Base redemption room for 2 adults and a kid (though we drag along a baby too):
Wonderful Room, Guest room, 2 Double, City view

The NUA was confirmed the full 5 days in advance. I have a suspicion though, as it was a short stay, that I chose only to take the higher suite options on the NUA... And the hotel was clearly heaving as it was Easter... Final thing in my favour, an early checkout for a 11am flight and I did let them know that. I'm an Ambassador of course.

In terms of how many people, this room could take 6 adults, plus a few kids, easily. And you could all hang about in the living area, or be separated in your rooms, without any space concerns.

Recently stayed 2 nights (as Titanium) while on a work trip and came away thoroughly underwhelmed. While on the surface W Sydney represents a brand flagship in terms of scale, location and design, the actual experience falls well short of the aspiration.

The good:
- Front desk agent at check-in was pleasant and offered good service
- Breakfast is a very good spread with quality options and decent coffee (though I could nitpick for serving a flat white in a latte glass...)
- W bed and bedding comfortable as per usual

The meh:
- Upgraded (what I assume is 1 category) from Wonderful King to Spectacular King with Darling Harbour view. Didn't check availability before check-in for additional upgrade options, but agent said occupancy was down significantly from the preceding holiday weekend. I take it there was an artificial ceiling put on my upgrade potential by not burning an NUA on this. If I wasn't staying for work, I'd probably have been a bit more vocal on this.
- No in-room welcome amenity or note. While certainly not a guaranteed benefit and definitely not the end of the world (and maybe because I was staying on a corp rate?), it would have been nice to receive even the smallest token of appreciation for my business in a self-sanctioned 'luxury' hotel. (Pier One gave me a specialty Tokyo Lamington last year as a mere Platinum.)
- Room felt disappointingly small, particularly for such a large hotel. (Given that the room category ranges from 35-40 sq.m., I'm assuming mine fell on the smaller side). All the internal curvatures detract from the sense of space and result in suboptimal design choices, like a small bathroom vanity shoved in the corner of (when there's a oversized bathtub and shower area that didn't even need all the space. The round, red closet is also not particularly practical and poorly lit; I found an old sock that was not my own on one of the shelves when doing a final sweep to check for my belongings before leaving.
- Service at breakfast was inconsistent. My first morning I was immediately asked if I wanted to place a coffee / egg order, and the second morning I had to wait 5-10 minutes for someone to come take the order. If they're struggling to attract and retain staff, it shows.
- Public areas are oddly sub-scale for a property of this size and room count. They've put a feature staircase straight in from the street entrance, with lifts and a single up escalator off to the side. I get that escalators aren't the most glamorous but if you're going to have a first floor lobby at a hotel, I'm not sure a flight of designer stairs is the right solution. The lobby is awkwardly shaped with 2/3s of the floor space occupied by the Living Room bar and the check-in areas almost seeming like an afterthought (I was told that a temporary check-in desk area is used during peak periods).

The bad:
- Room design is a regrettable combination of impractical features (that large pendant light above the desk?) and light fabrics and details that show wear easily (there was a sizeable black mark on the desk chair). Evidence of budget constraints in the fit out abound: the touch-sensor buttons used to control the lights felt poorly considered and were borderline annoying to use, only the blackout curtain was motorised (with a single button to open/close), USB-A ports only for a hotel that opened in 2023. Given the W brand is defined by its design aesthetic, particularly lighting design, I thought the in-room lighting design was particularly poor and ill-considered.
- The oversized open shower area is a travesty and again an ill-considered use of space that seems luxurious on the surface but isn't. The rain shower head was also tilted at an angle and pressure / coverage were slightly above mediocre.
- The ghd hair dryer in my room seemed to already be in a bad state as it made an alarm-like noise when I tried to use it and wasn't particularly effective at drying my hair.
- 10 hours after express check-out (and 8 hours post email invoice), was issued a revised invoice for a $9 bag of chips from the minibar that I didn't consume. When I replied to the second invoice asking what the charge was for and saying that I did not consume anything from the minibar, Whatever/Whenever responded that it was for a bag of chips 'which was added to my account during my stay'. (Edit: they reversed the charge after an additional email.)

