Stay for 8 days,on christmas and new year.Room was smal but clean and only on the hottest day ( 42 C ) the aircondicion did't work very good.

I will admit that I was hesitant to stay at the Capitol Square Hotel after reading some of the negative reviews, however being on a tight budget (being near Christmas time) this was the hotel that offered the best rate in such a great location.

I had a pleasant check-in and out experience. The staff were quite busy on both occasions, but they were very welcoming and polite to me and my partner. The manager on Duty, Jason I believe his name was, explained all the services in detail and answered all of my questions. He was also very helpful in letting me know what was around the hotel and what places of interest we could go.

Location was a 5 minute walk to Central Station, China Town, Paddy's Markets, The QVB and other shopping centres, Cinemas and if you add another 5 minutes to the walk you're in beautiful Darling Harbour.

The room was great considering what I paid. The room, bed, linen and bathroom were clean and comfortable. I had a pretty good view of George St and there was very little noise from the city. The room included a mini fridge, seats, cupboard (with extra pillows, blankets, iron and board, kettle, mugs tea and coffee), table, TV, clock radio, internet connection and air conditioning.
The bathroom was substancial including a bath/shower, toilet, sink and all the towels, gel and shampoo/conditioner I needed. It was small, but not cramped and I had more than enough room to do what is done in a bathroom.

Overall I am very pleased with my stay and the service provided from the Capitol Square Hotel.

I have stayed in many different Sydney hotels and this time around I searched for a well located hotel within Sydney for a reasonable rate for a one night stay just before Christmas. With a rate of $99 for a Sunday night stay in Sydney, Capitol Square Hotel appeared to fit the bill for this, so I was happy to book through the Rydges.com website.

Upon my arrival at the hotel late on the Sunday evening, the reception was attended by two staff members, one of whom was on the phone, the other simply looked up at me blankly and said "check in with what name?" I mean come on, it takes only a few seconds more to actually say hello and actually get to know your guest, so I was rightly annoyed at this lack of courtesy. The same staff member then thrust a registration card at me and simply said "can i have your credit card so I can take an imprint". Why bother employing staff when they do not actually bother to get to know their guests?

I was allocated a room on the 5th floor of the hotel, and told by the staff member that this was "the good floor to be on", well if this was the good floor I would really hate to see the other ones! The room had splotchy marks all over the carpets, dented old furniture and to make things even worse the bathroom was literally the size of a closet and did not have any towels at all! So I had to call back downstairs to reception to ask for some towels to be sent up to my room. I called twice and on both occasions the number simply rang out, on the third attempt my request was finally answered by a staff member who treated my call with contempt and merely stated that they would "bring them up when they got a moment", I mean I am a paying guest, surely my concerns are a priority.

Checking out early on Monday morning was certainly very fast, I arrived at the reception desk and said that I was checking out, the staff member merely said back to me "what room" and then proceeded to check me out without even a moments pause. My request to speak to someone about my stay merely yielded a response of "the manager will not be here until 9am and I can't help you", I have stayed at many different hotels in Sydney and elsewhere, and this is the first time that I have actually been told that my opinion is worthless.

This hotel has a great location at the heart of the entertainment district with Darling Harbour nearby. However the service here is simply appalling and definately not up to the standards of a Rydges property. Throughout my stay I gained the impression that I was simply not important enough to be listened to, and that the staff simply do not care as long as you pay up and get out in time. Next time I am in Sydney and paying for my own accommodation I will definately be staying at Ibis World Square or Metro on Pitt, who I am sure will actually appreciate and enjoy having me as a guest.

My friend and I were only in Sydney for one night to go to a concert, so we were happy to stay in a budget hotel in a busy area. The place wasn’t too noisy, and the location is fantastic, a short 5 minute walk to central station and heaps of shops, restaurants etc. The bathroom and room were clean, apart from the doona cover which had urine stains and the carpet which had a large orange stain (not that the carpet matters). However, it was the poor service we received when we arrived that turned us off.

I was called the day before the booking and informed that there was an error with wotif.com; the website kept taking bookings even though they were full, so they were now overbooked. The lady was very nice, and explained that they’d arranged accommodation for us across the road at the Metro, which has the same star-rating and amenities and would be the same price. For the inconvenience, Capitol would throw in a complimentary breakfast, too.

We arrived at the Metro and waited in line a while, and when we got to the desk the staff couldn’t find our booking. About ten minutes was spent waiting in line and then waiting for the staff to go through the system to find us, checking with other staff, etc. Then we were told they needed to call the Capitol, because they couldn’t find our booking. I wasn’t too happy about all the waiting as we had a tight turnaround time before we had to leave for our concert, and we were hoping to get a nanna nap in before we left.

We waited another ten minutes while the Metro staff tried for a while to get through to the Captitol (either the phone was busy or no-one was answering) but we were finally told that the Capitol DID have a room for us. Now that’s inconvenience: waiting in line when you’re tired, hungry and thirsty for no reason whatsoever.

We got to Capitol and waited in line some more. We overheard the clerk say to the customers in front of us as they left for their room, that they were in the “good” side of the hotel, meaning away from the street and the roadworks. How unprofessional to say that at all -admitting that there’s a good and bad side to a hotel when you pay the same rate- and worse, in front of other customers!?

We were given our room key and I asked if breakfast was still included; in my opinion we’d been stuffed around more waiting across the road unnecessarily than we would have been if we’d actually checked in to the Metro. The clerk checked our paperwork and said that our booking didn’t include it. I explained that we’d been told we were now getting complimentary breakfast, to which the manager told the clerk right in front of us (we weren’t important enough to be acknowledged) that no, our booking didn’t come with breakfast, and we weren’t supposed to go to the Metro at all (as if it was our fault we went there).

We were told to go to the Metro by Capitol, but they wouldn’t admit their mistake nor make good on their conciliation for the hassle. Annoyed, I pointed out that they’d wasted our time, about half an hour (meaning no nap). Indirectly, the clerk then accused us of lying, by checking his watch and saying it’d only been ten minutes since he received the phone call from the Metro. Again, they didn’t seem to grasp the fact that it was their fault we were waiting 20 minutes at the Metro, not the Metros or ours.

The Capitol’s handling of the issue made us feel completely undervalued; a free breakfast is nothing compared to the loss of repeat business from people who stay in Sydney CBD regularly. So there you have it: location good; amenities okay; service appalling.