Chloe Fox

Review of ANA Hotel Sydney

Fawlty Towers plus. -- I have written a number of...

Fawlty Towers plus. -- I have written a number of reviews for Google and they have all been positive (if I rightly remember). I don't want to write negative ones generally. But this was such an ordinary experience that, well, here we go: Upon arrival at the Shangri-La at 4pm, we were informed our room wasn't ready. I was told I would have to wait for at least 15 minutes. I said I didn't want to do that, and I was offered another room with a king-sized bed and a roll-out? sofa? bed. I said no, I didn't want that either. Suddenly my room was available after all. Went to room. In room, later on that evening I discovered that lightbulbs were missing. I called reception, and they sent someone up to replace. While the man was there, I asked if it was normal that the quite large corner of the room where the table was was entirely dark. The man told me that "normally" there was a standard lamp there, and left. I rang reception and asked them to bring a lamp so that we didn't have to have the room service in darkness. Eventually a lamp was brought. (I have never, ever been to a hotel where I had to request a piece of furniture before!!). We went to bed. At about 1am, we were awoken by some very robust partygoers in the room next door. The walls, and adjoining connecting door were SO thin that I could hear everything, which was embarrassing for everybody. I called reception (I was beginning to become "that" customer which was awful) and asked someone to come up and get the people to keep it down. They did. The next day, some new guests checked in to the same room next to us. Later that night, those guests had a loud screaming match that lasted for the best part of 30 minutes. (It was so loud that I can even tell you why their relationship was falling apart - a man called Barry.) Again, I rang downstairs. The next day, the woman I spoke to on the phone said the hotel had sent someone up, but there was 'nothing to report'. I was furious. Missing furniture; two nights of rowdy guests; and now the hotel denying the incident had happened. There is definitely a culture in this hotel of glossing over inconvenient realities. At this point, someone said I could have a different room. I said no because I didn't want them to think I was being a pain just to get free stuff from them. However I was offered $100 in 'room credit' which I refused also, but then discovered was factored into my final bill. -- On the plus side, the pool is lovely and there was a very pleasant woman in reception called Lo (?) who was extremely kind.