Melbourne Marriott, Australia [Master Thread]
 

I have a stay booked here in Mid November and the website is telling me its under extensive renovation - has anyone stayed here recently - should I be concerned - or is it bad enough, that I should move somewhere else in town?

I'm in the same situaton but have to stay with Marriott to build my "nightage" before year end.

I just stayed there. They have closed several floors for renovations but it really isn't noticable. The only issue is since they have basically shut down those floors they have some problems with moaning pipes. They said something about a release valve. It is only now and then and seems to be random.

It is a great hotel, I have stayed there about a dozen times in the last 8 years.

It is (was) in need of a renovation, especially the plumbing, so I am glad it is under way.

Given the choice, I would stay there anyway, it is truly a great facility.

One nice thing they did for me (no idea if they still do) is give you a special gift for stay number 5 and ten. I think it was some very nice chocolate and maybe a bottle of wine. Nice surprise, especially if you just arrived in the country after the all night flight from the US.

Any idea what the hours are for breakfast, snacks, and desserts in the CL?

Did you check the hotel's website? A lot of times it's listed there.

Cheers.

I did - just says Sunday-Saturday 6:30 to 12 am

Easy access and well situated
 

Check In I had a bit of correspondance with the property before arrival. I did use the mobile check-in app and my keys were ready when I arrived. Unfortunately, I was not able to procure an upgrade to a King Suite. While they had one left, they felt it would be only available to me for an upcharge (I think SPG rules would require that they give it to me an elite upgrade). Room This was a two bed room. There was a separate area with a closet, bag storage area that led to the bathroom (shower only).The room did have a table and a few chairs.A plug adapter is available from the hotel and the shaver plug in the bathroom is a good choice for phone/camera chargers. Service The funny aspect is that I would see the same staff appear from handling the bell desk duties to concierge to lounge attendants.The staff was very attentative and warm and helped me out with various issues as needed. Dining I did not dine in the on-site restaurants, but used the executive lounge offering.Breakfast was done well. As is common for international properties, you can order eggs any style from the attendant (but it takes awhile). Beverage options are numerous and evening dining did contain a rotating hot option which I would consider to be a premium main entree (steak/fish/pasta/stew). A dessert offering (cake/tarts/custards) would also rotate.As noted by others, the lounge is open to midnight each day for beverage access. My favorite part though had to be the self-service water/ice machine which is such a rare item in a hotel I think.I found the free direct dial phone in the lounge helpful to call Australian numbers as I did not have a local SIM as well. Location I think this is a very important aspect when staying in large cities. You need to be in a place where you don't have to call a taxi to go to most places (my opinion).This property is not far from tram stops (which are free within the CBD). I personally think this location is better than those that are nearer to Federation Square/Flinders being a bit more upscale but still at a major intersection.In terms of places (aside from the usual tourist sites), both the QV Building and Melbourne Central (major shopping options) are easy to reach. QV has a Woolies and a Big W and Melbourne Central has a Coles. Both have many eating options as well (food hall style).There is a self-serve laundry on Russell, but it was closed for the holidays so I used a delivery service. Overall This is a solid property even though you have many choices. Reasonable room rates makes it an easy choice for many. It is said that the Marriott chain is very popular with Americans. That is probably true, but the services offered (particularly the concierge and executive lounge) make stays a lot easier for many I believe.It is not a large property actually in terms of rooms, but I appreciated the larger standard rooms that can accommodate more than two guests which is not common in most large cities (and is also an issue with many of the area SPG properties).I found it easy to get to all of the areas using walking and trams (such as Docklands, South Wharf, Flinders/Federation and related alley streets). For longer adventures (GOR, Penguins, Yarra Valley, etc.), most of the tour services did door to door pickup and did not require me to go to Federation Square.

Just did 6 nights here. Hit me up with any questions. Fantastic experience. Better love Chinatown areas because this one is right in the thick of it. Good Lounge, good breakfast, get a third floor room with a balcony, nice surprise and walk to the gym from outdoors. Let me know, thanks.

