The Stamford Plaza Melbourne is a "self rated" 5 star hotel. My wife and I spent a weekend here in December. It was pretty convenient to everything so location wise its pretty good. The layout of the rooms is a bit unusual but they are making the most of the space available. Bathroom a bit cramped but functional.
This hotel is probably not on par with the likes of Starwood, Hilton or InterContinental brands but it does have its advantages. The mini bar and restaurants/bar are much more reasonably priced and the staff are a little less robotic.
Now to the not so positives: Everytime we made a request, it took ages for it to be actioned. The first day they plain forgot about the bucket of ice! Housekeeping didn't replenish all the toiletries and we waited about 20 minutes before we could be attended to. The hotel did not seem extremely busy so it might just be a staffing issue. In any case, its poor form for a 5 star place regardless whether its "self rated" or otherwise.
On check out, I informed the reception of mini bar usage and paid accordingly. Get home and a couple of days later there's another invoice for the same items and they've helped themselves to charge my credit card. Now, I know when I give them an imprint of my credit card I'm authorising them to charge it for incidentals, but everytime this has happened in the past with other establishments, I get a courtesy phone call before they do it. If these guys had done so I could've told them that I'd already paid! Not really a big deal because I did give them a call myself and notified them of the duplicate charge and they fixed accordingly, but its these little things that can be the difference between an average and a very good experience.

Have stayed here before. Very central but quiet. My husband and two of our teenage children stayed in a 2 bd suite. Made mistake of not asking for twin beds in second room! after going back to reception organised a rollaway bed for son (if they'd had to share there would have been a murder ;-) - worth the extra $$$ charge per night for rollaway.

Heaps of space. Beds VERY comfortable - didn't have my normal first night restless sleep getting use to the bed!

Room service beautiful. Son especially enjoyed club sandwich.

One of the most friendly Hotels we have ever stayed in Andrew on the front desk started the ball rolling he was most helpful as was the concierge & valet parking right through to our waitress Ingrid from India who has worked for Stamford for 16 years everyone made our stay so enjoyable.
The room was very large ,breakfast very good & the rate was a bargain.

Tiny room...no room for luggage.
Cleaning was hit and miss...didn't clean the toilet bowel, no refill of vanity set, didn't change towels, cleaning commenced at 4 pm.
No towels in the gym and half the extremely limited gym equipment were unserviceable.
The key card didn't work.
Fridge stuffed with stuff I didn't need so I couldn't store anything.

I paid $2000 upfront for the room and then was asked to pay for carparking as you go along. Was told this was standard policy by the manager. I have stayed at more than 100 hotels and it was the first time that I saw this. Even two stars hotel don't do this kind of stuff.

Only good point: Valet parking staff.

Overall, much better value elsewhere like Sommerset on Elizabeth Street. Would pay me to stay there again. Stay at this hotel if you want to be peeved.