Hotel Hotel

Sadly we did not enjoy our stay at this hotel. Parking - if you are driving to the hotel it is quite difficult to find the right place but when you arrive you will need to go into the hotel if you need any help. The hotel car park spaces in the public car park had run out although nobody had told us that you needed to book these. You will need to unload the car and then drive round to the public car park. You can use the internal lift to get back. The initial impression on entering the hotel is that everywhere is very dark, This is a shame as you can't see the outside. In our bedroom the blinds had all been shut and so it was like entering a cave. Some rooms don't have external windows. We had a view over the busy main road once we opened the blinds. The room had terrible lighting. The only place to sit in the restaurant with light is in the library section. The library has a terrible selection of books - not a single book that you might want to read and nothing about Canberra - very random. The restaurant is very loud and dark at night. The breakfast pricing makes no senses. Breakfast was included but this turned out to mean you could choose one main off the menu - not a specified budget. So you could either choose an item costing say 12 dollars or 36 dollars but you couldn't combine two items to reach 36 dollars. The waitress took pity on us and let me have a yogurt and toast! The bed felt lumpy and the TV wouldn't connect (although the nice lady helping us with the tv did offer to move us to a room without external windows). I had requested a room on the first floor via email as I don't use elevators - this request didn't seem to have reached the front dest although they did give me a room accessible via stairs. Unfortunately this was a disappointing stay.

Booked Ovolo after reading through a lot of good reviews. Booked the apartment and was shown up to the room. Was also advised by the guest attendant that the apartment did not have Air Condition which I did find odd to begin with as I diddnt read this anywhere while booking the room. It was getting late as we traveled from Sydney and wanted to quickly change and make our way to the Skyfire festival. The room looked old, unkempt and dusty. The tables all had visible glass stains on them. There was dust on furnishings. The bathroom also had soap scum on the floors visible. The guest attendant was nice though and showed us a hotel room but that was a bit small for our liking. We asked if we could get a full refund and see if we could book elsewhere which we did eventually. So all this meant: 1. Our time at Ovolo was wasted 2. We barely made it to the Skyfire as we were still trying to check-in to the Meriton Suites. 3. We had to spend more due to a last minute booking, $250 to be exact. 4. My wife also developed allergies in her eyes and had to see a GP on the way back to Sydney. GP bill being $175 and another $60 for her scripts. All up a very bad experience.

We booked directly with the hotel for a one night stay in a Horizon room. We had a lovely view of the lake and the room was comfortable and clean. We were disappointed by breakfast, which we had paid for with the room booking, expecting a buffet style, typical 5 star offering. However it is à la carte menu & we were told that we could select only from a small ‘Continental’ section of the menu. This was disappointing and confusing as I don’t recall having the option for a ‘full’ or ‘continental’ breakfast when booking. So I would recommend not booking with breakfast & just pay as you go. The food was very good regardless, just not what we had expected. Better and clearer communication from the venue about parking & breakfast is required in my opinion. Just pay for Wilson parking underneath as it is cheaper than the hotel rate anyway. The vibe is calm and quite dark in all areas of the hotel so if you have poor vision this may not be the stay for you.

We’ve stayed at this hotel twice before and came back because it was quirky and had lots of fun inclusions like a complementary drink and snack in the bar and a complementary mini bar with lollies and snacks. Sadly none of these things are offered any more. This means that the Ovolo is just another hotel. There’s nothing wrong with it but there’s nothing distinguishing between about it. Next time we’ll try somewhere else.

Stayed here for 3 nights. On 2 of those 3 (Thursday and Friday nights) tried to have a nightcap drink at the bar at approximately 10pm only to be told “ sorry, quiet night, we are closed”. Not overly busy and not overly attentive. Clearly not a busy and/or popular hotel. Message we take from it is ‘don’t bother, try elsewhere’ so that’s exactly what we will do on outr next visit here in 2 months time!