HotelChatter

I was DISGUSTED with this venue.  I was particularly annoyed by a certain member of staff who was incredibly obstructionist and unhelpful throughout my weekend stay.  

I arrived at 8pm on Friday night, starving and looking forward to a beautiful room service meal by the great chef I had read about on the hotel's website.  Imagine my surprise when the compendium didn't have a restaurant menu!  I contacted reception and was told to order from the "all-day dining menu", which is a list of light snacks like toasted sandwiches.  No way!  I asked a second time for a restaurant menu and was told a second time to order from the all-day menu, but I kept protesting until my request was grudgingly accommodated and a menu finally delivered to my room.  The menu is several pages long but only ONE page actually features food - the rest contains the world's longest wine and spirits list and convinced me that the restaurant exists primarily to cater for functions and sell overpriced alcohol.  There are only four - count them, FOUR - choices available for each course and that's it.  I don't eat seafood, so that restricted my choices even further.  

When I finally got something to eat, the food was quite tasty but I expected a lot more from a highly qualified chef and a menu with such steep prices.  The serving sizes were less than generous and the charges were absolutely out of control.  Ever paid $4 for a 375 ml bottle of Diet Coke?  Ever paid $5 for a room service tray to be delivered to your room?  What about $5 for delivering a newspaper with your breakfast?  Also, on Saturday night, someone got my bill wrong and the "no menu" guy interrupted me in the middle of my meal to make me sign a second bill.  Not impressed.

Here's the worst thing.  The air conditioning for every room is controlled from reception, which is a stupid idea to begin with.  It was 30 degrees in Melbourne on Saturday night and I was so hot I couldn't sleep.  I called reception at 1.30am to ask for the air conditioning to be turned up, and the "no menu" guy told me it was switched off.  I asked for it to be turned back on.  At 2 am, when the sound of the air conditioner had stopped and I still couldn't sleep, I called reception again and asked for it to be switched back on.  This guy then spun me some ridiculous story that the air conditioner had already reached its lowest possible temperature in my room and must have turned itself off.  (If that was true, I'd hate to be in that room on a hot summer afternoon).  When I sounded less than convinced, he suggested switching rooms.  Would you swap rooms at 2am when every alternate room also has its temperature centrally controlled???

With one exception (a lovely girl called Lara who was very helpful to me at checkout), I found the staff to be snooty, not very fluent in English, not particularly competent and not at all interested in making my stay more comfortable or pleasant if that meant a little inconvenience for them.  

Avoid this place at all costs.