Terms and Conditions of Amber House Limited trading as:
AMBER HOUSE - at the centre!™
Bed and Breakfast Guest House (B&B) in Nelson city centre, New Zealand

Should I take the time to read all this tedious small print?

Absolutely!
Legal documents can make for dry reading, but the one below really matters if you wish to have a harmonious stay.
So whether you are new to Amber House or one of our long-term or frequent guests, please take the time to get to know our policies and avoid any unintended consequences.

Absolutely NO SMOKING!
If you are a smoker, you may not stay at Amber House.
Also, and because of children, smoking is *not* allowed inside or outside of Amber House.
If you flout this policy and do smoke within the curtilage of Amber House, then you will be charged appropriate cleaning and loss of income charges together with liquidate damages if an explosion [either of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) or the children's parents] results.

All our house guests may help themselves freely to Anzac biscuits, coffee, tea [perhaps organic Castlereigh, Darjeeling, Camomile, Lemon & Ginger, cranberry, raspberry & elderflower or caffeine-free herbal], spring water, Milo and milk.
Those guests who have paid the Balcony Suite or Gold, Blue, Rose and Green Room tariffs may also help themselves freely to fruit juice [typically orange and apple but sometimes pineapple or boysenberry], at any time and from breakfast items [a choice of at least six to fill your bowl from cereals like ricepops, cornflakes, Weetbix, etc and two different mueslis], bread, honeys, Rose's Lime Marmalade, Rose's English Breakfast Marmalade, Rose's Sweet Orange Marmalade, Rose's Ginger Marmalade, butters [dairy and peanut], chutneys and Marmite in Amber House's guest dining room between 04:00hrs and 10:00hrs.
Guests who have paid the Balcony Suite or Gold, Blue and Rose Room tariffs may also help themselves to FRUIT [depending on season we may have spray-free apples, oranges, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, strawberries, kiwi fruit and bananas], walnuts [we've the oldest English Walnut tree in the South Island] any time.
All guests should eat and drink either our or their own food and beverages there in Amber House's guest dining room any time [but very quietly between 21:30hrs at night and before 07:30hrs in the morning] and not in bedrooms. A fridge and toaster for guests' use is also available in the dining room.
Seifried wines are available to purchase.
Please do not take our stuff away to your car or eat in your bedroom.
We can provide packed lunches, picnic hampers, evening meals, etc, on request.

If you'd like a FREE COOKED BREAKFAST having paid the Balcony Suite or Gold, Blue and Rose Room tariffs at Amber House, please tell Mila exactly what you wish to eat and how you'd like it cooked the afternoon before and also agree the time between 07:58hrs and 09:20hrs that it be served.
[Exception:guests that are either being collected by Wilsons Abel Tasman at 07:45hrs or who have booked with us boat transfers or trips may usually arrange to have the hot part of their breakfast on the dining room table at 07:32hrs]
Mila knows Irish, Italian, Vizayan, Fukien and a little Spanish and Swiss cuisine but is eager and interested to learn new dishes.
Guests who have not paid the Balcony Suite or Gold, Blue and Rose Room tariffs may avail of an uncooked breakfast for $8 per breakfast and a cooked breakfast, fruit and juice upon payment of an additional $17 per breakfast [reduced to $9 for guests who have paid the Green Room tariff [where an uncooked breakfast is already included].

CHECK-IN is only by prior agreement - usually between 14:00 to 21:30hrs on the day of arrival; check-OUT time should typically be between 07:30 and 10:30hrs on the day of departure - other times by prior arrangement (if you wish to leave earlier than 07:30hrs in the morning, please hand back your keys, etc the previous evening).
B&B's in New Zealand do not have desk clerks on duty round-the-clock to await your arrival, so it is vital that the family knows what time to expect you. We have daily family affairs to attend to, but will have re-arranged our schedule to accommodate your mutually agreed check-in time — so your arrival time is extremely important! If this time changes either way by 30 minutes, please notify us as soon as you are aware of the change. Otherwise, we probably won't be here to greet you.
If your arrival time is unpredictable we can arrange to have your keys left in a key safe to the right of Amber House's front door.
It's really important that you now send us the phone number of the mobile phone you will be carrying on the day you arrive [and keep it switched on] so we can update each other with any last minute developments. [You usually won't pay any international roaming charges to RECEIVE text/SMS messages in New Zealand even if your cell phone is registered overseas...]

We very much prefer you to pay us in cash in full for any balance remaining in respect of your reservation when you arrive at Amber House and we complete the register. Upon arrival, there is also a fully refundable, cash deposit of $20 per set of room/house keys and this is refunded in cash when you return the keys.
[VISA or MasterCard details are required to confirm a booking, but Amber House Limited (as distinct from any agent chosen by the guest] usually does not debit cards prior to the agreed guest arrival date. We ourselves will obtain pre-authorisation or merely hold card details pending guest arrival and with the cardholder's explicit agreement that the quoted card details used to confirm the booking will be passed to our agents to be debited to settle the account if there are any outstanding unpaid charges after the guest departure date that was originally booked or, in the event of cancellation, if a cancellation is made. In this event, and if no other form of payment is forthcoming, a card surcharge of 10% together with any administrative, recovery and collection charges will apply.]
All prices quoted by Amber House Limited are for immediate cash settlement and include all applicable taxes, levies and service charges. Tipping is not common practice in New Zealand, "Thank you" is all that is expected - even for exceptional service. The overwhelming majority of our guests sensibly reserve their stay by giving us MasterCard or VISA details and then avoid the card surcharge of 10% levied by Amber House Limited by paying in cash when they arrive.

