Hotels : Travelodge Garden City Hotel

Hotels : Travelodge Garden City Hotel

INTRODUCTION

During my trip to Australia, what made it interesting was that the intention was to do a bit of travelling by car, not to be entirely cooped up at the usual main tourist destination like Brisbane and Gold Coast, so i was provided an interesting experience as due to my trip itinerary, i had the chance to stay in out of the outskirt hotels. This hotel is situated in the suburb of Sunnybank, an area with a bit more Asians then usual.  When looking at the hotel map via Agoda, these hotels are those that are situated pretty far apart from the usual hotel areas.

Travelodge is the 2nd hotel icon from the right, just above the information box

So as you can see, the whole chunky hotel area is the Brisbane City area where Mantra on Queens is also inside, while Travelodge is really a highway away from the City area. So would this be a different experience from staying at a City Hotel? Most definitely! Read on to find out what I did in that area and whether this will suit your travelling interests!

DETAILS OF HOTEL

Name : Travelodge Garden City Hotel
Location : Upper Mount Gravatt QLD 4122, Australia (Considered to be in the Sunnybank Suburb)
Number of Stars : 4 stars (NOTE on Travelodge Garden City own webbie, its 3 stars)
Room of Review : Standard Queen
Highlights of Hotel : Free carpark, Satellite TV (And thats about it, at least when you look at the hotel itself)
Date of Review : June 2013

The entrance of the hotel

Interestingly, you can see that it has no usual amenities like swimming pools, spa and sauna, so does that mean that this hotel is not worth the stay? Well lets read on to find out more

Comfort 3/5

Here is how the room looks like as taken from their website and this is the one that we stayed in

Unfortunately, although i do have a picture of the room I stayed in, there are some elements of the picture that cannot be used such as a person sitting there. Will try not to make that mistake in the future. None the less the room floor area is pretty above average and everything looks neat and tidy.

Only problem is, although we got a queen room, the bed that we actually got was smaller beds placed beside each other. You might go on to say "Oh but the overall bed size is bigger!". That is true and should in fact be beneficial to the score until you realise that.... You can feel the separation of the beds. This is precisely the difference between a queen size and twin beds put together. The gap in the middle is sometimes not supported by both the twin beds and as a result it will be felt and might even slope in.

This might not be an issue for some, but if you were to stay for longer periods of time, I am sure that this fact will be bugging you ever so slightly when you lay down to sleep every night.

Air conditioning and heating however is pretty good and it meets the expectations of any hotel guest. It is however located above the door way and in plain sight which is a bit gaudy looking. None the less, it serves its function reasonably well.

Service 4/5

Checking in and out of the place is extremely simple. It was pretty fast, just needing to fill up some documents and we were on your way in. For the way out, its just a simple returning of the key.

I did make a phone call before i made it down to the hotel as I was curious if they could check me in earlier. They were unable to do so but stated that they had no problems keeping hold of my luggage which is good service. There is also reception staff all the way into the night so it should be a relatively safe place.

The reception was also good as they gave directions to how to walk to the nearby shopping centre. This shows that they could at least try to help you find something to do in a place slightly far off from the city.

When checking out, I asked the same question I asked the Mantra staff as to whether i could check out slightly later. They did say to me that they would need to stick to the fix timing, but after a while, they called back and gave us 30 minutes extra to prepare to leave. Pretty good to be somewhat flexible.

Overall, the impression of their staff is that they are pretty chirpy and cheerful, and this helps brighten up the atmosphere and makes it a more pleasant stay.

Amenities 3/5

Their Toilet!

For the room we got, there was no bath tub and generally all that you see over there is all there is to it. Towels and floor cloth is provided, along with soap and shampoo. I do think their shower design is pretty smart as this was the hotel where most of the water stays in the shower area. None the less its a average shower but there is hot water and all that.

Oven and others.. actually thats all about it

There is a microwave oven and other cutlery provided as in many of these Australian hotels. Their wardrobe is kinda just open, and ironing board and iron are all provided. These hotels are probably targeting to those on business and would spend not as much time in the room. There is a large desk that is helpful for doing work too.

