I stayed at The Great Southern Hotel as a solo traveller from November 27 to 30 to attend the 2012 ARIA Awards. As requested, my queen room was spacious (contrary to other reviews) and overlooked George St (which was a lot better than having to stare out to concrete walls).

The hotel itself is in a great location -- literally a two minute walk from Central Station, the main station in the CBD. This was fantastic in that, being my first time in Sydney, having easy access to the main transport hub meant that getting around the city was easy. It also meant that I could get to the hotel straight from the domestic airport without having to worry about hopping on a taxi.

The hotel is also close to other forms of transport (such as the monorail, the light rail service and busses), as well as restaurants and shops -- Paddy's Market and Market City (a direct factory outlet) are also just a block away. It's also a five-minute walk to the Sydney Entertainment Centre, where the ARIAs were held. In terms of other attractions, it's a fifteen minute walk from the beautiful Darling Harbour, a ten minute walk to the Power House Museum (which I really enjoyed!), and as I said, a train ride away from main stations like Circular Key and Bondi Junction.

The hotel also boasts a great pub on the ground floor. The food was tasty, and the drinks were at great prices. The staff at the hotel were also fantastic. I arrived in Sydney at 10am and they held my luggage for the day until I checked-in later in the afternoon.

The only issue (and a minor one at that) I had was the broken shower tap in my ensuite, which kept leaking water during my stay. Overall, however, I would thoroughly recommend this hotel to friends and family, and will definitely be back the next time I visit Sydney!

our 2nd time here, room is small but has every thing u need and is very clean , staff were lovely and helpful at reception and in bar, the bar food was great value and really nice, breakfast was ok , will be staying there again on our return :)

This is an older hotel but price wise it was perfect.
The rooms were exceptionally clean, the staff very friendly and helpful when we needed to ask directions, and the location only 2 minutes from Central Station, which is just great if you are flying into Sydney and catching the train from the airport. There is also an airport shuttle service which drops off and picks up directly across the road.
Buses along George St or a short walk take you directly to the main shopping area.
Being on the main St we did hear police sirens one night - but generally the rooms were very quiet (no hallway noise) and the beds very comfortable.
I would definitely stay there again.

Check in staff were great, one in particular was helpful & friendly. When I inquired if we were getting a nice room we were assured all the rooms were nice and then accommodated in a hot, dark & dingy corner room with a view of all the other corner rooms! There was no air con or fan.

We went down to the restaurant to order a meal about 8.30 - 8.45pm and were stopped by the waitress on the way to the counter to be asked if were ordering food. When I said yes she said that we would need to go through to the bar which would cost extra to take away as would cutlery. The barmaid was awesome and didn't charge extra but the grumpy waitress took the cutlery out of our bag when she did our order & as it was only plastic I didn't see what the big deal was! She apparently had been on all day and night which was the excuse for her being so rude but i didn’t see how that was our fault.

The check-out staff were flustered when we were leaving, one was going a mile a minute with a big queue and the other was handling one client at a time and sniffing and sweating the whole time.

Overall it was an average hotel with average experience and I am still waiting for them to credit my bond back.

I work in the travel industry and would never recommend this property unless desperate!