The Standard and Executive rooms are just fine (I think “executive” is the same size as “standard” but on a higher floor), but the true value are the Deluxe rooms — large corner rooms with wraparound balconies and great views of the harbor and esplanade. There are two per floor (the hotel has 11 floors); their room numbers end in 01 and 02.

I stayed five nights over three separate visits and decided I prefer the 02 side, as it received more of the morning sun and seemed cooler in the afternoons, but the 01 side had the same furnishings and was the same size.

All rooms have balconies; the even-numbered rooms have a harbor view. It is well priced: Standard room, AU$185 (near US$117); Executive, AU$215 (US$136), and Deluxe, AU$255 (US$161).

When I booked three consecutive nights’ stay via their website, they gave me a free Continental buffet breakfast (AU$18); the full buffet breakfast cost AU$25 (US$16).

The hotel also has a Brazilian churrasco-style restaurant, the Bushfire Flame Grill (prix fixe about $50), but I didn’t try it since I was never that hungry. There were lots of good seafood and steak restaurants nearby on the Esplanade.

The only tour groups I noticed at the hotel were Japanese. This hotel was a great find, and I’d love to stay there again.

ESTHER PERICA
Arlington Heights, IL

This hotel is a must — perfect service, perfect facilities and perfect location, with views of Lake Rotorua. Novotels are very well managed and I highly recommend them. My wife, Eva, and I stayed at the Novotel in Queensland a year earlier and experienced the same type of fabulous service, facilities and location.

Rotorua itself was not so much of a “must,” we felt. There were lots of ethnic eateries and gifts shops — lots of activity. The Te Puia Maori Cultural Centre (phone +64 7 348 9047, www.nzmaori.co.nz — open daily 8-5. Admission, tour and concert for NZ$50 [$26] adult or NZ$25 child) offered guided tours, craft demos and a walk to view the hot, bubbling mud pools and geysers. We were not impressed.

We were impressed with our dinner at Ali Baba’s Kebab takeout (1146 Tutanakei St.; phone 07 348 2983). A one-man hole-in-the-wall operation run by a man from Tunisia whose English is perfect.

The food is inexpensive and really good. You sit and watch him put together your lamb-and-veggie wrap “kebab” or a salad made to order. Lamb and chickens rotate under the hot lights. No alcohol is served, but this place is a “must.” We liked it so much, we ate there both nights of our stay.

ROBERT A. RINGGENBERG
West Chester, OH

I recommend this pension highly. Rooms each have air-conditioning, cable TV and a bath with hot-water shower. There are only 14 rooms, so reservations are a necessity.

There is a restaurant on the premises, and after a long day of sightseeing it is possible to order room service.

Rates were reasonable at PHP1,200 (near $25) per night for two persons, including breakfast.

ANITA LEES
Vista, CA

The hotel is on a relatively quiet street just off of the busy Via Nazionale with its convenient bus stops. The lobby is up a flight of stairs from the main entrance of a large, elegant structure that was once a palace.

The Aberdeen has an upscale look and feel to it, is nonsmoking and was spotlessly clean. The English-speaking front desk staff was unfailing friendly and well organized during our 5-night stay in February ’08. We paid an off-season rate of €90 ($138) per night (including taxes and breakfast) for our double room. The usual room rate was listed as €150 ($230).

When booking via e-mail we requested a quiet room, and upon arrival that request was honored; we were provided a room facing a rear courtyard, away from the street. The interior walls were a bit thin, but we didn’t experience much noise from the adjacent rooms.

Our room was decently sized, comfortable and well lighted. It included a bathroom en suite plus AC, TV (only CNN and MTV in English), telephone, free safe and a reasonably priced mini-bar. The bathroom featured a hair dryer and a large, steam-heated towel rack that was great for drying laundry.

Breakfast was served from 7 to 10. A selection of yogurts, cereals, fresh rolls (often not delivered until 7:30), fresh (but too sweet) croissants, fruit, jams, ham and cheese were offered.

In a separate room were two computers with free, high-speed Internet access. However, one of the computers ran Windows 98, greatly limiting its capabilities.

We were quite pleased with our overall experience with Hotel Aberdeen, which provided a welcome escape from Rome’s hustle and bustle. It was certainly an excellent value at the rate we paid; two other nearby hotels, ranked lower on TripAdvisor.com, were charging the same rate.

STEPHEN O. ADDISON, Jr.
Charlotte, NC

We paid €118 (about $180 in June ’08) for two people for a spacious room with a balcony facing the lake. The included breakfast was a full buffet.