On the whole hotel side however, there is nothing really impressive. There is a restaurant that is probably for those who want breakfast. There is no pool for extra activity choices and there really is nothing else around in this hotel. What else is there to do? It will be covered in the location criteria. For amenities however, this is about all that you have.

Location 3.5/5

Of all the outskirt hotels, I would have to say, this hotel is probably the best price for location. This hotel is right behind or beside a whole shopping center. This takes care of all the entertainment elements should you not be interested in taking a long drive up to other places or to Brisbane area. It seems to be near the bus station also which kind of allows public transport to be used.

It does have free parking also but I would say that it will be quite a feat to try to get to this place from the airport, by using public transport in the first place. Hence, the moment you bring a car there, you probably could use it to get into Brisbane city whereby you do need to contend with finding parking places and paying for them if needed.

There are however, many nearby shopping centers nearer to this area that serves Sunnybank residents that you could choose to visit.


Cost Efficiency 2.5/5

At a price of SGD 140+ per night, this is perhaps the most costly room of my entire trip when looking at cost efficiency. Mantra at queens is 10 dollars more per night, but saves on your car prices and transport costs in terms of fuel and public transport as you are able to walk to places. For Travelodge, you need to have a car none the less to really go around as 1 big shopping center is  useful for a day or even for your whole trip worth of food choices, but its not a place for things to do. Also looking at amenities, it is not very well equipped as it lacks a bathtub and swimming pool or fitness corners.

As stated on their website however, this is probably more intended for business users and perhaps big groups that need many rooms and can easily afford a bus service to pick them and bring them into Brisbane city. Or for people who dont need to stay in the city as they probably only wanna spend on day there, and move on to other places for entertainment such as the theme parks. Granted the theme parks are closer to Travelodge then any other hotel in Brisbane due to their further South location, but in those cases, you should have been staying in Gold Coast instead.

Comfort : 3 (You will be able to sleep here, its cosy, but it can really be better)
Service : 4 (The people are nice, they seem to like their job and serving people)
Amenities : 3 (Its the bare minimal for someone who will need to stay in the room for a while such as for business conferences, not for enjoyment though)
Location : 3.5 (You can have things to do, and for the usual tourist spots its just a drive away, just slightly more hassle)
Cost Efficiency : 2.5 (The price is pretty steep for this place, I am not entirely sure why)

Overall : 3.2  (It is quite interesting to consider who are the people who would find a need to stay in this area, but if you do need to stay here, this is a fair choice. There are a few more motels in the vicinity that are about 10 dollars more or less so you probably cannot get that much better deal elsewhere. That being said, this place might still be preferable cause at least there is a shopping center that is walking distance away. If you were to stay here, you will still be able to get a good night sleep, but that's about all that you should really expect. Nonetheless, I am appreciative of the fact that due to my needs to attend an event in the vicinity, I was glad of the presence of Travelodge Garden City Hotel.)

If you stayed here, feel free to leave a comment too!


AGODA review below.

Travelodge was a place that we booked because we had to attend some event in Sunnybank area. When I was scouting the other possible areas in the Sunnybank suburbs, I settled on Travelodge because unlike all the other hotels, this is the hotel with direct access via walking to a shopping center. This is its one biggest attractive point that sets it aside from other places. 

The hotel itself has pretty friendly staff with a fast check in and out. Parking is free and safe and there are a few other places that one can go for a short shopping trip within driving distance. You could even go down to Brisbane City for a day or two via car although parking would be the only issue. 

Unfortunately, it is pretty above average priced and at those prices, you could get a hotel in Brisbane area itself. The queen bed that was given to us was not really a single bed, but two twin beds together and it was felt when sleeping. All in all, its an alright place to stay should you need a place to lodge in Sunnybank!

Hotels : Mantra On Queen Hotel

INTRODUCTION

Hi all, now begins another type of review that I think should be good to embark on, which is to review on the hotels I have been. This would be similar to those that you can read online on Agoda.com or Bookings.com but I think it would be nice to give a personal down to earth review that has more details to those who might plan to go to the same places. This was a problem that i had when i was choosing hotels, as some of the reviews were already outdated or the only pictures available are those of the hotels itself. So these review will help put things into perspective. Not only that, I will also mention items such as location and convenience so that future patrons can have a better idea what to do.