I stayed here last week for two nights after a weekend with friends in the suburbs. This was my third stay at this hotel.

While I had checked my reservation prior to arrival and it reflected I had been upgraded to a king suite, when I got there I discovered I had not and was in a premium room facing the brick wall of the building next door. I'm from the camp that if I get upgraded great, if not then that's OK too. As such I did not complain, nor inquire about an upgrade.

Lounge breakfast was good and you could order eggs cooked to order from the lounge attendant. Evening food offering was just OK by international standards, which means great compared to Marriott's in the US.

I did eat at the hotel restaurant one evening, and it was also just OK. Surprisingly I ordered the ribeye medium rare and it came rare, which I find as unusual for Autralia as medium rare often arrives closer to medium.

On the second day they did deliver a bag of dark, milk and white chocolate with a note from the manager.

Thanks for the update. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

Sounds like you got the same room we did on our first stay at that hotel! Thankfully the 2nd time we went, our room overlooked Exhibition Street.

I find this troubling. When looking to book this property online today (award travel), even logged in as Plat, it showed AUS$75/night extra for executive floor/lounge access. So I called the US rez line, and was assured it was some sort of aberration and it was strictly not necessary to book the upcharge option as Plat (having said that, I'm not confident the agent was particularly senior).

Is this some kind of rogue property that just ignores elite status altogether? Sadly, it's the only MR game in town, and SPG is not looking very strong either - worse, in fact. Then again, I say "rogue" but clearly the upcharge option is loaded into the Marriott rez system. Hmph.

I have never seen any spg/marriott hotel let you select an executive floor/lounge access at booking for no surcharge, no matter what status you have. Has this been your 'normal'?

When making a reservation, you select whichever room you wish to pay for (normal, deluxe, suite, lounge floor) and when you check in, you are given benefits based on your status, and this includes moving you to an executive floor or coding your key cards for lounge access. The way you describe it, only Plats would be booking rooms for family, friends, coworkers, strangers, etc. if they could select a lounge access floor at booking.

I've stayed there twice and just booked normal rooms and had no hassles with lounge access as gold members.

The staff here, especially the concierge guys and the lounge hosts, are probably the most friendliest Marriott staff I have ever seen.

Admittedly I've earned a lot more points over the years than I've ever cashed in, so I'm by no means a redemption expert. But the post that I quoted seemed to indicate that the property even refused Plat recognition at checkin, I gather offering a room upgrade for cash (so obviously they had a room upgrade available) or no upgrade. In other words, if I don't bite the bullet now with the points + cash offer, I stand little chance of not staring at the neighboring brick wall posted about in this thread.

So is it actually the norm that hotels offer their absolute worst rooms for points only, but make available their decent inventory only for points + cash? I only can recall seeing that at an Autograph collection hotel that had just been acquired by Marriott around the time of my stay, so assumed their indifference to Plat was to do with integrating into the new system for them. Perhaps I was mistaken and was more fortunate previously than I'd appreciated.

Ahh, ok. I was wondering if it was something I missed!

So, yes, it is up to the property which rooms they offer for point redemption solely and which they offer for points .+ cash. What you're seeing (in my opinion) is 100% normal. They often will offer their worst rooms for points only. And of course will try and upsell you for a 'guaranteed' room upgrade (deluxe room type, higher floor room type, etc) for points+cash. Note the key word is guarantee. If you choose to pay for it yourself, you are guaranteed the upgrade into the lounge floor/suite/upgraded room. If you choose to wait for check in, it is often subject to availability, but I have only been to a hotel once in San Francisco where the lounge floor has been 100% sold out, and it was due to a popular conference that week. I would not agree with your quote "you stand little chance of not staring at the neighboring brick wall...". In fact, I'd be willing to put money down stating that at the very least, you're put on a high floor if not the lounge floor.