We had dinner at the hotel one night for €18 per person ($28). It included a salad bar, melon, choice of entrée and dessert. This was one of our best meals in the three weeks we spent in Germany and Austria.

The owners are a young couple and run the hotel themselves. The wife does most of the cooking and baking. She made pastry, cake and bread daily. They both speak English and could not do enough for us. We were the only Americans staying there at the time.

They gave us the use of a Kartan card, entitling us to free admission to many sites and museums, including Minimundus, which is a miniature villiage of major sights in various countries, such as the Great Wall of China, the White House, the Statue of Liberty and so on.

We visited the quaint towns of Klagenfurt and Villach as well as Hochosterwitz Castle, perched high on top of a mountain.

Velden is about a 4-hour drive from Vienna and two hours from Salzburg. Northern Italy and Slovenia each are about a one-hour drive away.

GERALD BITMAN
Lake Worth, FL

• Derag Hotel Max Emanuel (Rabelstraße 10, 81669 München; phone +49 [0] 89 4 58 30 0, fax 58 30 815, www.deraghotels.de) offered lots of freebies, many more than you’d ever expect from a 3-starred property.

There was free Internet in the lobby, along with coffee and iced tea and fruit. Our rooms offered coffee and tea service as well as daily complimentary bottled water and even, if you can imagine, beer.

The sauna and solarium in the basement were amazingly bright and sunny.

My room, at €89 (near $141), was on a park and had a little balcony. Some rooms faced the street, but the area was residential and quiet.

At night, a little bag of Gummi sheep was placed on my pillow. One student, Allison Barnett, said that she liked the blue rubber ducky in her shower and that her bed was “really comfy.”

Breakfast, included in the price, was an amazing buffet of rolls, breads, cheeses, meats, salads, yogurt, fruit, cereal, eggs and pastries.

The hotel’s only flaws were its stained carpets and that the hallways could be noisy and echo when people came in late at night.

The hotel was given a bad rating on www.TripAdvisorcom. I disagree. I would stay at Derag Hotel Max Emmanuel again.

• In the hotel zone of Berlin, an area filled with cafés, we stayed at the 3-star Hotel Heidelberg (Knesebeckstraße 15, 10623 Berlin; phone +49 [0] 30 313 01 03, fax 313 58 70, www.hotel-heidelberg-berlin.de).

The hotel was a bit creaky and worn. While it was a true 3-star hotel (no freebies here!), the rooms were clean and many had balconies overlooking the city. €59 ($93) included breakfast, which was a nice but smaller version of what we’d enjoyed in Munich.

The ladies who manned the desk were helpful.

• One restaurant that we loved, just two blocks from the Heidelberg, was Pizzeria Amico (phone 030 318 062 70) at the corner of Goethestraße and Grolmanstraße.

I popped in at 7:30 to see if our group could come to dinner at 8. Pedro, the owner, warmly welcomed us and we had a private room with a long table and candles.

The pizzas were crispy and cheesy and topped with all sorts of unusual items like tuna, carrots and shrimp. It cost €7-€10 for a one-person plate-sized pie. The tiramisu and panne cotta were delicious (€6-€8). We ended the meal with a round of complimentary amaretto from the lovely restaurant owner.

Student Kathy Reece wanted to return and eat dinner there again because “It was the best restaurant of the trip!”

JENNIFER EISENLAU
Longmont, CO

The City Lodge (150 Vincent St., Auckland, New Zealand; phone 64 9 379 6183, www.citylodge.co.nz), where I stayed for a week, Jan. 31-Feb. 7, 2008, is in the heart of Auckland, a 5-minute walk from the free bus or from the Sky Tower.

It bills itself as a hostel (it has a common room with cooking facilities and high-speed Internet), but it is more like a hotel.

The rooms are small but clean, airy and cheerful. All have en suite bathrooms, and shampoo and soap are furnished. The closet held my week’s worth of clothing and the cabinet in the bathroom, my toiletries.

There was a TV, a good-sized refrigerator, a hot pot and a daily supply of tea, instant coffee and milk. There was heating but no A/C, which, even though it was the height of summer, I did not need.

The staff was friendly and helpful.

From NZ$65 for a single room, NZ$95 for a double, NZ$105 for a triple (US$50, US$73 and US$81, respectively). I booked my room from www.hostels.com.

BRITA BISHOP
Dallas, TX

My wife, Jane, and I stayed there for one week in March ’08. Our room cost $106 per night and I felt that we received good value for the money.

The rooms were comfortable and clean.

