Back from the main street but over looking the town and ocean. The room was spacious, clean and comfortable. Bathroom was roomy. We missed meeting Ting during our stay but Chris was more than welcoming to us. Quite at night except for the occasional train passing literally through the town. We were in town for a family history exhibition and would stay at Madsen Retreat if we had to come again to Penquin.
Location is amazing and the view from room 1 upstairs was lovely. We specifically booked 2 rooms with fold out couches, as we are 4 single people. So this review is really a heads up for those needing extra fold out beds. The couches in rooms 1 & 5 are the type where the back folds down…. They are not beds and were ‘unsleepable’. They also don’t have linen to suit these couch beds. The regular beds were fine - quite comfy. The appliances could do with an upgrade, especially the toaster.
There is not a lot of choice when looking for a place to stay in Devonport - so our key criteria was being within walking distance of the town centre and having free on-site car parking. First impressions of the hotel when we walked in was that it was very dated and in need of a major renovation - there were obviously some areas which had been refurbished such as the front reception but most of the areas need a significant overhaul. Our room was downstairs on the ground floor and walking down the stairs it felt like we were going down to the basement - the carpets needed replacement and the walls repainting. The room itself, a family room was very spacious for just two people - had plenty of storage space, decent work desk, large key sized bed, decent working a/c, though the Wi-Fi was slow with limited bandwidth. Even though the decor in the room was tired and worn, the bathroom had been refurbished the bed was relatively new (nice plush mattress and clean bed linen). The room overlooked the rear car parking area, which meant I could keep a check on the car, not that I was expecting a view given the relatively cheap room rate ($110/night as opposed to $176/night). The room however was relatively dark, with only a single window. We took advantage of the QR code room service for our breakfast option, due to its connivence - the food was alright (not amazing) and on occasions was cold/warm rather than hot. The timing of housekeeping was a bit erratic, as sometimes when we arrived back after lunch it still hadn't been done and other times it was done as soon as we left in the morning. Resupplies to the room by housekeeping was also inconsistent, sometimes we had hand towels and bathmats replaced other times we were left without. Same with tissues and water bottles. The rear car parking area had CCTV cameras, so I was comfortable with the surveillance/security however if you got back later in the evening there wasn't a lot of vacant bays, and we were there when the hotel was relatively quiet - I could imagine parking would be at a premium when it is busy. You do get a fair bit of noise in the morning from the trucks offloading liquor to the bottle shop (reversing beepers/crashing of bottles etc) The laundry and the gym area were really hammered and had obviously see better days - though the gym did have clean towels and fresh water bottles, when I could access it. There is only one washing machine and one clothes dryer - so you need to closely watch when other people's loads finish as otherwise you could be up half the night doing your laundry. In summary don't hold any high expectations about the Gateway Hotel, it is what it describes itself as - a centrally located 3 star hotel.