The Langham Sydney

Booked thru the Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts. Was able to check in early, 11AM, and checked out at 4PM. Did not get any room upgrade. Very nice estate, with just the right size, not to large. Would absolutely stay there again. Rather this than the Four Seasons.

The room was large. Huge bed was the most comfortable I have ever slept in. Also very very guiet for sleeping. Shower / bath excellent. Easy walk to restaurant, Fish at the Rocks. Checking in easy and room available even though I was a bit early. Can highly recommend staying at this hotel

First, the positives: The Langham has spacious rooms and is located on a quiet street away from the more touristy areas of the city. The bell staff/ valet were very friendly. The breakfast buffet had good variety. However, we experienced some issues during our stay that make it unlikely we will visit the hotel again: - We found a cockroach in our room and when we notified the staff, they responded that we had a terrace room and it was raining so this was not a surprise. I sure was surprised when it crawled across the bathroom floor in front of me. They did offer us a small credit, to “deep clean” the room, and a room swap after some probing. - We arrived at the hotel at 9am, after a 14 hour flight and with an infant. While we understand early check in is not guaranteed, we had hoped the hotel could prioritize us rather than making us wait until 3pm. When we were finally checked in to our room at 3, none of the requests we had sent the concierge via email had been made in the room we waited hours for. These were simple requests that the concierge previously confirmed by email - a cot for the baby and an empty mini fridge for baby's milk. - One member of our party had a room in which no outlets in the bathroom functioned. We again notified the staff and they responded, “It’s such a beautiful room, we still want to offer it to our guests,” indicating they know of the issue and continue to fill the room. - Ripped, old bath towels still in rotation. It also seems that maid staff is only available to fully service rooms until midday, so if you do not make the room available before then they will leave a card that they missed you that day (although they do come back for a turn down service). We always stay at the Four Seasons in Sydney and were looking for some alternatives with larger rooms, but we would go back to the FS over the Langham next time. We did not feel this was five star or luxury service.

Choosing a hotel for our family trip to Sydney was difficult as there is a lot of choice but we were very pleased we picked the Langham. The location was great about a 15 minute walk to Circular Key with friendly service and good facilities. I would recommend and would stay there again when returning to Sydney. My only disappointment was that our Premier Harbour View room with Terrace had a shower over bath which we found difficult to get in and out of but that was my fault for not reading the room description properly when booking as my son’s room was a Deluxe City view and it had a bigger bathroom with separate bath and shower (although they didn’t have the view we had) so weigh up which is more important to you when booking

I gave this a 4, but 3.5 would have been more accurate. Usually if I critique a hotel, any negatives are in the hotel itself and I go out of my way to praise the service. Here though, I'd have to say both the hotel and the service are fine in some ways, lacking in others. The positives: The hotel has an older-school charm and grace. The rooms are unusually large. The bed itself seemed unusually large and was very comfortable. The location in The Rocks neighbourhood was excellent. The negatives in terms of the hotel itself: our room was one of the ones with a door to an adjoining room, and I would not stay in one of these rooms again, as there is quite a bit of noise transference. I don't know 100% but would guess the guy next door was watching porn; anyways, earplugs were a necessity. The service didn't have some fatal flaw, just a number of small irritants that together added up to something less than what I was expecting at a Langham hotel. I'll set a couple out here only so the hotel can consider if changes are in order. First episode was a simple request for more pillows. 3 hours later, still no pillows. Phoned the front desk, nobody picked up, phoned again half an hour later, nobody picked up. Had to go to the front desk to straighten it out. Really, if you can't staff the place adequately to get prompt service, at least get one of those phone systems where you can tell which guest called you so that you can (and do!) call them back if you're too busy to answer. That should be a no-brainer. Second episode was at breakfast. There's nothing wrong with the food; it's good. Now, they have a bunch of hot food ready to go, but if you want eggs made to order, you order them from the wait staff. And of course that's fine, but when we said ok 2 eggs plus bacon, sausage & toast, we got strange reactions both times (one borderline rude), and it just sort of seemed clear they wanted us to get those things ourselves and just get us the eggs. Again, small irritant, but think about it from a customer POV: So are customers supposed to get the bacon, sausage & toast themselves first and then wait for the eggs while the rest of that stuff gets cold? Or are we supposed to wait for the eggs and then go get the rest of that stuff while the eggs get cold? Either way, something's getting cold before you have everything on your plate. Well, I told you it was a little irritant only, but it didn't mandate the strange reactions we got. A hotel should think about these sorts of things from the perspective of a customer and put procedures in place that optimize that. Look, none of this means you shouldn't stay there. For ourselves, for part of this trip we stayed at a superb apartment-style hotel just on the other side of the quay that I've separately reviewed, and that's where I'd stay. Just my 2 cents.