Having stayed at all three W properties in Australia, my ranking would be:
1. Brisbane
(large gap)
2. Melbourne
(smaller gap)
3. Sydney (granted breakfast is better than Melbourne was when I stayed).

I don't think I'll be back.

Sad to hear
The hotel has potential but yes a sever lack of seasoned polished professionals who take the hotel down to
a youth hostel experience at sky high pricing with an upscale product.Yes design and function should go hand in hand but trendy is more important 🙄
I might go back for a few nights just for the breakfast.But would come prepared to face a degree of incompetence.One thing is for certain I wouldn’t pay a premium to stay there under any circumstances

Happen with me as well.
Applied NUA for 3 nights stay for the WOW suite and few other type. At H-5 and 4 I got the dreaded "We pretend to keep looking" email although the WOW Suite is available for the entire stay
Then no more pretending email until H-1 rejected email.

Checking on the app, I can see the hotel still selling all the suites I applied NUA for.
I guess the hotel was forced to listed those in NUA selection, but they unwilling to provide one.


At least they upgrade me to their Fantastic suite though.

As for the stay, its pretty good.
Lobby is basically too small for it size, so it feels very crowded when there are more than 2 groups checking in.

kaizen7 - whilst I appreciate it isn't ideal not getting the WOW suite, I did mention above that my NUA cleared in April to a 3 storey WOW suite - so it isn't that they never give such upgrades. I'd personally consider a "free" upgrade to a Fantastic suite to be a reasonable win to save the 3NUAs for another time.

I do know what you mean about a small lobby - in fact it seems like there are multiple places to check-in on various levels when they get busy. But it certainly isn't a grand entrance unlike say the Sheraton on the park

Or have those NUA expired if the stay was closer to their expiration sate.

Anyway, it reflect poorly on the hotel management when NUA not approved while there are plenty of those selected suites still available for sale.

Just stayed at this hotel for a couple of days. May be repeating some things already mentioned upthread, but these are my thoughts.

The Exceptional:

• The Staff. Issues have been worked out, as everyone was very helpful and got us the answers or what ever else we were looking for. Remembered us quickly even though we only stayed 2 days.
• Breakfast. Buffet breakfast that went above and beyond. Being Canadian, my definition of bacon is different from the Aussies, but the breakfast here had bacon that we are used to. Pancakes, eggs to order, pastries and a whole bunch of stuff that didn't even register on my radar(likely stuff for the Asian crowd). Service is excellent, and the food is very good.
• Beds. Very comfortable, slept as well as I could given a 15 hour TPAC flight.

The good:

• Fitness amenities. Two pools, one is 24 hours, one is the "Wet Deck" with bar service after 6 pm I believe. The gym is quite large, and has a decent amount of equipment, all of which is in good working order from what we could tell. As someone who likes barbells, I can't call it great since it's not really black iron, but it's a good gym for a hotel.
• Security. You need to swipe your room key to get the elevator to go up. Not fool proof but helps keep trespassers down.
• Location. At the south end of Darling Harbour, easy access to the wharfs and that part of the walk. If you're looking to be near the Opera House it's not ideal, but for our purposes it was a very good location.

The Bad:

• Room layout. Once again, the epitome of "hotel room designers who don't actually stay in hotels." The "bar" cabinet takes up a lot of space, in a room that has rounded edges. There is a long chair, and only a small table, covered with items the hotel provides. Had to move a lot of stuff to make room for the laptop. I wouldn't be looking to work in the room we had. It's possible other rooms have more space. But for the size of the room, the space is not used well. Also, barn door to the washroom. For the love of god please stop with these. Doors have purposes and these things do not achieve them.
• Shower. Was it Nate Bargatze who did a whole skit about water on the floor in hotel washrooms? There is a tub but the shower is simply.... there. Water somewhat drains in the floor drain, but it also goes everywhere. You end up spending 5 minutes toweling up the water in half of the room so that you don't walk in and sock your socks later.

Overall this a pretty good hotel. The price is up there, and using the Fine Hotels and Resorts program through AMEX probably colors our opinion a little bit, but none of the nice hotels in Sydney are cheap. It's a luxury hotel and many things are up to snuff. I can't say we know enough to know when a luxury hotel falls short, but this one seems to fit the bill. We are staying there again in a week and change for a few nights before we head back to NA. We definitely enjoyed our stay here.