Novotel Canberra

Earlier this year, I stayed at the Novotel with my partner and I very much enjoyed it. We planned on only staying only a couple nights and enjoyed the stay so much we ended up calling the front desk and asking if we could stay one more night. They were more than happy to have us again. We didn't go in the pool much, because we enjoyed the spa and sauna a little too much. We ordered room service, and it was very quick coming up to our room. The room was cleaned every day when we'd leave the room and always had fresh towels.

A great room in a great location. What more could you want.

I am very glad I didn't look at the previous reviews as judgement of this Hotel. I attended the 2013 National Multicultural Festival. Walked across the road and I was amoungst the action. When I needed a break we walked back freshed up and here back to it...The service was exceptional. Thank you Mathew whom brought my car to the front at such a late hour on Friday night, and was there when I returned at 11.30 pm...Sarah at the Desk. Thank you for your warm smile. Thanks everyone for a great weekend.. See you next time..

12 hrs after making booking and 2 weeks until my stay. My circumstances changed and will not be able to attend. Even thoe i paid top $ 280 per night for 2 nights. I was unable to get a refund. I Offerd $100 as good will hoping to get some money back. I was told I understood when I made the booking. 2 weeks is plently of time to re-sell room. Horible service!

DAY ONE I am currently staying at that Novotel in Canberra. We turned up with our book-in receipts printed out. They could not find it on their computers. I knew it was going to take a while to book in so I sat back and waited. We had booked two rooms. The counter staff were great at sorting out the problem and up-graded us to a room with a balcony. This took a while, and a phones kept ringing, they took the brunt of incoming patrons, though their number seemed to thin out when things started to get complicated. Because the next morning will be busy, we decided to order room service for breakfast. This took a little time as the phone was not working properly. After plugging it in the correct socket, I managed to get though to order, though the handset was still not working and I had to use speaker phone. Coming in after dinner we asked for milk in the morning. Soon after the phone began ringing. We picked it up. Nothing. It called a few more times, and after pressing a few more button we finally heard a voice on the speaker phone. The milk order was fine, but they had lost our breakfast order. They told us that it must have went to the front counter, even though we dialed "7" and did as instructed. The orange juice is $4 a glass, I asked if it was freshly squeezed or from a bottle. "It is fresh from a bottle," was the reply. I skipped it. Nevertheless, the rooms are spotless. The rooms are nicely presented and very comfortable with PC access points (pity we are on Mac's.) The rooms have a great TV with a rather strange remote control. The hotel is positioned right next to the shopping center of Canberra. I have a feeling things are messy behind the scenes. DAY TWO Ordered breakfast for 7:30, it turned up at 8:10. We had a strict schedule so a late breakfast was not an option. So now we were 40 minutes behind when we had to be at ADFA by 8:30. Nana called and asked where her breakfast was, they said that their was a problem in the kitchen, she like her pastry, though it was cold and her tea was the same. Our breakfast turned up eventually. You expect hotel food to be a little poor but these guys did their best to dis-please. Breakfast turned up late and cold. The eggs Benedict ($16.50) turned up with a few shavings of cheap processed ham on a muffin with a slop of sauce (if you could call it that). I ordered the "Plated Sunrise" at $18.00 which is a basic full breakfast with the lot. The menu states that it comes with a breakfast sausage, but came with yesterdays dried out roast potato instead. It tasted as bland as buggery, and forget about salt and pepper. We were only given one knife between the two of us. At this point we just had to laugh. What else could you do? Save yourself the trouble and find a cafe. Breakfast was 40 minutes late, they said there was trouble in the kitchen, but that is no excuse and we had a timetable to keep, and it just made us look bad because we had to wait for their poor service. People order a hotel breakfast because they want to eat quickly before heading out. The milk we ordered they took from our room...HELLO...we paid for it and would like to make a coffee later in the day. Leave the milk we paid for in our room. The phone is now beeping every 15 seconds, I have pressed every button to make it stop, but nothing works. The handset just doesn't work. I have hidden the phone in the cupboard so I can get some peace. It seems as though someone paid for the big renovation of this place, but didn't check to see if everything was working correctly. I even went to the trouble of hanging the drapes correctly. For the price you pay you would think they would get some basic things right. The Novotel may think some things are trivial and not worth paying attention to the detail, such as having our two rooms booked, remembering breakfast orders, a fully functioning phone and serving breakfast on time. I would have complained but with such a string of errors I didn't see the point. This place gets a big fat NO.