Rydges Lakeside, Canberra, Australia

This hotel is old… mutton dressed up as lamb.

The hotel is in a great location close to Lake Burley Griffin and to the “CBD” of Civic, but you can just tell that this hotel has lived a hard life.

Rydges Lakeside, Canberra, Australia

I will say that there does seem to be some refurbishment happening, the lifts are being redone and not a moment too soon…. they are just plain dodgy. I think we stopped at almost every floor on the way down one morning, nothing unusual there, but none of the buttons in the lift were pressed and noone got into the lift… spookey.

The bar area downstairs was very nice to relax in and to grab a good cheap eat and a beer.

The rooms themselves seemed to be on the small size with a comfy bed.

HOWEVER… and this is where it starts to get bad…

  1. The room was just plain dirty. There was ‘crap’ on the walls, don’t ask we what it was, but the cleaning staff were obviously scared to go near it, so on the wall it stayed
  2. The bathroom has also seen better days
    1. You had to be a midget to have a decent shower as the shower head was so low
    2. For some reason the fan ran all the time
    3. The shower/bath could use a good clean and some new grout
  3. Internet access was dodgy… a couple of times it just lost the connection and once I had to resort to dial up and the instructions on how to get our discount were just plain wrong.

I was warned by numerous people what to expect, and I gotta say the hotel lived up to expectations!

Would I stay here again? Probably not. But Canberra being Canberra, you’re in the lap of the Hotel God’s so you have to take what is available.