The buffet breakfast, included in the room price, was fantastic. It included pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, deviled eggs, tuna fish, herring, coleslaw, tomatoes, pickles, cucumbers, lettuce, delicious breads, cold cereal, chocolate croissants, cheese and fresh fruit such as grapefruit and apples. The breakfast staff was quite attentive and friendly.

All of the people at the front desk were very helpful whenever we asked for information. They tried hard to please.

We also received attention and information from the hotel owner, Ariela Schmida-Doron. She was extremely solicitous of us. In all of the hotels we have stayed at in many countries, we have rarely ever even met the owner of the hotel. She and the staff gave the hotel a homey feel.

The hotel could not be better positioned for public transportation. Located next to the hotel is the Central Bus Station where one can catch out-of-town buses. Even with heavy bags, there was no problem getting to the station — no stairs.

From the hotel, 15 to 20 local bus lines were just a minute or two away and down one flight of steps. A 10-minute bus ride brought us to several wonderful restaurants on Yoel Solomon Street.

We also took several day trips from Jerusalem to other parts of Israel. When doing an independent trip, the convenience of being so close to public transportation is a big plus.

Because of our pleasant experience in Israel, we plan to return in two or three years. When we do, we will surely choose the Jerusalem Gold.

KEVIN O’BRIEN
Savannah, GA

Since our first criterion was an apartment that slept nine, we had only a few options available, although there were many apartment choices if our group had been smaller. Never having been to Rome before, we used a map of the major sites and tried to find a location close by. And were we fortunate! At a price of €380 (near $598) per night, we found the perfect place for much less than what hotel rooms would have cost.

We arrived by ship at the port of Civitavecchia and through Rome Connection (www.romeconnection.com) had prearranged for a van to transport us to the apartment (€120, or $189, for the first two persons and €10 for each additional).

Since it was a Sunday, we had to pay an extra 25-euro fee to the building manager to be met and admitted, as the apartment was actually on the upper floor of an office building.

Reached after entering a large reception hall, the tastefully furnished apartment offered four bedrooms, two full baths, an eat-in kitchen and a huge living room/dining room (one daughter chose to sleep there rather than share a room with the grandchildren). There was a washing machine and dryer (both welcome after our 14-day sea voyage) and a fully equipped kitchen.

We did have some challenges using the unfamiliar cooking implements and lighting the gas oven, and when all the electricity in the apartment went out the first evening, we couldn’t find a control panel. However, when we called our English-speaking contact person, someone eventually came to trip a switch in the basement so we had lights again.

All of us were very pleased with the location. We were near the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain plus a supermarket. Bus and metro service was only two blocks away. Situated on the corner of two central streets, Via Crispi and Via Tritone, our unit had a wraparound view of both thoroughfares, which made for excellent people-watching.

Being adventuresome, most of us walked all over the central part of Rome, from the Colosseum to the Borghese Gardens to Piazza Navona.

Staying there put the finishing touch on a great vacation.

ETHEL BRODIE
Discovery Bay, CA

• Il Casolare di Libbiano (Loc. Libbiano 3, 50053 San Gimignano [SI], Italy; phone/fax 0039 0577 946002, www.casolarelibbiano.it) is a charming farmhouse eight kilometers from San Gimignano in Tuscany. The inn has its own vineyard and vegetable garden, lovely views and a nice swimming pool (in season).

The inn has five double rooms and two suites. Our room and bath were modern and comfortable and we had access to an adjacent lounge.

We opted for half board (breakfast and dinner) at €160 ($240) per night and enjoyed the delicious 4-course dinner provided, although without a menu choice. A double room with only breakfast cost €120 ($180) per night.

The owners were charming and the service was wonderful.

• Hotel Cannero (28821 Cannero Riviera, Lago Maggiore, Verbania, Italy; phone 0039 0323 78 80 46, fax 80 48, www.hotelcannero.com ) is a lovely, small hotel of 55 rooms in two adjoining buildings directly on Lake Maggiore, the closest lake to Milan in the Lake District. The boats that tour the entire lake, including the northern end, which is in Switzerland, stop at the dock in front of the hotel.

The hotel is beautifully furnished and has an especially nice dining room with a terrace for when the weather’s nice. The service was excellent and the owner very attentive.

The half-board standard double room price was €162 ($243), and a double with breakfast cost €116 ($174). The breakfast buffet was sumptuous and elegant. Dinners with the half board included four courses with a choice of meat or fish.

We enjoyed a trip by boat to Stresa with views of the beautiful shoreline and the Alps not too distant plus many other towns and islands. Stresa is larger than Cannero and has several famous elegant resorts.

CAROL NAPPER
Elkton, FL