ibis budget Melbourne CBD 3 stars

From my first steps into reception until checking out, nothing positive to say at all. Staff ignored me for 20mins whilst checking in, conversation amongst themselves far more important. Room not clean, needed linen replaced as blood stained. Very noisy and taps leaking. Checkout was complete confusion, staff unsure what they are doing and tried to double charge for my visit. I have stayed at many Accor hotels, and spend around 50nights a year away. This hotel is not good for the brand and if where it is going I will shift to another preferred provider.

Friendly staff on arrival, I was early so they were able to store my baggage without any problem. When I came back to check in again staff were friendly and engaged. I only have a couple of criticisms, mainly to do with room design. In my room the power points were all in one area, next to the bed and 'fridge. This meant a struggle to dry my hair as the hair dryer cord did not reach to the mirror in the bathroom. Really inconvenient. Also if you were sitting at the small table, there was nowhere nearby to plug in. The air conditioner needed cleaning. Clearly hadn't been done for a while. The bed was very comfortable however. It almost felt like there was too much furniture in such a small space, maybe the sofa could have been a smaller one?

Check on experience was terrible. The requirement to present a physical credit card for the holding deposit and to pay for the room is a joke. I don’t carry a physical credit card anymore and I’m sure there are millions of people like me. I suggest you move into the digital world to avoid such a poor customer experience

Obviously you are short of trained staff and this definitely showed. Long wait at check in. TV on when we got to the room and remote did not work so had to turn off TV at the wall. Reception said nothing could be done. No kettle in the room and reception said that kettles are not provided. The next morning reception said that there should have been a kettle but that we could have gotten water in the breakfast area. I had actually tried that, but it did not work either. Also i reckon I saw on your website that you have parking. This is clearly misleading. Good location though and good value for money

I knew that this wasn’t going to be amazing given that it’s a ‘budget’ hotel however there are some things that could be improved even within this budget offering. The location was convenient for the purpose of my trip to Melbourne. The room I was given unfortunately had a flickering light. The man at reception initially offered me a late checkout as compensation which wasn’t useful to me (also why would I want to stay in a room with a flickering light for even longer?). Eventually he visited my room to see the problem and offered me a ‘complimentary upgrade’ the room I was moved to was bigger (it now had a couch) but still pretty old and crusty. I was surprised to see a small disc of soap in the shower. Surely even a budget hotel can provide some kind of shower gel and shampoo instead of prison soap? Overall not super impressed with the quality of rooms. With a face lift this could be a good stay but currently I won’t be going back