We stayed at the CityLife in Wellington for 2 nights during our month self drive tour of NZ.
Our 1 bedroom suite (202) was very impressive - lounge with sofa and coffee table, proper kitchen including oven, bathroom (shower over bath) with a full size washing machine and tumble dryer above it (washing powder sachets provided), full size dining room table at one end of the lounge, bedroom (with bathrobes) and further ensuite toilet with washbasin off of the bedroom. The lounge and bedroom looked out across the shopping street of Lambton Quay.
The hotel's reception is effectively at the rear of the hotel and on the 6th floor, as the hotel is on a hill. From the shopping street at ground floor 0, there is no parking, only lift access up to the rooms and reception. if you have a car then the hotel guest parking is allocated bays within a public car park 100 metres up the little back road, but there are a few loading bays directly outside the hotel reception which we used to unload on arrival, and load when departing. Our travel agent had pre-paid the parking charge for us. Our room 202 was on the 2nd floor so we had to go up in the lift to get to reception and to retrieve the car, which feels odd but works fine! Otherwise we walked out via the shopping street, as the cable car pedestrian access is few a minute's walk to the left off Lambton Quay (get there early to avoid the queues!), using that to access Zealandia and the botanic gardens. The waterfront is a 10 min walk. We headed down to the waterfront early evening on our arrival in the warm sunshine and enjoyed drinks and food on the terrace of the Dockside restaurant and bar - it turned out they serve free roast lamb sandwiches on a Friday eve to customers - result!! Woolworths is close by on the same shopping street as the hotel for breakfast supplies.
There were takeaway delivery menus in the room and on the other night of our stay when we were tired we ordered Thai food - placing the order via a phone call to reception. It took an hour to arrive but it was delivered direct to our room.
A very comfortable stay with everything we needed. There were no issues with noise despite the hotel's central location - the shopping street was empty of cars and people in the evenings!
TOP TIP for guests like us who are moving on from this hotel via the Interislander ferry to Picton next morning: it's only 10mins drive, but best to do a route recce the day before when a ferry isn't in, as access is slightly confusing (not helped by SatNav - watch the road signs), and then finding the car rental drop off area is also a bit of a challenge, plus the drop off area isn't equipped to deal with the number of passengers/rental cars in high season. For your ferry departure, best to drive around in front of the terminal to drop the bags with one of you, whilst the other goes off to drop the rental car.