I think it's important to note that regardless of which room you choose, they should not deny your lounge entrance / Platinum benefits. I have never had a hotel (no matter what room I booked) deny me my Platinum benefits as long as I booked with Marriott (I know Marriott sometimes honors 3rd party booking sites, but I would throw a little caution out just as a warning / as due diligence). Your Platinum benefits are a upgraded room (higher floor, lounge floor, possible suite) that is subject to availability and access to the club lounge if one exists. You should get these (among the other Plat benefits but I just highlighted these since we're discussing these). If you do not, I'd ask to speak with a manager and bring up the Marriott website. But again, I've never ever ever been rejected Platinum benefits.

I'm booking another stay here for August, booked the lowest / cheapest room type (as I often do with Sydney and basically every Marriott reservation), and I fully expect to be upgraded into a nicer (higher) room that hopefully doesn't have a brick wall as its window. Now I know it could be extremely busy when I visit, but I cross my fingers and hope it isn't.

Thanks much, and I wish you all the best (pls report back). This will be my first visit to MEL, but I gather that Aug/Sept are not anywhere near a peak season (although I believe I read about some sort of festival towards the end of Sept). So hopefully upgrade rooms are aplenty (and the weather's decent)!

I wouldn't hold your breath. I'm staying at this property right now. Paying cash and a Plat. We got an upgrade to an 'executive level', which is 2 floors below the lounge. Only benefit I can see is that our room isn't adjacent to any others, so no adjoining doors.

Not complaining, overall this stay has been satisfactory, and we don't have a view of a brick wall. I recommend setting your expectations low on the upgrade front.

How do you feel about the location? I've contemplated going outside of the points realm and just paying cash in a different part of town, but honestly the point of the trip was kind of that I have a lot of points and miles to burn, and also some time on my hands at the moment.

Location was good, it's a couple of blocks away than ideal (the Hyatt seems particularly well placed). However, you can walk into the heart of the city in 15 minutes.

Check the cash price if you do go with this property. The price wasn't high enough to justify spending points in my case, the redemption value was too low. I came to the same conclusion with the Pier One property in Sydney, suspect it's due to low season and current exchange rates.

Excellent insight/advice all around - very much appreciated.

Edit: So it turns out that the Marriott is slightly more expensive than the cheapest room at the Park Hyatt during the first week of Sept - roughly $450 AUD. At this point my thinking is to keep the points booking and pony up for the cash room upgrade (or take my chances, but with the rates being that high I'm thinking there might be a convention or something along that line - never good for upgrade prospects).

I think you're making the right call there. My total cost for 3 nights was a little under $700 AUD on my corp rate. For that rate, I'd do the same as you and use the points.

I'd suggest contacting in advance about an upgrade with extra cash. When I arrived our room had already been selected and paperwork printed out. In a busy week you don't want to arrive and find the best rooms already allocated.

Well, ostensibly at least I have an SNA request applied against this reservation. SNA pool included a courtyard balcony queen room or a high floor corner king room. For those with experience at this property, what would be your recommendation (I do like balconies quite a lot, but not so sure about how the courtyard is laid out)?

I believe the courtyard rooms are on the lowest guest floor, and have no view. They are good for smokers--you can smoke in the courtyard area. While I have stayed at this hotel 100+ nights, I have never stayed on that level (I prefer high floors).

The corner suite rooms are the best in the hotel, in my opinion.

This is a nice property, but it really differentiates itself with the staff. They are the nicest and most helpful I've ever met.

Ah, thanks much for the insight. I do enjoy a good cigar in the evening, but have been upgraded to a corner suite (via SNAs), so I suppose I'll just keep that. Too bad those corner suites don't have balconies!

Update

(Note: I am not an experienced trip reporter, so please bear with me).

In beginning, I would like to echo previous comments that it's the entire staff at this hotel that makes all the difference. From the time we first walked in the front door we were greeted by the most welcoming and genuinely accommodating hospitality professionals imaginable. That held throughout our stay and right up until departure.

Location: Quite adequate - perhaps even desirable (we enjoyed several meals in Chinatown, which is essentially at the Marriott's doorstep). Those lesser accustomed to walking may find other properties to be a bit closer to the city center and therefore more desirable. But my wife and I are active Colorado types and had zero issues getting around as we pleased. We never once hailed a taxi or an Uber, nor did we hire a car until departing for points beyond Melbourne. We did make occasional use of the (mostly free) tram service, which can be reached following a short walk from the hotel.

