
As gallery space becomes increasingly less affordable, more hotels are stepping in to fill the gap. The partnership makes sense – hotel guests get to enjoy great art, while artists get the chance to be seen by a captive group of viewers. DoubleTree by Hilton Wellington is collaborating with the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts to provide an Artist Showcase in 2025.
This post is not sponsored by Wellington Airport or any of the businesses mentioned. However, we are affiliates of Booking.com which means that if you use our links above to book any of the hotels, we receive a small commission which helps keep this site going.
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