My sister (who was visiting from New Zealand) and I spent four fabulous nights here in late January. We stayed in a "king lake view room" with a bay view window on the 7th Floor. The room was certainly very spacious, clean and especially quiet (considering the hotel is right on Queens Road) with everything we needed. My only suggestion to the hotel would be to have the outside windows cleaned regularly because the view is too good to be spoilt by dirty windows. Just a tip, we asked Housekeeping to keep the drapes closed during the day while we were out because the sun blazes in the windows and makes the room rather warm, making the air conditioning having to work harder unnecessarily.
I phoned the hotel directly in early December and got a fantastic deal which included a full buffet breakfast for the two of us each morning (normally $30 each I believe). We both agreed the buffet breakfast gave a wide variety of excellent choices (hot and cold), although it would have been great if the mushrooms were served daily instead of the once during our stay because they were so yummy. This, I have to say, was the only negative comment regarding breakfast we made throughout our stay. The restaurant was large, modern with an outlook over Queens Road to Albert Park Lake and we didn't have to book at all, just walked in and chose a table closest to the window each time.
After arriving in the early evening, we decided to use room service for dinner and found it to be a rather privileged and enjoyable experience. The meal was brought to our room on time and was hot and delicious.
While booking, I accepted an offer to join the GHA Discovery Membership, and I'm glad I did because there was a complimentary bottle of water in our room on arrival, free newspaper at our door each morning and free wi-fi which suited my sister because she was constantly using her iPad.
We didn't need a car because we were traveling on the trams to the tennis, Victoria Market and restaurants in St Kilda. The tram stop is so convenient as its literally a few minutes walk from the hotel to St Kilda Road - perfect! Allow 10 -15 minutes and your in the CBD with no expensive parking hassles. And you can also purchase your tram ticket from the front desk - brilliant. They even had a daily newsletter and schedule of play for the Australian Open which also suited us.
We would most certainly recommend this hotel to anyone looking for cleanliness throughout the hotel, great customer service, value for money and great location. Would definitely stay here again if and when the need arises.