Name: Honeysuckle Executive Suites
Address: Honeysuckle Drive 4 East Lee Wharf, Newcastle, New South Wales 2300 Australia, Newcastle, Newcastle, Newcastle, 2300, Australia
Rating: 5

Air conditioning

Elevator/lift

Heating

General

Meals

Parking

Location

At the hotel

Maritime Centre

Newcastle Museum

Newcastle Civic Theater

Newcastle City Hall

Newcastle Local Court

Newcastle Civic Park

Newcastle Art Gallery

Foreshore Footpath

Christ Church Cathedral

Newcastle Airport

Honeysuckle Executive Suites

I booked this room before I looked at the online reviews and was understandably anxious. The reviews are terrible! Especially about the cleanliness. So, I was pleasantly surprised when we checked in, to find, that the room was acceptably cleaned. It did lack some basic things, like extra pillows and towels, but overall, I have no complaints. The bed was huge and comfortable. The location of the room was perfect for visiting bars and restaurants and then parking was cheap and easy. I would 100% stay here again as we had a lovely weekend exploring Newcastle's sites and scenes.

Newcastle

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park access

I feel this must have been one of the first buildings in the Honeysuckle Precinct, as such it is starting to feel a bit tired. 

I found the pre-arrival communication to be good. There is an app required for unlocking doors in common areas (seems unnessary to me). A keypad is used for access to the room. 

Bed was not particularly comfortable. Matress felt a bit old and worn. Fold out sofa was also not amazing. 

Was nice that the room included a washer and dryer. The room also included 2 Sony TVs, which was nice. 

Internet was usable. From memory around 3 to 5Mbs - not the fastest but enough to get stuff done. 

My main criticism was that only one of the two lifts were working. At one point in the afternoon I had to wait over 10 minutes for a lift. Seems it was being used by cleaners and workmen - ideally this would be handled in a separate services lift. 

The general Honeysuckle Precinct is nice enough, although it feels a like a ghost town. Not a hive of activity.

Bit Tired

Booked here for convenience to places we had plans to visit. Unfortunately there were no staff at reception. Everything is sorted off site and internet lagging with transfer of information. No hotel name, only as 'Chifley' and cleaning & domestic staff looked stressed. We asked for towels on arrival and the cleaner we approached almost had a meltdown. She went on to tell us x2 cleaners had just quit and started crying.. found blood stains on the under side of the doona. 
Generally cleanliness ordinary. Difficult to find, a code for the front door, a code for the room, a code for the basement parking - all different. All round unhappy vibe. Positives are close to shops and restaurants & reasonable price..
Would not recommend😔

Disappointed & faceless

The apartment was far from executive with stained carpets, marked and dented walls, dust and cracked tiles.
The clincher was the flickering hall  light outside the door.

The facility  understaffed and phone enquiries  were met with excuses of unavailable staff and that they had other facilities to manage.

Stains, dust, cracks and flickering lights.

This apartment was far from clean with hair and possible bodily fluids in the bathroom.  Leather sofa bed torn and very uncomfortable. Walls marked and dirty. Bed linen torn/ holed. Dust thick enough to write your name in. Tracks of patio door had mould and dirt. Appliances were also dirty. 
On the positive side, very well located and staff were lovely. 

Not So Executive

Booked the Honeysuckle Apartments for an overnight stay. I'll start on a positive note and say that the location is great, right in the heart of town. 

Arrived at 4pm and was greeted with an extremely difficult and unnecessary check in process. There was 1 person on the desk and a very long line of people waiting. 
When we went up to our room it was still dirty and hadn't been cleaned.... this was at 4:30pm when they say you can check in after 2pm. 
Cleaners were in the hallway and stated that there was only 2 of them to clean the entire hotel. Clearly overworked and understaffed.

Had to wait over an hour for our room to be available, no compensation was given for the inconvenience as we had two children with us that were tired.

Room wasn't cleaned to an acceptable standard.. crumbs all over the benches and floor. I couldn't even be barefoot in the room as dirt was sticking to my feet. Bed was poorly made and shower covered in mould.

It's a real shame as the hotel has potential to be really great but upper management are letting them down with their poor service and housekeeping.