As with every new category of review, there needs to be a set of criteria to follow to allow for some comparison and consistency. Hence I would now have to come out with the criteria to do the rankings and this criteria might be subject to change or improvement as time goes by. Nonetheless we all have to start somewhere, so here goes.

For hotel reviews, I think it will be useful to start with some general details of the hotels itself and these information can be found on the hotel booking websites or the hotel sites themselves.


Details of Hotel

Name : Mantra On Queens
Location : 570 Queen Street, Spring Hill QLD 4000, Australia (This is actually the Brisbane CBD area)
Number of Stars : 4.5 stars
Room of review : Hotel Room
Highlights of Hotel : Sauna, Swimming pool, Spa, Fitness Center, Car park (charged at 20 AUD per day), restaurant at hotel ground level
Date of review : May 2013

Below are the criteria set for hotel review

Comfort 4/5

As you can see from the above picture, the room is a bit more nicely shaped then your usual hotel room, and it has a small sofa chair that seats one right next to the bed. It also has a tiny table top with a chair that you could probably use to do some work over here but overall it is a bit of small surface area. With regards to comfort, the television is well distanced away from the bed and the bed is large and is a singular complete bed. Do note that in some of my other hotel review, you will see that some of the beds are actually two smaller beds beside each other to form the queen size or king size bed, and in some cases you can actually feel the gap. Mantra at queens however has no such issue.

Pillows are plentiful but note that the blanket is actually the brown cloth. There is no additional blanket below the white bed surface. This is unlike the hotels i been to in Thailand where there is a outer and inner blanket.

The bed is pretty good, not too hard, nor was it too soft so it should be able to provide you with a cozy sleeping environment.

Next important issue for comfort is the air conditioning and heater system. In Mantra the air conditioning is hidden from view but is controllable. It does pretty well at keeping the temperature at whatever you set to, which was about 26 degrees for us during this winter period in Australia.

The room is spacious enough to allow good walking room and even if you want some more people over for a while.

Service 4/5

For a 4.5 star hotel, service becomes a very big issue. Checking in was pleasant and the staff was cheerful and very helpful in introducing the area as well as drawing out important areas on the map.

During our stay there, we had some problems with the washing machine. Calling the reception at 11 plus in the night, we had a cheery receptionist girl who wasted no time in coming up to help us try to solve the problem. Admittedly she was not trained in how to fix the washing machine, but she did good in actually volunteering their laundry services to help us wash and dry our clothing, at no extra charges.This is what we expect of a 4.5 star hotel in terms of service and she did this on both nights that we were there.

There was also no problems in helping us get an early check in when we reached there before 12 noon. Also, at the end of our stay there, we did not realize that the check out time was supposed to be 10 am. However, with a call to the reception, they allowed us to check out at 11 with no extra charges which is a very understanding and reasonable gesture by the hotel. Admittedly however, there should have been some way to inform us about the checkout time at mantra especially for those like us who come from overseas and are not used to the Australian style.

There was housekeeping daily and everything was done very neatly with refills of tea and coffee as well as toiletries.



Amenities 3.5/5

For amenities, Mantra was good in providing coffee, tea, microwave, as well as all the cups and cutlery for some sort of cooking within the hotel room. However, there was no facility for cooking such as electrical stove although this is understandable for a hotel room.

Shampoo and soap are all provided as well as ironing and washing machine that has the drying function. Of course some points are taken off due to the fact that the washing machine didn't work while we were there but all in all, it was pretty complete for a hotel room of that size.

The bathtub was actually strangely small and there is a bit of awkwardness in trying to keep the water in the bathtub when showering as the glass did not really prevent water from coming out. Hot water was readily available however and there was good water flow.

There was not too many spare power sockets and I probably could count about 3 spare sockets in the entire room.

Television and channels were probably the standard as all 4 hotels I visited had about the same mix of shows complete with working remotes.

The hotel did have a tiny tiny pool and sauna but these are really not used much during the winter periods. Nonetheless, its good to have the option.

Location 4/5

This criteria is pretty interesting and i would say it might be pretty subjective in a sense. Good location basically depends on whether you would actually want to go to various places. But of course if you are from overseas, you probably would want to explore much of the place. So this current points is indicative of how close the place is from the many many unique or must-visit places of Brisbane!

