Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - Who got locked out of their hotel on NYE?

Just speaking to a family member who said that the 4pts Sydney had an electrical problem with their card doors at midnight on NYE and everyone was locked out till 5am! :eek:
Anyone else in that position as they said that a lot of hotels had the same problem.

The "normal" key card lock system is battery powered ... I've been in several hotels with complete electrical failures -- even the emergency generators failed -- and the card locks were just about the only thing that kept going (even the emergency lights in the stairways were dark!). Wonder what system the 4PTs in SYD uses? I've stayed there and didn't notice anything special about the lock that made it look different from the normal battery operated system (but I was less interested in the doorlock than the view from my surprisingly lavish suite there).

Just speaking to a family member who said that the 4pts Sydney had an electrical problem with their card doors at midnight on NYE and everyone was locked out till 5am! :eek:
Anyone else in that position as they said that a lot of hotels had the same problem.

Almost sounds like a Y2K story... Y2K5...?

I got to meet my neighbors at the Four Points Sydney around 2:30am on the 1st when I came back to room 752. Sure enough, at the stroke of midnight, the electronic door locks quit working.

Some poor guy was tasked with running to each room with a Palm-like device and sticking his card into the lock. It wasn't until that point that the locksets worked again, on a room-by-room basis. A letter the next morning from the manager blamed the problem on a software fault with a recently-installed (?) door lock system.

Had I been there on a revenue stay, I might have been more upset, but my only request for compensation -- none was offered, other than free booze in the lobby bar during the impromptu post-midnight get-togethers in the corridors -- was a comped pay-per-view movie.

On a related note, maybe it was because my visit immediately followed three nights at the Park Hyatt Melbourne, but I was rather disappointed with my stay at the Four Points Sydney. My SPG Gold status was enough to get me a harbour view room, but it seemed rather small, it was on a low floor, and it wasn't exactly the eptiome of cleanliness; the shower had a good deal of mildew and the room in general seemed a little run down. Unfortunately the other Starwoods weren't available over NYE on points... oh well.