Dirty rooms with next to no staff

Pretty much agree with all the other terrible reviews. Only stayed here as our original booked hotel was flooded. Hard to find - it’s actually sign posted as Chifley Hotel. Disinterested reception staff. Difficult to find available parking spot. Codes for room and carpark texted to us - worked intermittently. Room was dusty and dirty. Mouldy grout in shower. Bad smell from drain in bathroom. Shower flooded bathroom floor. Cigarette butts in ashtray. Powerpoints hanging off wall. Safe door cracked and broken. Difficult to move glass sliding panel in to bedroom - and if closed it’s hot and stuffy with no aircon. We won’t be back

Only stay here if you can’t find anywhere else

So upon arrival you are met with a locked door, you must ring the reception whom sit there in sight and give you a code to enter the underground car park to then find your way through to reception from the sub level, once finally finding our way in (thankfully the door to get to the lift was jammed open with an overflowing bin otherwise we would had been stuck in the carpark waiting for the PIN code to get in the lift). Staff were miserable, the only information received from them regarding our stay is via a text message (this included all room entry codes and door codes as they don’t use swipe cards) we only received 1/2 of the text so when we ducked out in the afternoon we were unable to re-enter the building. Calling the number on the front door which didn’t connect and the reception staff just put their heads down when were banged on the door to get let in. Thankfully another group left the building shortly after, which allowed us to reenter the building. The staff just ignored our query about door codes and it was only that friends also staying in the building showed us their text message which had door codes included in it, if it wasn’t for our other friends I have no idea how we could have gotten back into the building after hours. The room wasn’t terrible, the pots and pans in the cupboard were dirty, the blinds were broken so they wouldn’t close properly and the bedroom door had glass panes in it so privacy and sleeping after sunrise is impossible. Our friends in another room had dirty sheets, stained floors and a mouldy bathroom.
We bumped in to multiple other groups of visitors feeling either lost at the front door or needing assistance using the multitude of different codes scattered within a text message sent on arrival (or like us, missing important information). If you aren’t tech savvy, or don’t own a mobile phone DO NOT stay here as it will be impossible for you to do basic things like open your room door or even enter the building. I believe there is an app you can download to assist these things as well as adjust the air-conditioning but with the miserable mute staff we weren’t even sure what the app was called.
I’m assuming these suites are privately owned and maintained and Chifley just manage bookings which would explain the standards the rooms were kept and the lack of care from staff. But judging by the attitude of every group we encountered during our stay they will not receive many (if any) return customers.

Miserable staff. All important information is received via text message including entry codes. Dirty rooms

After waiting an hour to check in, the experience was something out of Fawlty Towers. The ambience was similar to that of a homeless hostel. The kitchen had not been cleaned since the apartments were built. The long-life milk in the fridge was three months out of date. The cutlery was nonexistent. The available cups were so dirty it was a repository for disease. There was black slime mould in the shower recess. The leather sofa was so old and worn that it looked like a reject from an opportunity shop. The glass table in the dining room was so scratched it looked like artwork.

A Fawlty Tours Experience

Arrived at night and found our way to this apartment tired and hungry. Upon entering I wondered if we were in the wrong place as it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned. There were stains and drink marks all over the tables, and the floor hadn’t been vacuumed or mopped. It appeared to have had drinks spilt everywhere too. It was more like a nightclub than a hotel room. The tea towel in the kitchen was so filthy it was useless trying to clean anything. The freezer had food in it, the bathroom was not clean either. The toilet was running and wouldn’t flush. It was going to be a long night. I told the man at reception about it and he just told me to take some photos if I wanted. The worst part came when we went to bed. I checked the doors as our apartment opened onto the pool area. Unfortunately one of them had a broken lock and wouldn’t close. This is when I really lost my patience.  I called the night manager and said I was traveling alone with my children and I didn’t feel safe being in a room at the pool with a door that wouldn’t lock. He said I should just jam something against it because he couldn’t help me. He actually got annoyed that I was upset and practically hung up on me. Wow. Thanks for nothing mate. I’ve attached a picture of the security effort I made with my son.  Ironic that they didn’t care about this yet I couldn’t access the gym as the app I needed to download never sent me the code required to get in. We survived the night and I’ll never return. This place should be called The Horrors of Honeysuckle. There sure isn’t anything “executive” about this place. Don’t make the same mistake!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS

My family stayed the first week in January 2022 for four nights. On the 3rd afternoon we were informed there was a power outage. With no lighting or air conditioning this made  for a very unpleasant night with 2 children. The next day  they could not guarantee that the power would be back on so we checked into another hotel. Later that afternoon we recieved another text from the Honeysuckle  stating that the power would not be on for another night which justified our decision to find another hotel.

The following week we contacted the manager seeking a refund for the 2 nights when the power was out as the room was 'not fit for purpose' to be told 'it's not my problem, take it up with the building owner'. We did and were informed that  power outages were covered by the hotel's insurance.

I took this back to the hotel multiple times with no reply. We escalated the situation with NSW Fair Trading but because Honeysuckle would not respond to the issues raised the case has been closed unless we proceed with private legal representation.



OWN YOUR PROBLEMS AND DEAL WITH THEM LIKE A RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS OWNER.  No refund provided for a room not fit for purpose.

Honeysuckle Executive Suites

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