Radisson Plaza Hotel, Sydney

Radisson Plaza Hotel

Continuing on from our trip to the Gold Coast, we next visited Sydney, which was also our last stop. I decided to indulge a little bit because…you know…it's nice to. :D I booked a studio spa suite at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, which has a 5 star rating. It is located close to Circular Quay where all the buzz is, but is not directly next to it so still requires a little stroll to get there and it's also wedged between Pitt St and O'Connell St, in an awkward V shape. As you can see from the photo below, the shape of the hotel is quite interesting. The hotel also houses the 3 hat restaurant - Bilson's - which featured on Masterchef, however I didn't have the privilege to try it out during this visit. A true shame. :(




The lobby was slightly small for a 5 star hotel in my opinion, from a number of 5 star hotel comparisons, however I understand their pain due to their location. The concierge was very friendly and I will go into a bit more detail about that later (as I had made a few complaints during my visit :S).



The studio spa suite is at one end of the V shape (at the top of the V) and is directly next to an office building. Although the room was quite comfortable, I totally disliked the 'view' which was pretty much non-existent. When I opened the curtains, all I saw was the wall of the next office which was really only a few metres away and during the day I can see every movement of the businessmen working away. This also prevented sunshine from coming through the window. At night, there was a gap in between the two sides of the curtains (which didn't close properly) so a thin line of light always shone on my face while I was sleeping - so totally annoying! Putting those issues aside, the room was adorable despite being a bit minimalist on the furnishings and decorations. It was clean, spacious, had wireless and wired internet as well as, of course, a lovely spa bathroom. The bed was very soft and comfortable and was very big too, king size I believe and we were allowed to order extra pillows for free (we got 2 extra V shaped pillows, how suitable for the hotel eh? :P). There were many complementary items such as the usual tea and coffee (which were in a nice wooden box), a sewing kit and many others, even an ipod dock which I tried out but realised that I had recently formatted my iphone and had absolutely no music on it. :(



The bathroom was beautifully decorated with marble and included many complimentary items such as the standard shower/bath soaps, a special spa scrub soap, a women's vanity set and so forth and even a weighing machine to remind me to eat less :(. The bathrobe wasn't as nice as the one provided in Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas but was still a nice reminder that this is indeed a 5 star hotel. The spa was soothing although it did break down once during our 3 night stay in which the front desk efficiently fixed (while we were out enjoying the sights of Sydney). I swear I will put a spa (a very large one at that) in my own house when I eventually buy one - next year hopefully :). Oh I haven't mentioned that they also have a nice pool downstairs with a sauna, spa and gym, however I didn't take any photos of them since I'd be mistaken for some sort of pervert :P.



Everything was good up until our last morning when we ordered room service breakfast. The way it's done is you have to pre-order them the night before and hang the order outside your room on the door handle. We had clearly ticked 1 serve of hash browns/eggs/tomatoes and sausages (for me) and 1 serve of salmon omelette for Yuye. When the breakfast arrived, there was only my meal on trolley. So I called up the kitchen and they promised to rectify it for me. When the second meal arrived, it was exactly the same as mine, not the salmon omelette at all! It turned out that both the room service attendants didn't see the second tick. At that point I became a bit unhappy because that was NOT 5 star service. However, the salmon omelette eventually came and we were not charged for it - although by that time we no longer had any time to enjoy the meal as it was a few minutes past the checkout time. I was in such a hurry that I also didn't manage to catch a picture of the salmon omelette.

Taste wise my dish was great - although I think it's quite difficult to get it wrong. The salmon omelette wasn't really up to scratch as looked a bit too scrambled and wasn't salty enough, but this was possibly due to the mistake and the kitchen rushing to get the meal out to us. I will never find out the real reason though.



I must give a round of applause for the doormen because they were just fantastic. I left my luggage at the hotel after I checked out on the last day so I can be luggage free for the day. After I walked out of the hotel, I realised that I had left something important in one of those bags. When I walked back into the hotel, the doorman said 'welcome back!' in a very warm voice. That almost made me feel like I was a usual customer :D. At the end of the evening when we went back for our bags, the doormen (different people this time) called a taxi for us by walking all the way down the road and then opened the doors and trunk for us. Ah, that is 5 star experience. Small things like that makes all the difference to hotel stays and certainly made mine a whole lot better - they made me forget all the complaints I had!

For more reviews of the hotel, visit Tripadvisor.

Radisson Plaza Hotel
27 O'Connell Street, Sydney New South Wales 2000, Australia
Reservations: 1 800 333 333 (Australia toll-free)
US/Canada Toll-free +1 800-395-7046
Telephone: + 61 2 8214 0000 Fax: + 61 2 8214 1000
Email: res.sydplaza@radisson.com
http://www.radisson.com/sydney-hotel-ns-2000/ausplaza




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2 comments:

  1. That's a great first photo of the hotel! thanks for the review-I've never stayed there but I always have people asking me for hotel recommendations :)

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  2. @Not Quite Nigella, thanks for your comment! :D I was contemplating whether to go into detail about these hotel stays, but thought it might be useful for people. :)

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