Istay Precinct

“A great hotel id recommend”

Check in was simple, we did request to check in slightly earlier as we had flown in from overseas, and they managed to have our room ready 30 min before ‘official’ check in so that was good. What was not however initially; was our room. After 30 min in the room my husband and I agreed that we neede… more

Check in was simple, we did request to check in slightly earlier as we had flown in from overseas, and they managed to have our room ready 30 min before ‘official’ check in so that was good. What was not however initially; was our room. After 30 min in the room my husband and I agreed that we needed to complain and ask for another room. The sheets on the bed… the carpet; everything smelt of body sweat, mixed with bad body odor. We opened every window despite the freezing cold weather. Reception manager was very good and came to check the room. He made no fuss to move us and we appreciated that. When internet server was prob I contacted re e option; and again they fixed the prob quickly. The apartment was cosy and clean; we were very happy with our overnight stay. I’d definitely steely recommend this hotel. Staff are really friendly

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“Close to conference venue.”

One bedroom apartment in central CBD. Comfortable spacious space including office or dinning room. Close to the river, conference venue, local small IGA, restaurants, mall & parks. No view to speak of on the 5th floor. Rapid easy check in & ease of asking for sufficient tea bags, milk & toiletries … more

One bedroom apartment in central CBD. Comfortable spacious space including office or dinning room. Close to the river, conference venue, local small IGA, restaurants, mall & parks. No view to speak of on the 5th floor. Rapid easy check in & ease of asking for sufficient tea bags, milk & toiletries for the bathroom. Goof free wifi.

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“Wish it was better”

Overall, thanks to the death of a thousand cuts I can't give this place the rating of 4 it could easily achieve. When I'm on a 3-day break in another city I don't want to waste my time on irritating minor issues. However, another person might get an apartment with no issues and be very happy stayin… more

Overall, thanks to the death of a thousand cuts I can't give this place the rating of 4 it could easily achieve. When I'm on a 3-day break in another city I don't want to waste my time on irritating minor issues. However, another person might get an apartment with no issues and be very happy staying here. But I have to ask, does 'un-serviced' lead to 'inadequately' maintained? Pros -Very good price booked directly with Oaks as part of a Black Friday promotion. -Able to check into an apartment, even though we arrived very early. (We would have been happy to have our luggage stored if none was available.) -Most staff resolved our issues promptly. -Good facilities for an apartment (however note my later comments). -Reasonably convenient city location. -Pool, spa, and sauna available in neighbouring apartment tower (extra towels for use at the pool were provided when requested). Cons -Very noisy broken air conditioning in the first apartment (1407 The Gallery) which caused a headache within minutes. With temperatures in the 30s, no air conditioning wasn't OK. As no technician was available to fix it, we were offered a transfer to another apartment on the same level (1415 The Gallery). -We had already unpacked and had to transfer ourselves from 1407 to 1415, where we discovered it had: - no clothes hangers - no luggage rack - no clothes airer - no water jug So we kept those from 1407 that we had already used. -After dinner, we discovered there were no plugs in any of the sinks (kitchen, laundry, or bathroom) and no dishwashing liquid. We asked at reception and were told someone would bring them up to the room, but nothing arrived that night. -We used the dishwasher instead. However, the soap holder in the dishwasher did not open to release the powder, so the dishes were not cleaned properly and had to be rewashed. (The next morning we asked reception again and received a sink plug and dishwashing liquid immediately.) -At night we found the vertical blinds did not close properly. -The bedroom in the 1 bedroom apartment is a 'box' within the apartment. It gets stuffy because it does not have a fan, separate air con, or any windows to the outside. We had to leave the air conditioning on high overnight to overcome this. It was too noisy and warm to leave the apartment windows open overnight. -The quilt on the bedding had a very unpleasant stain. We asked and it was replaced. We remade the bed ourselves. -The toilet seat is plastic and the screw/plug easily becomes unattached when using the toilet. -The bathroom fittings are worn. -The kitchen has pots and pans and kitchen utensils, but no microwave containers or convection ovenware. All crockery & cutlery was supplied in sets of 4, except it had only 2 bowls. -We couldn't connect to the Wi-Fi. Initially, reception said we must not be signing in properly. Luckily another staff member was prepared to check the details and discovered it was not registered in the last name used in our booking (and our Oaks membership) but in the last name on the card we used to pay when checking in. -There was vomit on the footpath next to the entry ramp. It was still there when we checked out 3 days later, despite a good half-day of rain in between. Oaks isn't responsible for the street out front, but this does influence impressions. Lastly, we observed the windows to apartment 1407 were open on the second day of our stay. (We saw this from the pool on level 6 of the neighbouring apartment tower.) We hope that means the air conditioning technician was able to fix the faulty air conditioning the next day, but it could also mean someone else was checked into that apartment, despite the faulty air conditioning. All things considered, other than the air conditioning, 1407 was a nicer apartment than 1415.

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