Windsor Hotel Melbourne

THE WINDSOR 1 Stimulus Package, 2 Guests, free breakfasts, 4 nights, and 5 Stars became: No package, 2 guests, 1 breakfast, 3 nights and a million questions as to how such a facility retained 5 stars.

Don't expect the evening doormen to open your car door, retrieve your luggage, or even open the hotel door - however, they will acknowledge you with a nod as you walk past. (carried mine all the way to the room) Apparently, those lads are just ornamental.

Room service - expect to select an on-demand movie (we tried on three nights at differing times) to be advised that the movie you selected is busy. Expect to wait for at least three minutes before anyone in the hotel picks up the phone, and don't even try retrieving a message..... we did and after 10 minutes, we found that it wasn't even for our room.

Expect to be charged over $28 for 200g chocolate, a cookie, and a 100ml bottle of juice. Don't expect the promised bottle of wine, comp choc's and gift on arrival ( or at any stage of your trip ).

As for the room itself, ours had some additional features: bleach stains in the carpet, wood-look contact peeling off the chipboard vanity in the bathroom, unpatched walls where the plumbing was worked on, a toilet flush that worked occassionally (button surround kept popping out) and a flat screen CRT (read the fineprint). I don't think it would be fair to comment to the state of the wall paper as they are going for that "old world" look - and the stained joints definitely provide that in spades.

Now, just so you don't think that I am totally jaded - there were two shining stars in that place. One named Tanar who was efficient and polite, and the other was the tall gent working the day shift as the doorman - wealth of knowledge and very helpful.

If the whole hotel had just 10% of the customer service focus these two had, then it would be a wonderful place to stay. As it is, we had enough by the third evening and checked out (still carrying our bags - but the door WAS opened for us this tme). Should I mention that it was a limo-driver unrelated to the hotel (but parked out front) that flagged a cab for us.... those lads, wonder what world-saving mystery they were working on..