Travelling to BNE every 15 days and I used to stay in the CDB, even when attending some conferences in BCEC. Due to a last minute booking, I ended-up at the Novotel few months ago, and this place is officially my new HOME when in town. Clean and tidy very modern quiet rooms, 100m walk from exhibitions halls (thanks to a shortcut at the back), with a 24/7 accessible parking (you can get in and out easily), this place is super convenient. You are just next door to all what Southbank has to offer and a short walk distance (or scooter ride) to the CDB (pedestrian bridge over the river) Staff are young and efficient, smiling all day. ACCOR Motto btw. Last but no least, you stay far from the noisy students/backpackers nightlife + trains / highway of downtown. After all, even if you are in Bris-Vegas, you came here for a rest!
We stayed here for 8 nights in April with our infant son and I am a Gold Elite Bonvoy member and have stayed in quite a few Marriott properties. Let's talk about the pros first - Amazing location - Southbank parks, as are the train and ferry stops, are a short walk away. You can pretty much go anywhere in Brisbane from this location, super convenient. It's right opposite the hospital precinct, so if you are planning to visit someone there, this hotel will be really convenient for you. - Rooms - The rooms are big, we were assigned a quad room with two beds and the beds were comfortable and the bathroom was of decent size too. - Property - This is a relatively new property so it's very well maintained, the pool and the gym are in good condition. They also have a laundry in the second level which is more expensive than your average laundromat but super convenient. Now let's talk about the letdowns: - Service - Right from the check-in we didn't feel very welcomed in the hotel, we had to wait a bit even though there was no one else checking in. As a gold elite member, I get room upgrades (subject to availability), which we have got at all Marriott properties I have stayed to date. But this time we didn't, but we were ok with that as the room was not bad. Some of the staff were really nice and others just didn't want to talk to the customers. But overall, no one had the time to strike up a conversation with the customers, which we have experienced in similar Marriott properties like Four Points. Every service request, took a lot of time, like an extra towel, maybe they were a bit short-staffed. - Restaurant - As other reviews have mentioned, this is an independently operated restaurant and you won't get any Marriott benefits if you are a member. The food here is average but on the expensive side. Also, there are no other options next to the hotel, for the nearest restaurant, you need to walk for 5-10 mins. - Housekeeping - This was the biggest letdown for us. After we checked in, my son found a nail while crawling, thankfully he didn't get hurt, I shared this with the front desk and they cleaned the room later, but it didn't seem clean when we came back later in the afternoon. That was the first red flag. From then on, we always struggled with housekeeping, they never refilled the bathroom amenities even when we explicitly asked them to after the bottles were empty (things like shampoo, conditioner etc which are fixed to the wall). They also didn't change the bedsheets even after we asked them to after the 4th night and the 6th night, usually, they should change the sheets every 3 nights. They had a window from 2-4 pm for cleaning the room and missed our room multiple times. Even when we used to inform them to clean the room at 2:30 or 3 and they agreed on getting the room cleaned. Suggestions for the hotel - I am not sure if you were short-staffed during that period, if not then I would suggest that you invest a little bit in your staff's traini