YEHS Hotel - Sydney Harbour Suites — Hotel in Sydney

My sister and I stayed here for a week in the lead up to the Women’s World Cup Final in August. I had previously stayed at the YEHS Hotel Sydney QVB so was confident that the Harbour Suites would be a good choice.||||I was very wrong!!!||||Even though we booked well in advance, my sister only received an email a week or so prior to our stay to advise of renovation works taking place at the property. By this stage, it was too late to book anywhere else.||||I appreciate that every hotel needs a refresh from time to time but the renovation works were truly a nightmare. Anywhere from 7am onwards in the morning we were startled awake with the sounds of hammer drills and heavy machinery.||||it was so bad we could not even hear each other speak from one side of the room to the other. It basically made the room totally uninhabitable during the day, which turned out to be a big problem for us as my sister became ill during our stay and needed to rest.||||I’m not precious - I could absolutely deal with the workmen coming to and fro in the corridors, the dust and debris everywhere and the total debacle that was the lift situation (only one in operation, shared with the workmen) but the renovation works (described by the hotel as a “minor inconvenience”) totally ruined our stay. ||||Tradies were literally hammering out tiles in the apartment next door and the hotel still saw fit to sell the adjoining rooms! When we asked to be moved, the manager did so very begrudgingly and made out like they were doing us a huge favour. Lo and behold they moved us to another floor where works were also being carried out, and it was just as bad - again they would have known this - why bother?! ||||The whole experience was a nightmare, the hotel would have known this would be happening when we booked yet waited until the last minute to inform us (leaving us with no other options during a busy period) and downplayed the impact in those communications. ||||If the hotel intends to continue selling rooms during the renovations then they should be upfront and honest with guests about the true impact of the works when booking. The rooms should be sold at maximum of half price, to reflect that you will be unable to use the room during daylight hours. No such compensation was forthcoming for us once they had us on the hook and committed to a week’s worth of sensory torture. ||||There is no way I’d stay here again while the renovations are ongoing and after the poor communication and mishandling of our complaints I won’t be back to this hotel full stop. Quite odd, as my experiences at YEHS QVB have always been very positive - I can only assume...

Extremely disappointing experience with YEHS Hotel Sydney Harbour Suites.

I tried to iron my shirt - their iron had some substance on it which immediately damaged my shirt. I complained to the front desk staff at that time - Metira. She seemed helpful, came to my room, saw the damaged shirt, expressed her dismay, took the bad iron and returned later with a new iron. She said she will look into the issue and let me know. End of day (6pm) and I still haven't heard back, so I went to the front desk - behold, she has already gone home and closed my case saying I turned the iron on too hot and damaged my own clothes! That's absolutely rubbish because if it was too hot, more parts of my clothes would burn, not just that small part caused by the unknown substance. And the worst thing is, she closed it and handed it over to the next staff without having the courtesy to come and tell me in person when I'm in the room the entire day.

Next day, I went to see the Manager Bijay. He told me the same story, and then backtrack to say he will investigate when I started to kick up a fuss. Again, one full day gone, no news. I even sent him an email with attached photos. No courtesy acknowledgement that they had received my email, no communication whatsoever. Basically, it feels like their attitude is to hold out for as long as possible until I check out and hope I never return. Such fantastic service! After 2 days, speaking to 3 different front desk staff and 1 manager, they still would not acknowledge their fault. The manager actually said their housekeeping staff checks every iron before any guests checks in ... Really? I don't think even a 5-star hotel does that, let alone this hotel that does not even do housekeeping every day (I stayed 4 nights and had only 1 housekeeping done).

Why am I so sure it's their faulty iron? Because the brand new replacement iron that they gave me didn't have that problem. I've turned it to the highest setting and used it without it damaging my shirt. And you can tell from the pictures that it is not a burnt i.e. no charred area, but it is some substance on the iron that cause it.

The latest front desk staff tells me that the manager will speak to me tomorrow morning at 8am ... I'll see. If it does happen and the matter is resolved appropriately, I'll update/revised my review.

My advice is - find another hotel. There are so many in this area, please avoid YEHS. A hotel that does not have any integrity in acknowledging their mistake cannot be trusted for anything else.

And btw, this hotel is really run down. The tiles are cold, sink are old and small, bathroom caulking all...

Ok so let me break it down to three categories:

The Good:

1. Location - located in the heart of the CBD, very close to Darling Harbour, Town Hall, Chinatown, Sky Tower, you name it!
2. Free coffee and tea downstairs in a modern reception area.
3. Most of the staff we encountered were friendly, shout out to Felix and Sandra, yo.
4. Comfortable queen size beds.
5. Nice modern TV's.
6. Free breakfast to the cafe next door - generous portions.

The Bad:

1. Run down corridors and room decor - distinctly stuck in the late 80s/early 90s and looking tired,
2. Low water pressure for shower.
3. Hot water has a mind of it's own.
4. Leaking shower hoses.
5. Broken stove which wouldn't ignite.
6. Stale smelling rooms - use some air freshener or open the windows to air!

The Ugly:

1. Gas leak, the room we had at first had a smell of gas, we asked for it to be looked at and was told it was "ok and they couldn't "See" any gas"
2. Cleanliness, bathroom tiles needed serious scrubbing especially the grout as very dirty, the tables in the rooms were grimy too.
3. We witnessed a male member of staff shouting at another member of staff and threw a pen at her right in front of us! - Whilst whatever frustrations he had might have been valid it's no excuse to do it in front of customers as it looks very unprofessional.
4. House keeping are terrible at their job as rooms are prepped at bare minimum.

Conclusion: The money they spent modernising the reception area and installing the swanky new Phillips Android smart TV's would have been better spent in getting the rooms in a clean non stale smelling state and ensuring all are safe to live in as having a gas leak is lethal on several accounts!

Would I stay here again? - No. Despite the nice staff, it isn't enough to make up for the negatives.

Would I recommend people to stay here? - Only if you have no where else to go and you need to be close to key spots...