ozziebound

Can anyone comment on the Sydney Harbour Bed & Breakfast? It looks lovely, but I can't seem to find any reviews. Also, has anyone ever stayed at the Mercantile Hotel?

crazymina

I did enjoy staying there in November 2001. There weren't very many reviews at that time either.

The B&B a little back from the main area (George Street, etc). It's right near the Ana hotel. It's nothing fancy, but I found it to be a good value at the time. I was upgraded to a larger room, still with a shared bathroom. The room was clean and spacious, but the only issue was that the windows facing the street also face some loud traffic. If you are a light sleeper, you may want to ask for a room facing the courtyard (I am deaf in one ear so I didn't find it a problem). They should be pretty upfront with you about the noise if you ask. The room I was in was called the "Barton" room.

The B&B is very convenient to the bridgeclimb, and of course pretty much everything in the rocks area. However, even their room with the view, I doubt gives much of a stellar one.

ozziebound

Hey crazymina, Thanks for the input. Actually I am scheduled for the same "Barton" room for 3 nights. Now that's the one that is a bit noisy? I am also staying at the Mercantile Hotel for 4 nights (Irish pub downstairs), perhaps I shouldn't leave home without a set of ear plugs.

Did you travel by yourself? I am staying 2 weeks in Brisbane with a friend, whom I met on a trip during the 9/11 disaster. We were in Ireland and she was so wonderful to me knowing that I had several close family members in NYC. We have stayed in touch and now I'm going to visit her. Then I travel on to Cairns and Sydney for a total of 4 weeks. I am so excited!!!!!

crazymina

Ozziebound, yes...during the day it can be a bit noisy. It does seem to calm down at night. The room is really quite large, but there's nothing too fancy in it. However, I was happy to have the space. That room faces out to the street, which is a view of nothing.

Yes, I traveled by myself. Had a great time. Those Australians are sure fun. However I have learned that if you say "come and visit me", they will! This year, I am having no less than 4 different groups come through my house (I guess it's partially because I am in a "gateway" city like L.A.)...some of them I only met 2 or 3 times. I too, met a girl who lives in Brisbane. I hung out with her 3 days in Italy last year, we kept in touch and when I was in Oz in December, she flew from Brisbane to Sydney just for the day to have lunch with me. I thought that was quite cool. She comes and visits next month!

Are you staying in Cairns? I stayed in Port Douglas because I wanted to be near a beach (I don't believe Cairns has one.)

Have a wonderful trip. Australia is really a neat country.

lcuy

We spent a week at SH b&b in June 2002 Our daughters had the room on the front and we had the garden side.

None of us had any issues with noise. We liked the location, the big breakfasts and the little salon with snacks and travel info. The owners were really wonderful as well. Gave us a printed sheet with good shopping/ eating tips and were very helpful in giving us ideas on a daily basis. I'd stay here again!

lcuy

oops, it was June 2001!

Alan

Hi, ozziebound!
I can't add anything more to what you've been told about the Sydney Harbour B&B.... I hear that it has recently been taken over by a "super-chain", but hopefully the increased prices which inevitably follow such a move won't have taken effect yet.

I haven't stayed at the Mercantile, but I pass it every week. It's interesting that you should mention it in the same breath as the Sydney Harbour B&B, as they are so different in character! Whereas the B&B is old and elegant and quite "upmarket" -- an establishment for the elite -- the Mercantile is "rough and ready": a rowdy Irish drinking pub which is always full of revellers downstairs, has counter lunches like meat-pie-with-Guinness, and looks VERY basic. On the positive side, it is in a wonderful position, right in the heart of the Rocks, just up from the much-praised Russell and Holiday Inn. It's so close to the Harbour Bridge that it is almost under the approach. If you were to choose this hotel, you'd probably save a lot of money, but you might be wise to specify a quiet room at the back, as I would imaine that the noise from the bar might be considerable on a busy night (which is almost every night).

Three other establishments in the same area as your two choices would be also worth having a look at: the Harbour Rocks Hotel, the Palisade, and the Australian Hotel. All -- like your two -- old and full of character, and all in the most interesting part of Sydney.

Good luck with your choice!

Amanda_Chicago

Hello! Just returned from Australia on Thursday and we stayed at the Sydney Harbour B&B when in Sydney at the start of our trip. Jeff and Bridget were VERY nice hosts! The breakfast was delicious and we LOVED the location. You are so close to everything. We walked to the bridge, we walked to Circular Quay, took a ferry to the zoo, it was such fun. I loved all the shops and pubs in the Rocks. We ate at Fish on The Rocks which comes to mind as a delicious place recommended by Jeff and Bridget our hosts.

We stayed in the MacQuerie room and had no view to speak of but it was very quiet for us.

I also have to give Jeff and Bridget a very PLEASANT THANK YOU! We were supposed to spend our last night in Sydney before heading back to Chicago. We were supposed to fly from Darwin to Sydney in the afternoon I thought. Well, who ever booked our tickets (ME!) forgot that 1:30 means AM and not PM. Well, we missed the flight and had to spend our last night of our honeymoon in a Backpackers in Darwin (long story...) BUT I called Jeff and Bridget and told them of my mistake and they said "no worries" and we won't charge you anything for the booked room. What dears! This was great as I had to shell out an extra $800 for the plane tickets to get us back to Sydney.

I will recommend this place forever now.

