- Name of the hotel: Pullman Grand Quay Sydney

- What is your ALL status? Gold

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay? Not unhappy, but a little underwhelmed

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive? I booked a one bedroom deluxe harbour view apartment and that is what I received

- How are the rooms? This is an all-apartments property so you get a proper living room with sitting area, dining table, and open plan fully functional kitchen, a separate bedroom (or two in two bedroom apartments), a bathroom and a small terrace. The apartments are large (about 70 sq metres for the 1 bedroom) and nicely decorated. I love apartments when I go to Australia as I like to cook (there are plenty of supermarkets in the city centre) and it's great to be able to prepare something for yourself when you are awake in the middle of the night because of the jetlag!

The apartments are very comfortable though not necessarily very luxurious apart from a few touches such as jacuzzi bath (though having stayed the year before at the Quay West nearby, I felt it had a few nice luxurious touches such as Japanese toilets which the Pullman doesn't have). The kitchen is fine but not as well equipped as many other similar properties in Australia and not everything was working (see below). On the whole, I'd give the apartment 4*.

- What was good and what was bad?

Good:
- The location is fantastic - right on Circular Quay (nonstop to airport, ferries departures, and edge of the CBD)
- The views are excellent (note that even the cheaper park view rooms tend to have side view of the Sydney Opera House and front view of the beautiful Botanic Gardens)
- Flats are generally well appointed and very comfortable and nicely decorated and I enjoyed the small terrace with table and chairs
- Like the breakfast which is a la carte, and you can order anything you like. However choices are a bit repetitive after a couple of nights and many items were missing (no juice of the day, no smoothie, etc).
- Staff was nice and friendly.
- Received a (slightly) early check in

Bad:
- Well, for me the worst was that there were cockroaches in the bathroom and even though I'm not squeamish, I sure didn't like that. I told them and they said they would "treat the room" but what they meant was a guy came with a spray, and of course, the little buggers were still running around the next day.
- A lot of maintenance issues - in the room, oven was not working, air conditioning clearly not functioning correctly (it was blowing but not cooling). At the property level, the jacuzzi was out of order my entire stay (sign saying they were "investigating the problem"). Maintenance issues were mentioned and not fixed.
- The property tends to be very expensive, a lot more than most 5* hotels in the area (with some exceptions like the very expensive Park Hyatt)
- Very little in terms of Accor Gold recognition: you get the (fairly minimal) drink voucher, but no upgrade, no amenity and the only late checkout I was allowed was 12 instead of 11

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge? No lounge

- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks? Welcome drink only, in the bar - house wine, house beer, house spirit with mixer or soft.

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return? Value for money is mediocre at best. You pay for the fantastic location, but the quality doesn't befit the high end of luxury hotel price tag. Honestly, I'm not sure. Rationally I want to say no in the sense that I felt underwhelmed and was annoyed by the maintenance problems and even more the cockroaches ones. At the same time, the location is truly unique and views fabulous so I might still come back for that. All in all, I would summarise by saying I may still come due to the hotel's very unique location-related qualities but I don't think the hotel is well managed and they really should up their game.