BICYCLES may be hired from Amber House Limited for $20 per day upon a deposit of $200 depending on availability.
You may request that your own bicycle, tandem, motorcycle, or kayak be put into our garage [at your own risk] depending on space available.
If you are given permission to bring a vehicle down Amber House's drive, there are young children about so please observe the 7 km/h [4 mph] speed limit for motorised vehicles at Amber House!

For each CANCELLATION or change of date/room required there will always be an administration charge of $6 levied by Amber House Limited [as distinct from your Agent].
There will be no additional cancellation fees levied by Amber House Limited [as distinct from your Agent] if 31 days or more notice is given to Amber House Limited and, if we can later replace the booking, we may refund cancellation fees (but NOT the administration charge of $6) back to your card.
These cancellation fees will apply in addition to the administration charge of $6:-
10% of the original agreed payment will also still be required if only 14 to 30 days notice is given;
30% payment if 6 to 13 days notice is given;
50% payment if 3 to 5 days notice is given;
70% payment if 1 to 2 days notice is given;
85% payment if less than 24 hours notice is given.
110% payment is contractually required if you simply don't show up within 2 hours of your advised arrival time without any prior notice to us at all
[and without reasonable excuse - since we will be worried you've had an accident and may be phoning the police and hospitals and postponing our usual bed-time!]
We strongly recommend guests take out travel insurance to protect themselves against any unexpected changes to their travel plans and we trust you will appreciate that our cancellation policies, as specified above, are more liberal than most New Zealand B&B's.

Visitors are permitted at the Amber family's discretion.
The person that made the original booking is responsible - both financially and practically - for the behaviour of all the guest members of their party and visitors while they are at Amber House. No visitors are allowed in guest bedrooms between 21:30hrs and 08:00hrs unless they are duly registered as house guests. (If we ever have our first fire, we will need to know exact numbers of occupants to make sure that everybody has been safely evacuated...)
There is a guest dining room and tables and chairs on the front verandah adjoining the rose garden where we very much prefer that you eat and drink and entertain any visitors.

A 12 year old girl and an 11 year old boy usually live at Amber House but there are no other pets
CHILDREN are charged the same as adults by Amber House Limited if booking directly except that one or more infants still being breast-fed by their mother [who is a paying guest at Amber House] are neither charged nor listed in the booking.
[Your Agent's policies may differ].

We will STORE your BAGGAGE FREE [but at your risk, not ours] until you return to spend at least one more night with us [if you are visiting the Abel Tasman National Park or touring the South Island, perhaps].

DAMAGE will be charged appropriately - plus the costs associated with inappropriate behaviour or deliberate or reckless acts or omissions.

We reserve the right to dishonour reservations made by third parties [persons natural or legal that are not actually staying at Amber House and not a member of the Amber family or an employee of Amber House Limited] if we subsequently discover that the actual guest(s) staying at Amber House is unaware of our policies, terms and conditions [as outlined on this website] because of the negligence of that third party. In this event we will continue to hold the original third party that reserved the accommodation responsible for all charges incurred, together with the recovery of costs associated with the inappropriate behaviour or deliberate or reckless acts or omissions of the guest(s) that the third party reserved accommodation for.
We also reserve the right to dishonour reservations where we have not received satisfactory answers to pertinent questions [eg: statement address of card holder, time and method of arrival, mobile number, etc] within a reasonable timescale.
[In more than 100 years of taking in house guests, we have never had a theft by or from a guest at Amber House and we do require ALL guests to state their full name, residential address, etc, prior to arrival and to sight photographic ID such as passport or driving licence at check-in to help maintain this record.]

AMBER HOUSE - at the centre!™ is a trademark and is used under licence by Amber House Limited [and other licensees during each winter].
By writing in our guestbook (either physically at Amber House or in the on-line version at tinyurl.com/Guestbook-AmberHouse ) you agree to assign the copyright in your writings there to Adam Amber. New Zealand intellectual property law protects your rights to both be attributed as the author and to object to derogatory treatment of your comments. Usually we partially anonymise your name and correct any typos when we publish these comments on our own website and elsewhere - so please tell us if you do NOT want anonymisation and/or typographical corrections!
Amber House Limited is a small family business and is not registered for GST and does not charge GST.

E&OE: this summary of our policies, terms and conditions must be read with the proviso that any errors and omissions are to be excepted and that the version current and published at
http://www.amberhouse.co.nz/policies.html
supercedes and replaces any older and/or differing version.
By submitting a reservation request or by visiting Amber House, you are agreeing to all these Terms and Conditions and that New Zealand law applies and irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of New Zealand Courts for the determination of any disputes that may arise.