So... this was an interesting little place where I stayed during a recording recently. The recording was in a nice little church in a pretty upmarket suburb of Sydney... which meant that there wasn't really much in the way of affordable accommodation that was close by. So, the orchestra managed to find us a little hotel (motel... ) that was a short distance away by taxi. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the drive was mostly down a freeway and across bridges over water, it meant that a 20 minute or so drive would have been a near hour and half walk. So... that meant that walks were out of the question... usually, I do prefer walking if possible!
When we first arrived... well, suffice to say that the outside didn't really give us great hope that this was going to be one of the more luxurious places that we sometimes get to visit and stay in. However, that said... I'm happy if it has a bed and electricity, and is clean! I'm working... and I just crash in the bed for the night... so, anything above that is sort of overkill! On the other hand, I tend to be easily pleased with these sorts of things...
Walking into the lobby... well, it doesn't look as bad as from the outside. It doesn't look grand, but it doesn't look like a cheap roach place either!
Walking up to the room floors... well, this is a sort of different impression. You will notice that all the rooms are down a single side of the building. This is because there is a very busy arterial road (highway) on the street side... and that is just pretty loud during the day, and not so quiet in the evenings... midnight is okay, but it starts to liven up early in the morning.
So... no rooms on that side.
A quick look inside reveals a decent enough room... a large TV, and some ability to cook (microwave...) and a little kettle and teas/coffees. During the time that we were there, the downstairs dining area was being renovated... so, no breakfasts and dinners down there. I could imagine that it would be much nicer if there was that option.
That said, there were some decent restaurants within a half hour walk of the hotel. And an easily accessible train station that could take you to Chatswood where there were quite a lot of choices for dining.
The room wasn't crazily large or anything... but as I said, functional and clean is good enough for me.
However, the downsides... a large single paned glass window made for a great deal of noise leakage... from the apartments and car park down stairs... so, even though it wasn't quite as bad as having a room directly overlook the highway... it wasn't a really quite room either. So, negative points on that front... and for me, it was quite a big downside as I'm a pretty light sleeper.
Anyway... a bed is a bed... and in the end, if you aren't paying for it... well, good enough is good enough. However, if I was paying for it... this would not have been my first choice!