Review of Grosvenor Hotel Adelaide 3*

We booked an overnight stay in this "hotel" after hearing some good things about it. Worst. Mistake. Ever. I booked a big room (2x queen beds) for hubby, me and 2 kids (3.5yo and 5mo). The room wasn't ready on time, so we had to wait. After being given keys to our room, we went through this rabbit warren of pillars and poles to get to our room. The keys didn't work, at all. 5 minutes of wrangling and we finally get in. Went to turn on the air conditioning, only to hear this deafening whirling sound, and as the minutes ticked by, the room got hotter and hotter. No, there was no temperature gauge, and that should have been a sign we should have checked out and found another hotel. More time ticked by, and the room was becoming unbearably stifling. Hubby called down to reception to check if the a/c was working, only to be told that they knew the system was down, and if we continued to run it, the room will just get hotter. We were offered a fan to cool the room down, which added to the noise. The toilet in the room had a massive step up, which meant that if you weren't paying attention, you would trip and fall flat on your face, as Master 3.5 discovered. There was no view to speak of, unless you count the bubbling peeling paint of the building next door. The beds were comfortable enough, but well and truly over-made with too many layers considering the a/c was broken. The bedside tables were sticky — they weren't wiped down at all and I had to wash my hands after leaning on one. And I found a number of bobby pins on the floor that did not belong to me. Cleanliness and attention to detail are obviously not high in the priorities. Every time we went out and wanted to get back into the room, the keys refused to work. Even after going to reception to report the faulty keys, and waiting for them to "fix" the keys and assured and reassured they would work, they still didn't. We found the trick was to swipe/swipe/kick/swipe/swipe/push/swipe/swipe/kick/kick/swipe/kick. Using that combo, we were able to gain access to our room. The positively sweltering conditions in our room meant we had the worst night of sleep in a long time. And that is saying a LOT, as a mother of 2 with the youngest being only 5 months old. When we checked out, I complained to someone wearing a badge that read "Head of Housekeeping". She couldn't have been more unsympathetic. No apologies. No offers of discounts. Nothing. Hello, I can see that you are only PRETENDING to write down my concerns! The only saving grace is their restaurant. Food was tasty and reasonably priced. The waitstaff were friendly and helpful. The restaurant is the ONLY reason we would ever be back at this hellhole.