Mantra on Queens scores high because it is basically on the very outskirts of the CBD area, so its not in the place with many of the main hotels. Yet it is within walking distance to the Queens street mall area, about 10 to 15 minutes, walking distance to one of the stops for the free red ferry city hopper and unlike many of the other hotels in the CBD, this one is close to Chinatown, where there are many shops selling food not only of the chinese culture but many many various foods like vietnam cuisine as well as fast food. Perhaps the furthest location of interest from Mantra would be southbank where there are many eateries and shopping. Still, it makes for good walk and is probably not more then 30 minutes of walk and you can always use the ferry to get there also.

It is also in between the train stops of central station and fortitude, so no matter where you get off, if you are using the train, you will need to walk there. Of course if you stay there for many days, then the time where you will spend carrying and lugging all your luggage will be pretty minimal. Aside from that, right below the hotel is Europcar rentals. So if you have a second leg to your trip like I did, you don't need to rent a car on the spot, but can get one when you are leaving. Remember though that parking at Mantra is charged at $20 per night so I personally won't recommend it cause parking in the city area is troublesome and probably not worth the time. Get there via public transport and leave there via a rental.

There is even a woolsworth (super market) right opposite the hotel that saves you a lot of effort if you want to cook food or get instant noodles or supplies like that. I believe the apartments might have cooking facilities but please check this yourself.

Cost Efficiency 3.5/5

My two nights there were at about 150 SGD per night. So this is probably not a cheap choice especially for long stays. But Brisbane itself is probably a good place to visit for about 3 to 4 days maximum unless you plan to do a lot of shopping. Plus it did have all the amenities such as washing machine and dryer so you can travel slightly lighter.


Summary

Comfort : 4 (Good beds and all around cleanliness. Almost everything functioned properly)
Service : 4 (Cheery staff from start to end, plus very helpful at solving guests problems)
Amenities : 3.5 (Nothing too fancy, but at least they are there as an option)
Location : 4 (Pretty convenient and I guess it is already one of the best locations around)
Cost Efficiency 3.5 (Pricey, but you do get quite a lot of things that you will use like washing machines, driers, and you could save on the transport since you can walk)

Overall 3.8/5 

Overall, my experience at Mantra was a good one. When I entered, I did feel that I was going into a highly rated hotel, but that was only after the difficulties in finding out where the entrance was in the first place. The cheery service that was provided from then at giving us our early check in, helped improve the impression. Even after the washing machine did not function properly, the accommodating and helpful receptionist was there at the late hours to troubleshoot although she didn't know much, but more importantly, she volunteered the hotel's resources to help us get our clothes washed. This should be the service standard expected in every hotel. Wrote a feedback card at the end of everything and I even received a response to my email after that. Mantra obviously wants to improve and do well, and for that I wish them all the best. Maybe some day, I will visit their other branches and do another review for you guys.

Thats it for the first review on the hotel i stayed at in Brisbane. Share your comments if any. I will try to get up the other reviews soon!



This is the review for agoda that i just attached for a summary

Mantra is located in walking distance from the following places, CBD area, Queenstreet Mall, Chinatown, Ferry terminal for free red citihopper ferries, Southbank. In fact, the furthest location that should be visited is Southbank and you could ride the ferry there. Besides that, Mantra would probably be one of the few hotels that is closest to Chinatown area where you can fulfil your asian food cravings. It is also in between central station and fortitude valley so if you take public transport there on the first day, you probably do need to lug your luggage for a bit. But after that, you do not need to worry about transport as the rest is all walkable.

Aside from that, Mantra has good customer service. We had problems with our washing machine at 2300hrs and even then, Hayley at reception was able to come up to our room and attempt to help us. Even though she didn't solve the problem, she offered to help bring our clothes to the hotel's laundry and we could collect it from reception the next day. It is this kind of service that makes Mantra a 4.5 star hotel. 

All in all, for all the sights of Brisbane, put 3 or 4 days in Mantra and you can have a very carefree shopping experience. However, don't bother driving around as parking is charged. We enjoyed our stay there and I believe other people will too.

For a more complete review, visit http://d-d-reviews.blogspot.sg/2013/06/hotels-mantra-on-queen-hotel.html