My family and I stayed at Mantra Wollongong for 1 night as part of a family road trip. When we arrived at the front of the hotel by car, there was nowhere to stop the car so we had to park a block away and walk to the entrance. The receptionist was very quick to check us in and charge my card. After all the paperwork was signed (and my card charged for the full price), she said “Oh, by the way, I’m sorry but the only elevator in the building is broken, so you’re going to have to use the stairs.” Our assigned room was on the 6th floor. I asked her, “You mean we have to bring our luggage up 6 floors by stairs?” To which she replied “Yes, we’re fully booked, I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do.” There was no offer of any compensation, not even a 10% discount or some complimentary bottled water. For reference, this happened on a 36-degrees heatwave day. Still, my sister and I, both in our late 30s, lugged 2 x 20kg suitcases and 2 x 7kg cabin baggages up 6 floors via dusty and stuffy fire stairs. Our parents are both over 70 years old so none of us were exactly spring chickens, and my sister and I weren’t going to have our senior parents hoisting any luggage up 6 floors via fire stairs. It was already bad enough that they had to walk 6 floors up. When we finally reached the room, NONE of the 4 key cards worked. NONE. Never mind the broken lift. The receptionist had ONE job, but couldn’t even get the key cards correctly assigned. So I had to walk all the way back down again to get replacement key cards, and walk up the 6 floors again. It was extremely hot and stuffy, and this was the point where bottled water would’ve been greatly appreciated. On top of all this, the 2 bedroom apartment was advertised as air-conditioned, but there was only 1 aircon unit at the corner of the living room. The 2 bedrooms had no aircon, and were very hot and stuffy even with the bedroom doors opened throughout the night. Also, the body wash, shampoo and conditioner provided in the bathrooms were big pump bottles (at least 500mL each) and labelled as eco-friendly in order to reduce single-use plastics. I’m all for being environmentally-friendly, but not if I’m paying $400 a night and expecting a certain level of hygiene. The body wash and shampoo were both only half-full and extremely diluted from spending months under the shower spray, and I can only hope that it was clean water that had diluted them. It basically felt like we were using some dirty and stale body wash and shampoo from questionable origins that had been used by 500 people before us. Needless to say, we will never be staying at any Mantra hotels again. I understand that the broken lift was caused by drunken guests who had tried to open the lift doors hence breaking them, so it wasn’t exactly the hotel’s fault. However, the receptionist had informed me that the lift was broken the night before I checked in, and it was 6pm when we checked in. Which meant that Mantra had left the only lift in the building not repaired for at least 9 hours or more. And contrary to what the receptionist had said, there wasn’t nothing that Mantra could’ve done in that situation. They could’ve had someone on staff to carry luggage up the stairs to guest rooms, given discounts on room fees as compensation, provided complimentary bottled water, or any other alternative solution, instead of literally doing nothing. This lack of initiative from Mantra management to at least try to mitigate a bad situation is precisely why we will never be staying at any Mantra hotels ever again.
430 reviews 
