Having enjoyed a stay in the Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott, I decided on the Marriott for our short trip to Sydney.

The hotel itself is somewhat dated - particularly the outside and general areas (lobby, breakfast room), but it is clean. Which for me is most important.

Overall staff are friendly. Will say hello/goodbye as you enter/leave the hotel, will say hello in the lift etc. Room service staff were also polite, nothing out of the ordinary.

The location is excellent, 3 minutes from Circular Quay - train station and ferry services. Another 5-10 minutes will get you to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. 10 minutes towards the city will get you to all major shops. There are cafes and restaurants nearby - under 15 minutes walk.

When we checked in we received our room key, but no information on the hotel services, location of breakfast etc. This was something I realised afterwards, otherwise I would've asked! Breakfast is expensive, personally I cannot eat $38 worth of breakfast so we only indulged once. There is a great variety, cereals, toast, hot food, fruit, pastries etc.

Room was clean, toiletries are basic (shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, moisturiser), and we were not provided with robes. A quick call to room services and this was rectified. In room dining was great, as always very pricey.

My main problem with our stay was the leaky shower. The door did not close properly and subsequently the floor ended up drenched (reason for the 3 on rooms!). I was tempted to ask to be moved, but with only a short stay we were not sure it was worth the hassle, and we had a pretty okay view. I had also read previous reviews stating the same issue, and was not sure moving rooms would even solve the problem! It will be something I bring up upon receiving a request for feedback from the hotel.

Main reasons for any return visit would definitely be the location, and the usual quality of the Marriott rooms, hopefully ours was a one off!

We chose the Marriott because we wanted to be able to see the NYE's fireworks from our room since we knew it would have been difficult for a 2 year old to be out at midnight. It was worth it because the view was amazing but there are still a few things that bothered us. First, the room was very small and there was almost no storage space. Also, the service was quite negligent. It happened a few times that we ordered in-room dining and almost every time we did, they either forgot an item or just plainly brought us something else. And last but not least, we usually like to come back to our room in the middle of the afternoon to relax or take a nap and then go out again but it happened twice that the room hasn't been cleaned yet at 2 or 3 pm! Anyway, despite all the trouble, I enjoyed my stay in Sydney but I would choose another hotel next time I'm in town.

Part of our recent stay in Sydney was spent here for which I'd bought a Marriott Travel Package through its reward program, buying 120,000 airline miles and a week's stay. As a platinum member in the Marriott program, we had the benefit of the executive lounge, with complimentary hot breakfasts in the morning then in the evening, complimentary wine/liquor/beer and excellent hot snacks which basically became our dinners, they were so good and varied. When a beer at any central business district restaurant goes for $8 Australian, a six pack goes for $18 Australian at convenience stores, the benefit was appreciated of having complimentary drinks in the Executive Lounge.

The hotel is within maybe 5 minutes walk of the Circular Quay, so, no need to hire a taxi when getting in from the airport, provided you've taken the train from the airport to the Circular Quay, which is easy to do. Of course, if you're traveling with several suitcases per person, that may not be an option.

Oddly, there were no drawers in the room. We were surprised when we were starting to unpack our suitcases and then found there were no drawers! A call to the concierge resulted in an explanation that some of their rooms do indeed not have drawers, and they sent up a portable rolling set of drawers that worked just fine. That took about 20 minutes to arrive and, of course, we were chomping at the bits to get out on foot and see the area but were frozen in place waiting for the drawers to arrive. MORAL OF THE STORY: when you check in, if you plan unpacking a suitcase, ask immediately if your room has drawers or not. And, if not, then request the portable drawers. Were it not for the benefits of the executive lounge, this quirk would have caused me to drop my rating to 4 dots. The quirk isn't that they didn't have the drawers in the room--it's that we had to find out AFTER we were in the room we didn't have drawers and had to march in place waiting for them to arrive.

Staff was overall very good. The concierge service didn't quite rise to the level of the Intercontinental Sydney, where we also spent part of this trip on a Priority Club points redemption. However, though I am a Platinum Ambassador in the Intercontinental's Priority Rewards program, there was no complimentary access to any Club level, no complimentary breakfasts, liquor or evening fare. The Marriott was by far the better value.

I summed it all up in the title. The hotel is one block or two from Circular Quay, the Opera an George Street (the main shopping street). It's on the second best shopping street , Pitt Street. The hotel is clean, but our room is dated and relatively small. (We asked for an upgrade to a better room, considering our Elite status, but were denied). The concierge staff, particularly the two male employees at the Concierge desk, were courteous but we did not feel at anytime that they tried, let alone tried hard, to please. We actually did not want to "bother" them after running into them twice! For sure, they lacked enthusiasm and energy, at best. The housekeeping staff, on the contrary, was very helpful and nice. We experienced some issues with our door key lock, but the female manager in charge on that December 26 was very helpful. We always tried to stay at a Marriott Hotel on any of our overseas trip if possible, as we've enjoyed our stay at Melbourne Marriott on Xmas days, but we'd most likely not come back to this one on our next trip to Sydney.