Property: Admittedly a tad dated, but perfectly livable for a week's stay.

Rooms: I was successful in expending some SNAs that were set to expire, so I can't speak to a standard room. What I can say is that we were initially upgraded to a corner suite, which really was quite nice. However, this is a 12-story building in the general vicinity of much taller buildings, so it's not as though the view is something to truly cherish (at least not from our corner). Also, although the soundproofing is generally effective, this property is located on a street corner, so the views below are of traffic and pedestrians. After our first night, we elected to move to a courtyard room - a choice we didn't regret (with some qualification, below). The courtyards are actually divvied up via planters with small trees/shrubbery/etc - by no means totally private, but neither entirely communal. The views aren't anything spectacular, but we found sitting outside after long days to be enjoyable (as the cigar smoker, I especially enjoyed this freedom). We found it odd that there was a wrought iron table outside, but no chairs - we had to relocate the room chairs in and out each evening. I kept forgetting to ask about this, as it wasn't too great an inconvenience and we were quite busy throughout our stay.

I should note that the courtyard rooms themselves are smaller than the corner suites (no segregated living space), although perfectly adequate for our purposes. I should also note that the above-grade parking garage is below this level (you're thinking ground level because of the courtyard, but this is not actually how it's laid out). At least in our room, we were awakened most mornings at about 7:00 by what sounded to be an 800-pound basketball being bounced in the garage below us. This generally continued for 10-15 mins each morning - enough to where there wasn't much of a chance of falling back to sleep after things quieted back down. Here again, though, this more or less mapped OK to the schedule we were keeping, so it wasn't as disastrous as it might sound. For whatever it's worth, our room was near to the elevators - a room out towards the edges might've missed this phenomenon, I really can't say.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...021f056d4b.jpg

View from a courtyard


Lounge: Quite small, and not a lot on offer either at breakfast or in the evenings. Perhaps because of this, it seems perfectly acceptable to pour a couple of drinks, load up a small plate, and head on out. In fact, one staff member suggested enjoying some lounge beers in the evenings out on our courtyard upon learning that we'd moved rooms.

Elite/Plat recognition: Difficult to say, as it seems everyone receives VIP treatment at this property. I don't recall anyone specifically mentioning status at check-in or anything like that, but I never once was left to feel I was anything short of an elite guest.

Bottom line: There are certainly alternatives to choose from which offer slightly closer proximity to the city's various attractions, and probably do so with a little more panache (I did for example briefly step into the Grand Hyatt, and that's certainly your typical modern property with lots of uniformed aircrew milling about in the lobby, etc). So depending on your priorities, you might do well to stay elsewhere. However, if I were to return to Melbourne (and I very well may someday, even if only briefly while en route to the absolutely magnificent southern coast nearby), I would once again choose this Marriott on the basis of its overall winning combination of perfectly acceptable physical accommodation paired with a truly remarkable capacity for hospitality.

Thanks for the detailed report & pic. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

Here now and do not like it at all - far preferred Sheraton and Hyatt.

Found club lounge to be reasonably Well stocked - alcohol and decent snacks - but crazy cramped. Feel like everyone sitting on top of everyone. No one cleaning up dirty dishes left behind.

Gym is tiny, one of the smallest for a full setvoce Marriott I have been to.

Service just not ok. Extraordinarily rude maintenance man who literally didnt even check for problem let alone fix. That took duty mgt coming to room. I have nebet had duty mgt come to room to fix mechanical problem. No apologies given despite my complaints.

.Should'vr stayed at Sheraton (massivr construction outside Westin),

Excellent stay!
 

Just completed a 2 night stay at this hotel. Used SNAs and was upgraded to Corner King Suite at 5 days out. FD Mgr was super nice at check-in and offered us 2 glasses of sparkling wine. My girlfriend wanted a picture of us so FD Mgr suggested standing in front of Bill's picture. I declined and chose to stand in front of the ice bucket with the bottle of wine instead. ;)

After we arrived in the room, the hotel delivered a cheese tray and an open bottle of sparkling wine. Not sure if that was an error or if it was the bottle that we had glasses from at the front desk. Either way, it seemed strange to not bring up a full bottle. The suite was meh, but it was a decent size even though the bathroom was rather small..

