Crest on Barkly

Stayed one night in a serviced apartment with my kids. Spacious clean rooms with a lounge room and kitchen. It was comfortable and i would happily have stayed longer Rooms could be improved with bedside lamps, wider curtains. Our apartment was on ground level and there was a fair bit of traffic noise from the road as well as loud conversations outside our windows (all part of the ambience of the location). Ate buffet breakfast. Due to low numbers during school holidays the hot breakfast was cooked on demand however was limited to eggs and bacon not full English. Beware the onsite parking (additional $20 per day). The carpark under the building is a maze of large pilars displaying the damage to decades of paint jobs. The outdoor carparking shows similar problems along surfaces like timber fences. It is tight design with every available bit of space turned into parking despite the needs of car turning circles. We were parked in overnight, by a vehicle not in a marked car park. When I asked if the car owner could be contacted the reseption staff said no and didnt try to contact them (hot tip on parking for free i guess). Instead they guided me out. It took about 15 mins of driving like Austin Powers to get out of the capark and into the driveway. During my conversation with reception staff they made comments that me feel like i was an incompetent country driver not suited to metro conditions. Really took the shine off the whole experience. Wont be my first choice to return here.

Dirty rooms, bad service, poorly managed… Was given a disgustingly dirty room on Saturday. Dirty sheets, poo stained carpets, unhygienic surfaces & equipment. Previous guest belongings, hair, rubbish, food items remained. Spoke to reception was informed no other rooms available. Left during night, could not rest as it was so disgusting. Went past on Monday to see manager, she said she needs a day to investigate & will call me in regards to compensation as they did have many other rooms available on the night, just the receptionist wasn’t trained for such situations… waited 2 days, so called hotel 4pm Tuesday, she had left for the day. So manager doesn’t work weekends, staff can’t call her outside of office hours, she just walked in at 9:30am Monday, she’s gone by 4pm during the week. She can’t take action until head office approves… can’t be normal responsibilities & working hours for a manager in a large hotel, won’t be long and st Kilda will have another shelter in such a prime location

Never Ever EVER again Do not be fooled by the photos — this hotel is an absolute dump hiding behind a shiny facade.
From the outside and the reception area, things almost look respectable. But once you're led to your "family room," for your 2 night stay, the illusion shatters instantly. At $269 a night, we expected something halfway decent — not a glorified broom closet with beds shoved in. Yes, technically there were the right number of beds. That’s where the accuracy ends. No table, no chairs (despite being pictured online), a TV that didn’t even work (brilliant when you’re traveling with kids), and a rattling, broken air conditioner that only made the freezing Melbourne July nights worse. Honestly, the thing looked like it might fall out of the wall. The water pressure was fine — until another room dared to flush or shower. Then it was an unpredictable game of “Will I freeze to death or be burned alive” . It was so bad we couldn’t let the kids use the shower. Ended up dumping them in a grimy bathtub that needed a full Dettol baptism before it was usable. Mould in the shower? Yep. (See attached pictures if you want a horror story.) Only two towels were provided for a family of four. When I called to ask for more, I was told to come get them myself. Clearly only 2 of us wanted to be clean. The advertised “daily housekeeping” never showed up once. The Wi-Fi was completely unreliable, cutting out every few minutes — assuming you could even connect in the first place. Laundry facilities? $6 to wash, which was reasonable, but the dryer didn’t even work — so enjoy paying $4 to spin your wet clothes pointlessly. The gym toilets were filthy. Like, absolutely disgraceful.
Worse still, we had to deal with aggressive, drug-affected guests, , and screaming through the night. It felt more like a halfway house than a hotel. The car park was a chaotic free-for-all. Some guests (and I use that word very loosely) were taking up three or four spaces each, while actual paying customers were left to fend for themselves. And when we checked out? No apology. No concern. Just a shoulder shrug from staff who have clearly heard all of this before and no longer give a damn. Crest Hotel Group should be ashamed of the standard they’re offering. They’re clearly not interested in running a hotel — just taking people’s money and leaving them to deal with a third-rate experience in what felt like an unsafe, unsanitary dump. Absolutely disgraceful