Oaks Sydney Goldsbrough Suites — Hotel in Sydney

I'll start with the positives. The biggest positive, the staff are fantastic. They are extremely helpful (given the negatives you'll read later) and are always open to helping you out. They are polite and go out of there way to help you.

The building itself, from the outside, and the check-in foyer, absolutely beautiful. The location, certainly worth paying more for, an easy walk to Darling Harbor and public transport. The views, certainly fantastic on the Darling Harbor side from any floor above the 6th.

The pool and spa (although we didn't have time to use) seem very nice on inspection, the water nice and cool. The gym, outdated and pretty much 50% out of action, not worth the effort. (A negative but I won't include it in my negatives below.)

You must be aware that there is no parking at the hotel, a private carpark next door is available at $45 per 24hr period, come and go as much as you want.

All in all, we liked the accommodation but it certainly isn't 4star or even 3. Star ratings are to my understanding about the accommodation, not the location and it seems these apartments are marketed as top quality. In fact, many nicer hotels appear in searches at a cheaper rate making you think this hotel is certainly up there.

THE NEGATIVES: I should have researched more before booking as most reviews online touch reasonably strongly on these very issues. The rooms, 1star, maybe 2star at best. The online photos are certainly not representative of the room we had, or another room I checked out in view of moving. We had booked a 2 bedroom apartment with a bed for a 5th person for 7 nights. $2500+ for the week. On arrival, wow, we were told we were upgraded to the Penthouse on the top floor (13th floor). How excited we were, our own dedicated express lift straight to the top of the building. We entered our room and were immediately dumbfounded. Certainly not the penthouse we expected, if this was the penthouse, geez, what was our original room like? If I could post photos I would: worn furniture, torn fabrics on chairs and couch; torn curtains with stains; a paint job on all walls from the worst painter ever, or some botched up cover up job, patchy both upstairs and downstairs; water on the kitchen floor from a condensation leak of sorts from the fridge; air-conditioner - about 35degrees in the living area and antarctic in the bedrooms and the air-conditioner almost blew up on Day 2 about 2am, spewing water all over the carpet. So Day 3 had a blower on the carpet all day to dry it out and a call-out expected from an aircon repair man, not what you want to see in a $300+ per night apartment; the kitchen although workable, is outdated and in need of a revamp.

With all these issues and disappointment to our first family holiday in 10 years, I did speak with the Manager. My family and I, we are pretty laid back and not ones to complain, but these issues needed addressing. The Manager (on a positive note) was completely understanding and quickly and easily offered and processed a 20% refund to our booking. The issue I found out is that these apartments are privately owned by investors (some live in their apartment) and thus managed by Oaks Hotels. Apparently the apartments are in the process of being 'renovated' but it is a slow process I was told.

All in all, we enjoyed our stay there. The views from our room were to die for and certainly worth paying extra for. The accommodation is comfortable enough, hence why we stayed the course. But I thought a thorough review was necessary for other potential clients and to perhaps nudge the Oaks Managers to push through with upgrading the building, because it certainly would be a fantastic place to stay if the outdated and damaged rooms...

Well the experience at the hotel/apartments started off okay. We booked the basic room offering either two twin beds or a king bed. We called the hotel asking if we could confirm a king bed for our stay as two twin beds would not be acceptable. They declined giving us a guarantee but said they could put a "strong request" on the booking. We did not like the sound of that so instead of booking for the full 10 days we were planning on staying we only booked for 2 days to try it out. After arriving we found out that the "king" bed it just two twins pushed together which is not at all comfortable to us and not what we were wanting. They moved us to the next level of rooms which had a queen bed and all was great.. We stayed the night with minor noise outside but acceptable. The next day we tried booking the remainder of the stay but were unable to because of limited availability. Because there were few rooms left on one of the nights they pull the reservation off the websites forcing you to call them directly and pay 5X more than you would have if there were a couple more rooms available. Despite such a long stay there was "nothing" they could do unless we wanted to pay more that $400 for the one night alone. We declined and went to another hotel for the one night then came back the next day to live out the remainder of our stay at the hotel. The next night was miserable. The hotel is old and the wood flooring and paper thin walls left us with no sleep all night with all the foot traffic coming in from the second floor entrance and from the hallways outside because all of the rooms face the middle corridor that echos a lot of sound. Next day we asked to go to a room that was more quite and got moved a few floors up that ended up having the same problems and even worse and upstairs neighbor that stomped around for hours during the late night and into the early morning. I called the front desk to have security look into it but as it wasn't a party and the lights were not on in the room above there was nothing they could do. We then went downstairs the next morning and after two nights of absolutely no sleep we attempted to cancel the remaining nights and stay at a different hotel. We had to haggle with the front desk because they were wanting to just move us rooms again one floor up even though we had already tried that. Eventually we were able to confirm them canceling the rest of the trip and about a week later got refunded what was remaining. It would have been great to get partial credit for the sleepless nights we had already wasted on the hotel. I would not stay at this hotel again nor would I...

I was shocked when I entered the building. I did ask the Concierge (older man) if I could get some help with my bag. He said to use the lift for the disabled from the street. I had no idea how it worked. He said it had instructions on it how to use it but I couldn't see them. He was generally not much help at all. I didn't want this lift mainly for the disabled to break down because I had pressed the wrong buttons. I got a very cold greeting "welcome" at reception. Everyone else around about (guests checking in) felt the very same. Without going into great detail my room had not been properly cleaned. It took 2 girls together over an hour to clean it the next day (Monday). I won't give an exact description what was wrong but the staff all do know. Things were broken or just not there. I realise this is an apartment rather than a hotel room so rules & services are sometimes different. This was not a good experience for me. Ringing reception was a night mare. After it rang for say 30 secs it just cut off. The staff blamed the renovations. I doubt it. I saw the 'phone cut off when at the reception desk myself without anyone ever answering it. There was a queue at the reception desk most of the day so perhaps understaffed. At one stage a female answered the 'phone on late Sunday afternoon & told me reception was too busy at that time to answer any questions or queries. When I asked her her name she said "just reception, just reception" bluntly !!!! I was not very impressed with most of the staff during my 2 day stay. The apartment itself was adequate & quiet. Bed was comfortable but not much extra space in the bedroom on each side of the bed. The Housekeeping Manager was very gracious. A young man from Egypt was very helpful as was the maintenance man when I found a hole in the bathroom wall. He came & repaired it. It had a spider web coming out of it so not just recent. I can only say research what this place offers before booking and/or paying. There is far, far better out there on the market without the "attitude" I mainly got. I don't believe I am being biased, mean or unkind. Abrupt & curt was generally the manner I experienced at the reception desk with just a "no" or "yes" !!! Nothing else; not even a "thank you" or "please". Very lacking in good friendly customer service as we should all expect & mostly get. We did pay for the apartment. Have they never heard of "service with a smile" ??? It does work. -Quite obviously not in their opinion though. They...