First thing I have to say is that I was very impressed with this accomodation overall, it is clean, very very very clean! We had a 1 bedroom apartment and the layout was good and facilities superb. The pool, spa and gym had me running around town trying to find some gym gear and bathers (I had not brought my own). The staff on the front desk are super-efficient, we didn't have to linger longer than 5 minutes to have everything taken care of including return airport shuttle for our checkout and the room key in hand.
At this point I have to admit, this is probably my first stay in a serviced apartment vs a hotel. This is a great cheaper option than many 5 star hotels in the area, but I did find myself missing those extra hotel benefits...the bathroom amenities are the usual bar of soap, shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, bubble bath...but we found we missed the few extra things hotels include like shower cap, cotton buds/balls. Small niggle - but we ended up making the run to the local chemist to get them.
The other major difference is that this does tend to feel like a home away from home, or someone else's place. It doesn't have the romance of a hotel, there isn't the connection with the property or the people who work there. There's no inhouse restaurant, no central lounge area to swap travel stories with strangers (apart from the hot tub).
At around the $250 we paid for the 1 bedroom apartment...for a mere $50 extra, gets us into The Intercontinental, the Westin, Marriott or a host of others which are more geared to the service aspect - anything you need etc...but that's just us.
The location is convenient for many things; trains, monorail, buses, Chinatown, Central CBD, Capital Theatre (we were here to see Billy Elliot), Chinese Gardens, Paddy's Market, Darling Harbour...everything really.
If you have kids and want to contain costs by cooking yourself, being able to do your own laundry. This place is great, it will do it.
My one key piece of advice on this hotel is DO NOT accept a room that ends in the number 1 or 2 or maybe 3. These rooms face South/South Westish (towards Liverpool St). The noise from the monorail is there, although not too bad. You will find that on Friday and especially Saturday nights is that this part of Sydney does not sleep...nor will you! This was even more in evidence come 5am on Sunday morning. The tinkle of empty bottles being transfered from one bin into a bigger bin and then probably into a garbage recycling truck went on for 90 minutes!!! Either people drink a lot, or they'd been hoarding bottles for a while - sounded like we were next to a glass recycling facility!
Maybe it's quieter if you can get up high near the 50th floor too...we were down on the 19th level which is only 4 or 5 floors above ground (street level is level 10).
Oh...and they reckon the bed was king size...small king size...my feet hung off the end and I'm 6'2". My feet don't hang off the end of my king size bed at home.
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