I have been a regular user of tripadvisor to guide my choice of hotels both in my hometown and for overseas trips. This is my first hotel review and I cannot belive this happened so close to home. I felt compelled to write this review given the difficulties I encountered at a large hotel recently. Having stayed at hundreds, if not thousands of hotels, I have never had such an appalling experience and been treated so rudely in all my life.

I recently stayed at the Novotel Sydney Olympic Park with a number of family friends to attend a large family function nearby.
From the moment we arrived the experience was apalling...just to highlight a few of the problems that ruined the experience and to serve as a warning to other potential guests:

1. We had booked a large number of rooms and asked that these be allocated near each other in the hotel. This was not done (our rooms were spread over varied levels), despite repeated calls to the hotel booking line to confirm this. It is important that anyone staying here with a large group be aware of this problem.

2. Also, when we arrived we found that the rates quoted for rooms via the hotel booking line were incorrect.

3. The keys to our rooms continually did not work. Given many of us were time pressured on the day of the function we attended, it was very inconvenient to be regularly locked out of our rooms.

4. Our room was VERY small, even though a large room had been specifically requested on booking. This large room had been confirmed to be available on confirmation calls to the hotel just days before arrival. On arrival we were told all rooms were the same size.

5. The safe and air conditioning in our room did not work. Multiple requests to fix this were ignored. The keys to the car park did not work either. The car park was continually full and even when parking had been paid for, our car ended up on the street outside.

6. Any attempts made to approach staff or management to rectify any issues were extremely unpleasant.

7. Our credit card was cancelled due to lack of funds, as on arrival we were asked to leave credit card details for a deposit (a common practice at most large hotels), but after check out the credit card still did not work days later, as the holding deposit had not been cancelled off the credit card that was swiped on arrival.

8. Most recently, and the final straw, occurred when our credit card was charged multiple times for the one booking, as the blank credit card slip we left unsigned as part of our deposit, had been signed by someone else, so we were charged again. Despite proving the second signtaure was fraudulent, it took great effort to have the money refunded onto my credit card.

I would like to have ended with some positives, it's just that there aren't any. You have been warned.

I was worried about this one when booking! There were 5 of us and booking rooms for the New Year Eve celebrations was getting difficult.

This hotel had the rooms so I booked it!

I was a bit concerned of the location, but on arrival, I was surprised. There is a regular train service from the Olympic Park train station to Lidcombe, and then its 20 minuted to Sydney CDB.

Additionally, you can get a boat into Darling Harbour, which makes a good photo oppotunity!

As for the hotel, it was clean, tidy and the only problem we had was the lack of childrens meals on the menu in the restaurant and bar

I was here for a conference that was being held at homebush. It was a nice, clean hotel, service was fine and perfect as a place to sleep at night. And I would definately recommend staying here if you have business in the area. However if you are a tourist visiting Sydney, I would highly recommend not staying here purely because it is so isolated from everything eg a 40 minute drive in decent traffic to the city and there is not so much as a corner store for ages and it is not near any tourist attractions. Only thing here is the Sydney Olympic site which is not very interesting.