-Amanda

ozziebound

Thank you everyone! Actually, in Cairns I am staying at the Lilybank B& B. I see Pat on this sight and she sure seems knowledgeable about tours in that area. I'm not much of a swimmer but would love to learn to snorkel before I leave NY. Alan, I guess my staying at the Mercantile is two fold. Partly money (I'll be in Sydney 7 nights) and I thought the variety would be cool. I pretty much fit in wherever and meeting different people is what travel is all about. Oh, Amanda, that was so unfortunate about the time difference. Man, that throws me too. Where I live in NY it is 14 hours difference when I call my friend in Brisbane. Very cool of Bridget & Jeff, I look forward to the same pleasant experience.
Thanks again to everyone.

Alan

Ozziebound, I agree with you -- the variety would be cool, and the Mercantile would be a fun experience. You seem to have the right attitude towards it -- as long as you don't go there expecting the Marriott or the Hyatt or the Westin (the Mercantile doesn't even have a reception area... you go into the bar area!), you'll enjoy the experience -- and you'll feel like a local. Certainly, when you see how close you are to everything, you'll think that you have made the perfect choice -- while there's nothing much wrong with the location of the Sydney Harbour B&B, it's uncomfortably close to the toll gates at the Harbour Bridge; the Mercantile is a lot better, right in the middle of the Rocks. And I doubt if a New Yorker would be easily dismayed by a bit of noise from the patrons in the bar! So, give it a try, and please get back onto this forum and tell us your impressions (I have recommended it to people in the past as one of the two or three "budget" options in the ultra-expensive Rocks area, but I don't think anyone has actually taken up the recommendation and stayed there, so it will be nice to have a first-hand account!)

Have a great holiday! (P.S. Love your home town!)

646wyck

Someone mentioned the Palisade Hotel in The Rocks area of Sydney. We would like more information from someone who has stayed there. We found their website. The picture looks OK. We are mid sixties and retired. Is this a place for us?

Alan

Hi, 646wyck!

Well, that depends. My first reaction is to say "probably not". You'd take one look at their fire escape and quietly take yourself off to another hotel.

But, then again.... I am also in my sixties, and I have often said on this forum that if I ever needed to spend the night in a hotel in Sydney, the Palisade would be my absolute number one choice. But, then again, I'm totally mad. I have been known to arrive in a town, check out all the hotels, and then deliberately choose the old, spooky-looking one. Doormen and revolving doors and brass baggage trolleys turn me right off -- I keep worrying that someone in a uniform will call me "sir" and do me some service I didn't even want, and I won't know how to react. And there is a special thrill in inspecting old, gloomy corridors and musing on some of the things that went on in the place fifty or a hundred years ago.

Anyway, unless you're like me, I don't think I could, with a straight face, recommend the Palisade to a tourist, especially if you're American and used to the Marriotts, the Comfort Inns, the Best Westerns, and the Hyatts. The building, as you will have seen from the website, is what I'd call "beautifully ugly"... full of character, but, then again, so are the buildings in Charles Dickens' London! The fire escape is, as I mentioned above, a bit of a worry. It LOOKS like it was last serviced in 1928. Niceties like a reception area or a lift or cashing in your travellers' cheques? Forget it. However, for less than $AUD120, you can get a view of the Harbour Bridge or Darling Harbour that some of the newer and classier establishments can only dream about... and you're only five minutes' walk from the Rocks. And the lady behind the bar (who told me about the rooms) was nice and friendly, but without the airs and graces of the lady behind the recption desk at the local Marriott (which also has a nice view, at three times the price).

Well, it's up to you. I hope this has at least given you a bit of the "flavour" of the Palisade! If nothing else, it will make a good talking point when you get home -- somehow the horror stories always seem to be the ones most often re-told and savoured, don't you find? Don't forget to take a photograph of the outside of the building, or else your friends back home will think you're pulling their leg.

aren

Alan and others: I will piggy-back on ozziebounds's question. We are booked at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel; do you have any observations about it? I know there's no lift, which is a bit of a nuisance, but the ready access to ale should lessen the pain. I'd love to hear you observations.

Alan

Aren, the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel is not only the oldest hotel in Sydney (so it claims), but it is also one of the nicest and most elegant. It is only a block from the Palisade... in a quiet area at the back of the Rocks which I always like because it hasn't been too tarted up for the tourists (which has happened, alas, to most of the Rocks). No view from the Lord Nelson, but it's an easy stroll to the harbour. A fine old church just down the road, and Observatory Hill almost opposite. If you plan to walk across the Harbour Bridge -- and you should -- then there is no better hotel from which to start than this one. My only reservation about the hotel is price -- at $AUD180 a double, that's a price aimed at the tourist trade. However, if that doesn't bother you, then you're bound to think this is a lovely choice.

aren

Thanks, Alan, yes the Lord Nelson is a bit pricey, but my various searches of other options that sounded well-located and less expensive were already booked., and I got tired of trying to make lodging decisions when it was much more entertaining to read postings on this board. I did not find the Palisades in my searches, but my last trip to London (on the 8th floor) during a fire makes me a bit leery of the "fire escape" there. I trust the Lord Nelson staff will not be off-putting with "airs and graces."

Alan

It's been some months since I walked past the Palisade... won't I feel terrible if, in the interim, they have upgraded their fire escape? In defence of the hotel, it is only about three storeys tall, so a fire escape is not as important, say, as in the hotels in Las Vegas (which I've heard described as fire traps, for all their swankness ... a fire expert, knowing the state of the city's fire-fighting equipment, once wrote that he wouldn't stay above the third or fourth floor in any hotel in Vegas).

Alan

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