I grew up in Canberra, and the Lakeside, as it was known, was the place to stay before the Hyatt was re-opened, and it was a very special place and the views are tremendous, however, I think the accountants have taken over.

The room was tired looking, the aircon controller was the same as it was 20 years ago! The bathroom had a lot of mildew, an the toilet was cracked. The bathtub was quite worn and dirty looking. The 'phone' beside the bed was a cheap and nasty clockradio type thing that looks like it cost AUD20 from KMart.

The shower is probably one of the biggest disappointments of this place, I think someone has gone in and told them they will save a load of money and look all environmentally cool if they install water-saving showers. The water pressure is pathetic, I have long hair and it took an age to rinse it properly, and it just isn't an enjoyable experience. I think it is fine if people at home want to install these water-saving devices, but for some people hotels are about luxury, and sometimes I like a day-off from saving the planet.

The areas around this hotel are undergoing a lot of development, so there are a lots of builders and dust flying about, I had a hire car, and foolishly thought parking was included, it isn't. It is another AUD12 per day! Even for the outside carpark, which I think is outrageous, given there is nowhere else to park.

This hotel is not cheap and when you factor in the cost of parking it is only about AUD30-50 less than the Hyatt which is five star in everyway.

Sadly I won't stay here again, until Rydges realise what a grand hotel they have and start treating guests with the respect they deserve.

What I want to say about this hotel is that if you expect some old fashioned service - forget it, all you will get is robotic response to all your questions, with no compromises whatsoever on their part and any willingness to make your stay a pleasant one.

Alot of the hotels would offer late checkout for free if you asked. We only asked for 1hr extension and we were given a straight faced response of, "if you want it, pay 10bucks" type of response. Even if I could have paid that, I'd rather not! Mind you, this is on a less busier day - Monday, labour day. Vacancy clearly would have free up by then!

Another gripe was we hired a bike and asked whether we could park it somewhere safe within the hotel premises and we were replied with yet another standard response of, 12 bucks please. Thats how much it costs to park a car and given this is Canberra (not Tokyo or Hong Kong), I cannot believe till now that bike parking spaces are not even available - so much for a city that is reknown for cycling. Wouldn't it make sense to encourage tourists to cycle around town? I could go on and make a suggestion to the Canberra Tourism about this hotel.

Thirdly and certainly not the last, the lift were on mainteinance for the whole time we were there and only 2 were operating during that peak hour of labour day long weekend. So alot of time, alot of people are caught just waiting for the lifts. With so much frustrations we saw as we came down from the lifts, I am surprised everyone just quietly put up with it! Unbelievable for a supposedly a well known hotel chain in Australia.

On the positive - only the bed is comfortable.

Oh, by the way, We even found hairs in our cup, by the way .. the list just goes on with the negatives. And for the money you are paying, the decor and furnishing are just not up to it.

To summarise, just go to a motel - you will be more content.

I stayed there for 2 nights over the Labour Day long weekend and was not happy with the service I was receiving. The staff at the front desk where not very helpful and would rather talk to each other then to serve guest and on top of that they wanted to charge me for everything!!! This included a place to put my mountain bike which I hired to pedal around the city. It was $12!! That is how much it cost to park my car! A bike doesn't even take up any room. Not happy! I will not come back to this place. Terrible, just terrible!

I stayed for 5 nights in a twin room. While the service was polite and friendly, this is a hotel that has seen better days - decades ago.
I wouldn't have minded the cheap motel quality room if I had paid cheap motel prices. But instead I paid the cheapest rate of $160 a night for a room that defied belief in a so-called 4 star hotel.

The bathroom has not been updated since the building was built, and featured dodgy old mismatched tiles. Water drained onto the floor from the bath when I emptied it. The room was in desperate need of a paint job, with filthy marks on the floors and doors, and a sagging creaking and water stained old airconditioner rattling away. The carpet seemed clean, but was quite worn. There were hooks in the wall where once there must have been pictures, and despite being on a non-smoking floor, the floor stank fo smoke thanks to the noisy guests across the corridor.

The greatest horror was the room service. Exhausted and suffereing from a heavy cold, I ordered some pasta bolognese. It took more than 1 hour to deliver a cold, dry, disgusting dish that was barely edible. It was accompnaied by a berry crumble I'd ordered for dessert that appeared to be a frozen one from a supermarket *microwaved* to heat it up. Both the dinner and the dessert were utterly inedible.

The only tea nad coffee in the room was cheap instant, and there was no milk anyway.

At least the bed was comfortable!

All round, a pretty poor experience. I wouldn't recommend paying to stay here until it is refurbished - you will get the same quality at a motel for about half the price.