Coogee Bay Hotel

( 4 stars , Sydney , Australia )

This is our fourth stay, we always enjoy ourselves at the Coogee Bay Hotel especially with breakfast and parking included, it is good value for money.

Our booking arrangements needed to be brought forward due to the early birth of our Granddaughter. We did not have time before flying to alter the booking and so therefore arrived at reception unannounced. The staff were very helpful and made us feel very welcome and accomodated our request.

Not a good choice and ridiculously priced for what it is. Hotel is divided into 2 buildings, one overlooking beach, called Heritage building (not directly on it, there is a road between), one behind. The Heritage part in front is dedicated to the bars and bistro area, and rooms above are noisy and not recommended. Rooms in building behind are average with awful showers, no proper shower box and just a plastic curtain round the space in the bathroom. You also have to go outside the building and around it, either on the street, or through an ugly driveway with a bottle store on it (and stuff spilt around it) to get to the front building where breakfast is served. The hotel does not have a nice atmosphere as there is no central foyer area (except a small one round the back), and you can't even find the entrance to the hotel and reception when you arrive! This hotel is more of a bar with rooms attached behind, and does not deserve to be called a hotel.

Sunday breakfast choice very limited and disappointing.

Coogee Bay Boutique Hotel Good: Had a very nice stay. Coogee is a beautiful beach and has some great restaurants around. The room and bathroom was very clean, well kept, and spacious. Staff were pleasant. The hotel is about as central as you can get in Coogee, and is far enough away from the bars to avoid all that. Indifferent: The Coogee Bay Hotel proper tends to be full of Sydney's yuppie rubes, but I didn't go to the bar area, so that was fine. Bunch of people I walked past in the hotel smelled like they were trafficking a large quantity of weed, but, well, fine with me. Bad: Had to work, so being close to an international aircraft landing approach path was not ideal. Both of the two elevators broke down, but that would be rare, and the front desk told me the internet was down, when it actually wasn't (so I lost half a day of work). The path from the hotel to the bar area goes through a back-street garage thing, which would not necessarily be ideal at 2am after 15 pints of VB.

Overall I was very pleased with the standard of accomodation and would recommend that we use the hotel a gain for either business or personal use. I was grateful to stay inone of the rooms at the rear of the complex and not over the hotel beer a garden as I understand form colleagues that it was noisey.

Rooms on the water side are noisier with the coming and going of garbage and other trucks from early in the morning. Rooms on Vicar Street side whilst only a street view are much quieter. This was our third stay at the hotel and we will stay again great value.