Honeysuckle Executive Suites

Terrible. So horrible. We had booked an accessible apartment and they had a really terrible non-accessible place for us. We went to reception to complain, and were told that I could use the gym’s toilet and shower. It was 5pm when we arrived. DO NOT GO.

After waiting an hour to check in, the experience was something out of Fawlty Towers. The ambience was similar to that of a homeless hostel. The kitchen had not been cleaned since the apartments were built. The long-life milk in the fridge was three months out of date. The cutlery was nonexistent. The available cups were so dirty it was a repository for disease. There was black slime mould in the shower recess. The leather sofa was so old and worn that it looked like a reject from an opportunity shop. The glass table in the dining room was so scratched it looked like artwork.

I feel this must have been one of the first buildings in the Honeysuckle Precinct, as such it is starting to feel a bit tired. I found the pre-arrival communication to be good. There is an app required for unlocking doors in common areas (seems unnessary to me). A keypad is used for access to the room. Bed was not particularly comfortable. Matress felt a bit old and worn. Fold out sofa was also not amazing. Was nice that the room included a washer and dryer. The room also included 2 Sony TVs, which was nice. Internet was usable. From memory around 3 to 5Mbs - not the fastest but enough to get stuff done. My main criticism was that only one of the two lifts were working. At one point in the afternoon I had to wait over 10 minutes for a lift. Seems it was being used by cleaners and workmen - ideally this would be handled in a separate services lift. The general Honeysuckle Precinct is nice enough, although it feels a like a ghost town. Not a hive of activity.

Booked the Honeysuckle Apartments for an overnight stay. I'll start on a positive note and say that the location is great, right in the heart of town. Arrived at 4pm and was greeted with an extremely difficult and unnecessary check in process. There was 1 person on the desk and a very long line of people waiting. When we went up to our room it was still dirty and hadn't been cleaned.... this was at 4:30pm when they say you can check in after 2pm. Cleaners were in the hallway and stated that there was only 2 of them to clean the entire hotel. Clearly overworked and understaffed. Had to wait over an hour for our room to be available, no compensation was given for the inconvenience as we had two children with us that were tired. Room wasn't cleaned to an acceptable standard.. crumbs all over the benches and floor. I couldn't even be barefoot in the room as dirt was sticking to my feet. Bed was poorly made and shower covered in mould. It's a real shame as the hotel has potential to be really great but upper management are letting them down with their poor service and housekeeping.

My family stayed the first week in January 2022 for four nights. On the 3rd afternoon we were informed there was a power outage. With no lighting or air conditioning this made for a very unpleasant night with 2 children. The next day they could not guarantee that the power would be back on so we checked into another hotel. Later that afternoon we recieved another text from the Honeysuckle stating that the power would not be on for another night which justified our decision to find another hotel. The following week we contacted the manager seeking a refund for the 2 nights when the power was out as the room was 'not fit for purpose' to be told 'it's not my problem, take it up with the building owner'. We did and were informed that power outages were covered by the hotel's insurance. I took this back to the hotel multiple times with no reply. We escalated the situation with NSW Fair Trading but because Honeysuckle would not respond to the issues raised the case has been closed unless we proceed with private legal representation.

So upon arrival you are met with a locked door, you must ring the reception whom sit there in sight and give you a code to enter the underground car park to then find your way through to reception from the sub level, once finally finding our way in (thankfully the door to get to the lift was jammed open with an overflowing bin otherwise we would had been stuck in the carpark waiting for the PIN code to get in the lift). Staff were miserable, the only information received from them regarding our stay is via a text message (this included all room entry codes and door codes as they don’t use swipe cards) we only received 1/2 of the text so when we ducked out in the afternoon we were unable to re-enter the building. Calling the number on the front door which didn’t connect and the reception staff just put their heads down when were banged on the door to get let in. Thankfully another group left the building shortly after, which allowed us to reenter the building. The staff just ignored our query about door codes and it was only that friends also staying in the building showed us their text message which had door codes included in it, if it wasn’t for our other friends I have no idea how we could have gotten back into the building after hours. The room wasn’t terrible, the pots and pans in the cupboard were dirty, the blinds were broken so they wouldn’t close properly and the bedroom door had glass panes in it so privacy and sleeping after sunrise is impossible. Our friends in another room had dirty sheets, stained floors and a mouldy bathroom. We bumped in to multiple other groups of visitors feeling either lost at the front door or needing assistance using the multitude of different codes scattered within a text message sent on arrival (or like us, missing important information). If you aren’t tech savvy, or don’t own a mobile phone DO NOT stay here as it will be impossible for you to do basic things like open your room door or even enter the building. I believe there is an app you can download to assist these things as well as adjust the air-conditioning but with the miserable mute staff we weren’t even sure what the app was called. I’m assuming these suites are privately owned and maintained and Chifley just manage bookings which would explain the standards the rooms were kept and the lack of care from staff. But judging by the attitude of every group we encountered during our stay they will not receive many (if any) return customers.