We were offered the 1000 point welcome amenity plus buffet breakfast in the restaurant. The breakfast was excellent and they even had a large juicer available with a supply of carrots, celery and ginger. They had vegetarian dumplings (dim sum) on offer every day which were awesome. My girlfriend had a waffle and the chef offered up some passion fruit ice cream to go with it. Yummy!

The lounge seemed crowded with tables and chairs, but at one end there was a large sofa and some comfy chairs, which were far more welcoming. I thought the evening spread was excellent with two hot dishes (one of which is always vegetarian). They also offer salads, cold meats/fish, dolmades and crudités and dip. At 19:30, they take away the hot/cold food and bring out desserts. Beer, wine and alcohol were complimentary from 17:00- 21:00.

At check out, I paid with my Marriott gift cards, thereby avoiding the 2% credit card surcharge. ^

My usual go to hotel in MEL is the Westin (never stayed at the Sheraton) but we decided to try the Marriott due to 1) lower price 2) lounge 3) heavy construction in front of the Westin. Even though the Westin is far more elegant, I would not hesitate to go back to the Marriott. The staff was simply outstanding. Everyone made us feel welcome from the front desk to the bell desk, the lounge staff and the restaurant servers. Location right beside Chinatown is also excellent.

BTW, I collected email addresses for the Marriott, Sheraton and Westin, and have added them to the wiki in the respective property threads.

Thanks! I have 5-night stay booked in September and now I am looking much more forward to it :)

Thanks for the update MG! Much appreciated.

Cheers.

I will take my wife and kids to Melbourne in August next year. Is Marriott Melbourne the hotel we should choose compared to Westin and Sheraton? Our preference would be a hotel that is very convenient for sightseeing. A decent lounge breakfast would be a plus as well. Thanks.

All three Marriott hotels in the Melbourne CBD are convenient for sightseeing.

As others have said there is construction going on in the front of Westin for a rail tunnel, so you may choose to avoid it for this reason.
However it is an elegant well run hotel. It does not have an Executive Lounge.

The Sheraton is often my choice as I like the location, and the feel that it is more of a boutique hotel.

The Marriott is an older hotel than the other two, but renovated. While all three hotels have good service, Marriott have impressed me at front desk and restaurant. It does have an Executive Lounge. So if your status gives you Executive Lounge this might be the right choice for you.

We've stayed at the Melbourne Marriott a couple of times and found it an absolute pleasure to stay in. The staff (especially the concierge guys) are very warm and welcoming and nothing is too much to ask.

The hotel is in a very good location. Very close to the State Library, Old Melbourne Gaol (worth doing!) and Carlton Gardens/Royal Exhibition Centre/Melbourne Museum. OH walked back from the MCG one night after a footy game and took him about 30 minutes. The tourist tram passes by at end of the road (La Trobe) too.

The hotel may not seem like its central but it actually is and Melbourne has a free tram zone for the CBD too, so its very easy to move around the city.

Thank you, Nequine and Rick. I am a Titanium elite. I will choose the Marriott then.

You will really love the lounge in Melbourne, it isn't the biggest but very nice and the hosts were excellent. Good choice of stuff for breakfast and dinner (proper food rather than snack type food).

What hotel did you choose in the end for your family trip? How was the stay with kids? Were your kids allowed into the lounge without an additional fee?

We have 2 kids 4 and 6 so we are looking at a family oriented hotel (We are platinum too) but I can’t find any room on points at Marriott with 2 beds. I am only getting 1 king or 1 queen even paying cash or pt to upgrade online. We are looking at next spring.

Unfortunately, we do not even know whether we will be able to go yet.

Were you able to make the trip? If yes, please share your experience - I am planning for a visit with my family (2 kids; 11 & 4) in 2021.