InterContinental Adelaide by IHG — Hotel in Adelaide

Club Lounge River View Room Disappointment

Our stay was meant to be very special. We have previously stayed in a Club Room at the Intercontinental and had a wonderful experience. This time however, our experience was terrible. We paid extra for a River View Room this time because the city view room we previously had gave us minimal city view and an ugly rooftop nearby. On booking directly with the hotel, we advised it was a special birthday booking and not one staff member acknowledged the birthday. The Club Lounge was very disappointing. Afternoon High Tea was the only thing that passed above average. Canapes and Drinks in the Club Lounge were so disappointing. We waited over 20 minutes to receive our first drink after waiting 10 minutes to order it. The explanation for the delay from the wait staff was that there was only one bartender and he was inundated with drinks to mix. Absolutely ridiculous when you pay a lot of money to enjoy an evening in the city and commence with 2 hours in the Intercontinental Club Lounge only to have excuses as to why drinks are far and few between. Also, the food on offer was average with many platters sitting empty and not being replaced with foods once people had emptied them which left some people not able to even try the various foods. Some people staying there i.e. and Indian Couple, fille their plates with one item which left none for the remaining room full of people in attendance. It was a very disappointing start to my birthday evening. In the morning, we attended the Club Lounge for breakfast and both ordered the full breakfast (poached egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomato etc). This breakfast came out within good time BUT the poached eggs were cold inside, the bacon was cold, the sausages were warm, the mushroom and tomato were hot. It was terrible. My partner refused to eat any further of his and had some toast instead with 2 boiled eggs. I requested the waitress speak to the kitchen to advise that the eggs and bacon were cold and that a fresh plate be prepared. My plate returned with luke warm poached eggs, cold bacon, cold sausage, average tomato and cold mushrooms. I was frustrated and hungry so I ate most of it although it was terrible. The two plates that these meals came out on were not exactly plates. They were large bowls. It was very difficult to use a knife and fork to cut anything because it was a bowl. It was quite ridiculous really. After leaving the hotel we returned to our home. I started to get a stomach ache, cramps, headache, then had diarrhea for the remainder of Sunday and the public holiday Monday. We could not go out as we had further planned for my birthday weekend. My partner also had a very bad stomach ache and headache on the Sunday evening but without the diarrhea. My mind went back to the salmonella outbreak at your hotel that was related to the handling of eggs and bad food safety practices in 2016. The Intercontinental Club Lounge and King Suite has always been our place to stay but after such a bad experience on my special birthday long weekend I don’t think that we will ever return. We spent hundreds of dollars for our stay and feel we were completely ripped off. We complained on checkout and the lady offered a refund of $50 for our River View Room upgrade. As I said to her, that was insufficient given the amount of money we spent on the Club Lounge accommodation and in future we will need to consider staying elsewhere in the city. One positive comment, the staff were always very friendly (apart from one in the Club Lounge) and very helpful. They were also very apologetic for the issues that were raised...

Check-in was polite . We had booked a room which included executive club lounge access. We have stayed many times before. ||There was no IHG member recognition, but we were allowed an extra hour. ||There will be some changes in future in that only classic parkland view rooms and above will have executive lounge access included. The (cheaper) classic city view won't include lounge access. For those who don't care about views, it will be an extra cost, as all rooms are much the same. || The lounge has had some budget cuts. The afternoon tea is a little bit less than before, still quite ok, but cheaper products. The evening session only includes a plated offering. There were meat balls and ratatouille in pastry cups. Nice home cooking, but certainly not the wagyu beef and duck breast of days gone by. If you ask about this, you will be told that the chef has only plated enough, not more. There is a small section of buffet cheese/ham/salad/nuts. You will be sent an email a few days before to say if you have any food allergy so they can prepare for you. || I can understand that helps avoid food waste, and am happy to see the hotel uses Ozharvest as a partner. I get it that the club lounge is a cost centre, so budget cuts can occur. ||Nevertheless there was a feeling of 'not as good as before' in the lounge. There used to be a feeling of the lounge being 'wonderful.' Even so, it is good to see repeat guests, but the numbers seemed lower this year on Christmas eve. The drinks served in the lounge are quite good for wine drinkers. Display bottles of the wines are on show where the hot buffet used to be. I noticed the spirits selection had been slightly downsized. For example the hotel used to have a special bespoke gin. Now it is a commercial variety. We overheard one repeat guest complaining.||It was nice to see Ray serving in the lounge. He remembered us from our last visit. Like the rest of the team there, he does his job well. ||The room was a partial river view. The sofa had obviously been enjoyed by lots of kid's feet and well due for cleaning or replacement. A handy spot to put our bags though. |The pool is lovely and warm. The gym is great. ||We ate dinner out. Transport from the hotel is easy as it is next to the train station/tram stop/bus stops/taxi rank.||You can have breakfast downstairs in the Riverside restaurant. It was nice to see repeat guests there. The Christmas day offering was exceptional. That was a highlight of the stay and really did feel 'wonderful'. It didn't get busy while we were there . ||If you like, you can also eat upstairs in the executive lounge. That's nice for a quiet cup of coffee. The food offering was focused on carbohydrates. (lots of cakes, bread, toast etc). There was also a small cold meat, cheese and egg selection. ||At exactly the official check-out time my room card stopped working. I had to go to reception to explain I had been given an extra hour during checkin. It was lucky I had photo ID and not in gym clothes or swimmers! That has happened before, so I guess it will happen again in future. I know what to expect. ||As the hotel is owned by a Thai conglomerate, it would be nice to see some Thai touches to the hotel to set it apart from other hotels in Australia. I was lucky enough to book using a hotel sale. For the price we paid, it was good, but not...

I had a one night stay booked at this hotel and was completely disappointed. I never write reviews for things but my disappointment was to the point I felt compelled to write a review.

I booked using the South Australia Great State voucher so I received a generous discount off the room price. Although a good price, the experience was not worth it and I would have preferred to stay home and spend that money on more important things.

Check in was easy and the staff were friendly however it wasn’t clearly explained that they were putting a large hold on my card for the security deposit. Leaving me a good few hundred dollars out of pocket until it was released. I would have liked to have been clearly informed of this so that I was prepared. It was also charged at the same time as the room fee rather than two separate transactions so it looked like I was charged an excessive for the room initially.

The room itself was such a disappointment. The air conditioner did not work, it was warmer in the room than outside. I spoke with staff who sent a maintenance worker to have a look. He did some adjustments which initially appeared to work and was told by the time we got back from dinner the room should be cool. We returned from dinner to a muggy hot room.

It was not worth calling staff again so we just had to suck it up and sleep in it. It was definitely the worst sleep I’ve had in a very long time.

The bed was uncomfortable as it was two single beds pushed together, with both mattresses being of different quality amounting to an uncomfortable experience.

I was however pleased that they were offering free movies at the time. Until we attempted to watch some, the tv was horrendous, the picture would change shape constantly, it would freeze and the sound would cut out for minutes on end. It was also very difficult to even navigate with the remote.

In the morning we went to have breakfast which was included with the promotion. That was lovely, they definitely made up for being unable to do their usual buffet breakfast with a selection of pastries, fruit and a menu to choose from. That was probably the only half decent thing about our stay.

I am very disappointed that I chose to stay here. All in all, a...