First of all, you should definitely pay for a room with a view. It is maybe an extra A$15 (EUR10) per night, and for that you also get a quieter room, away from the traffic. How many times will you be coming back to Sydney?
Over the course of a week, we stayed in 3 rooms here, all of them different. The Marriott it ain't. The air conditioning broke in the first room, after it was unable to cope with being turned off for an hour (huh?). The second was slightly less convenient - on which more below - and since we hadn't fully moved in we plumped for the one next door to our original room.
The staff are excellent and were able to check us in at 11am - rooms are cleaned in an order which suits the guests, which sounds obvious but rarely happens.
It's fair to say that the accommodation is a little basic and could probably do with some renovation. You are not going to be able to cook a gourmet meal here, but it's fine for an omlette and toast. Chief amongst the problems are a lack of storage space in many rooms. Our first room - a wooden floored space - had drawers within the bed. The second had basically nothing, and the third was ok.
There are two types of room with a view. Some face the eastern end of the harbour, others face the Bridge and Opera House. (The hotel won't guarantee which you will get by paying for the view, but it's worth asking anyway.) The latter is, as you would expect, spectacular. However, the rooms here seem to be more dated, and they are also over the road, which means more noise, though 9 floors up that won't bother anyone used to living in a city. The views facing the other way are not so bad either, it should be said.
The location is not bad. Most people, including my 70 year old mother-in-law, could walk into the CBD and back comfortably, though it's rather hilly (hence the views). Kings Cross station is a 10 min walk away, and from there you can get to Bondi or to the central district. If you're trying to get to the main tourist attractions, walking might be more convenient than changing trains. Since the bus only runs every half hour, we didn't bother with it. Taxis run past all the time, including 5am when we had to leave for the airport. Don't bother booking.
Yes, Kings Cross is a red light district, but it isn't so bad (and it's one of the few places in the city where you can eat late - everyone else seems to go to bed early here). Anyway, the hotel is outside that strip, in a fairly pleasant mainly residential street.
Overall, we'd be happy to stay here again and probably wouldn't bother looking anywhere else, unless the rooms with views were all unavailable. But there's no doubt that the rooms are of variable quality, and it's worth asking to see a couple if there are any free.











