Zagame's House — Hotel in Melbourne

I want to start with what’s great about the hotel - the women and men at the front desk (Rebekah in particular) are fantastic. We were there for 5 days and she wore a bright genuine smile each time we met her and she helped make the stay so much more enjoyable. We had the corner room and it is decently sized, with a comfortable bed and some space for us to move around. The shower and wash amenities - from Shaw & Co (it says it is made in China) with coconut lime infused shampoo, bath gel, conditioner and body moisturizer is top notch and boasts a lovely, luxuriant scent and feel.

[edit: in most hotels, the toiletries / amenities are free to keep or use as much as you like (they will simply change the bottle or top it up). As it was the start of our trip in Australia and we are traveling elsewhere, I took a bottle of shampoo and then passed it to the kid (who is studying in UMelb). To my surprise on my return, I was alerted to a charge of AUD27.74 to the hotel. As I didn't consume anything from the minibar other than the complimentary water, tea bags and espresso, I wrote and asked the hotel only to be informed that it was for the bottle of shampoo. So basically they are charging AUD27.74 for the empty bottle, since it is implicit that the contents can be used. That's very bizarre. Not a norm to Australia because we went to 4 other hotels (including one other on our return to Melbourne) and didn't experience this. I got the kid to return it. 1 star.

Zagame’s House is a hip looking hotel and it has a decent vibe on the edge of Little Italy’s Lygon Street - so there’s food aplenty, but Little Italy has a lot less Italy in in than say, Asia. I suppose we could say that about Rome or Milan as well, but since this Little Italy is just a small area, the dearth of quality Italian restaurants here is a little too obvious. Also - everyday we get a bunch of idiotic drivers and riders with esteem issues revving their modified exhausts to show off how loud their bikes and cars are. This is a psych condition I wished Freud or Jung had the opportunity to psychoanalyze and eventually link to poor self esteem issues. It causes a racket daily - thankfully it is not usually quite early in the evening.

Here’s what is not so great about the hotel… the lighting. For some reason, the owners have decided to intentionally make all the rooms dim except for the bathroom, which is too bright and exposed with a Chinese inspired see-through door and glass. Some might feel uncomfortable exposing their silhouette when they are conducting their business. For some reason, we did not get our daily service of water (we had to ask daily), or make up room service (and change of towels and floor mats), or refills of tea. It’s a small thing but the lack of attention is telling. I’m not quite sure if this is a Zagame’s House issue or an Australian hospitality industry issue since I’ve not been down under in a while and have been spoilt silly with top quality Asian hospitality. 1 star. For example, we tend to overorder when dining out. In most countries, even in Europe, the wait staff will pack it up neatly and sometimes even make it into a silver foiled goose. In Australia, they dump the container or the silver foil on the table and you are supposed to transfer the food yourself. That’s unacceptable in most parts of the world but culturally the norm here. It’s strange because service tends to get better over time instead of degrade. This is why I started with service, especially that from Rebekah, who served us with a smile and she would not be out of place anywhere in the hospitality world. 5 stars to her; 1 star for the shampoo, 1 star for the service, 4 stars for room, 2 stars for...

It was a bit of a mixed bag staying here with some good elements and others not so good. We stayed for four nights, but I got the impression that these rooms were more suited to one night dalliances…

The good:

The bed was comfy and there was a selection of pillows to choose from.

I liked that you could link your phone up to the TV easily.

The breakfast downstairs in the cafe was nice.

The people at reception were quite nice.

The location is good.

The bad:

The bathroom wasn’t completely clean. There was a creepy clump of hair on the shower wall and clumps of dust and hair near the toilet roll holder. There was also a massive silverfish in the wardrobe. This made me wary of the cleaning quality in general.

The toilet cubicle was right next to the bed and was frosted glass, so not only could you see everything going on, you could also hear it. Very awkward. I suppose it would be fine if you were staying alone, but not great if you are with someone else.

The cleaners were so loud! Every morning (early!) they seemed to congregate outside our room and have loud conversations for an hour or more. I was woken up early every morning because of them, it was very frustrating.

When we made our booking, we were told in an email that checkout was at 12pm. So my partner took a zoom work meeting that ran from 10-12 in the room. From 11am the cleaners knocked on the door twice asking if we were still here. It was so frustrating. His meeting was interrupted twice and we were made to feel like we were doing something wrong.

I had a difficult time trying to figure out what was included in the room cost and what was an additional charge. There wasn’t a typical mini bar, but a display of items with no costs. There were two bottles of water on our bedside tables, which we assumed were free because they weren’t displayed with the other items, but later found out that they were charged. There were additional pillows and toiletries and robes etc. but I couldn’t tell if we were allowed to use them for free or not. There was a QR code to scan that gave a list of prices for things, but I couldn’t tell if for some items whether this was a cost to use them during your stay or to take them with you when you leave. It was very confusing and I felt too scared to use anything lest I be charged an exorbitant amount!

It is a very dark room. There are lights that can be dimmed or made brighter, but even at their brightest setting the room was quite dark. This added to the impression that maybe these rooms are mostly used for ‘f* pads’. There was a glass window that looked out onto the hall. This was a main source of light but also meant that anyone could look in. If the blind was closed, it would bang continuously against the glass from the aircon.

Our sink jammed and we had to get someone up to remove the plug. They did this very quickly, though, which is good.

Overall, I don’t think I...

Visited this hotel in February, stayed here for three weeks. The check in went smoothly, Mohi (I am sorry if I miswrote the name) and Cheryl were absolute sweethearts throughout the whole stay. There is also available car rental which is very conventient, as well as parking if you are traveling with your own car. The room was very modern and neat, toiletries (shampoo, conditioner etc) were amazing. Hot chocolate for breakfast- recommend!

The overall experience was peaceful; comfortable beds, tasty breakfast, central location, and most of the staff very, very welcoming and kind-hearted! The food in the restaurant & room service was superb!

Unfortunately, throughout the whole stay our room was not vacuumed once- the floor was sandy and the dust started to get way too much everywhere. And while it was not a big deal, still our room was forgotten to clean three times (days) throughout our stay.

When we decided to stay a week longer in Melbourne, we went to the reception to ask about the availability, and the lady working there at the time told us she will send us an email with the price list which never happened- again not a problem (everything happens) but just left us hanging there). Two days later, we went again, and Mohi was very helpful!

When I was checking out, the same lady as before made some comments about how no one ever stays in the hotel for so long, and how weird it is to take something from the snacks out of the room. Those two comments ended our stay here with a bitter aftertaste, felt mean, sarcastic and unprofessional. Maybe she did not mean it that way, but that’s how we understood her. And lastly, while of course every hotel has their own policy, the water bottles and some mini snacks which we took the first week staying here, were never replaced.

It is truly a good hotel, but some small details that need to be taken care of. In general, we...