This time in Canberra I’m staying at the Pinnacle Serviced Apartments, but only because all the other hotels we normally stay at are completely booked out for some lame reason like parliament being in session.
It’s in Kingston, about half way between the Kingston Shops and the Manuka Shops, so it’s in a pretty good location.
Basically it’s an apartment complex which is all let out on short to medium term rentals with an on-site manager.
The first room they put me in I couldn’t get into the bathroom (the door was jammed or something), so they found me another room, which happens to be a 4 bedroom appartment with a total of 7 beds (1x double + 6x singles) !!!
What’s more it has two (and a half) bathrooms, with a spa bath in each of the bathrooms !!!!! Bedrooms 3 and 4 and the second bathroom (including laundry) is upstairs.
Nice kitchen, large dining area, but the lounge area is kind of spoiled by the staircase – so is not as large as it could be.
I’ll give rating it a go…
Room: 10/10 – can’t really beat a 4 bedroom apartment. Tonnes of space, especially for one person. Even the two bedroom appartment they originally put me in would have got this score I think.
Bed: 6/10 – double bed only (plus 6 singles !!). It’s a bit too firm for my liking, but still quite reasonable, with a good selection of pillows. I might have to review this tomorrow morning once I’ve actually spent a night sleeping on it.
TV: 6/10 – the regular channels plus a couple of extras. No CNN, no Discovery, no National Geographic, no Star Movies, no Fox 8, etc etc.
Connectivity: 5/10 – One phone by the kitchen with data port, but only one line. Dialup speeds over 50kbps. Usable, but awkward positioning and would be nice to be able to make calls while online too.
Breakfast: 1/10 – None available. This is a bit of a pain… especially since I’m only here for one day. Normally in a serviced apartment I’d go buy a pack of Weetbix and some milk and just eat that (which is what I’d normally have at home) – but for one day only that’s a bit of overkill, and possibly a little tricky since I don’t have transport. Fortunately it’s only about a 5min walk to the Kingston shops, so I wandered down there and got to the small supermarket there before it closed. I got one of those variety 6-packs of Kellogs cereal and a litre of milk and some orange juice. This should do well – I’ve already eaten a couple of boxes of those cereals for dinner (the plane food was very average and not enough for a proper meal), and the rest should do me for breakfast in the morning. What’s more it cost well less than the $15 allowance I get in my per diem for breakfast. I would have given them 0/10 if the shops were too far away to walk to (or not open late).
Room Service: 1/10. None available. Sometimes you really don’t feel like getting food to cook yourself, or you are too busy, you get back from the office late, and you really get sick of eating in restaurants by yourself. It would be nice to just have some room service delivered. I guess I could order a pizza, but that’s overkill for one person, and not exactly healthy. Since there are plenty of good restaurants within walking distance I give them 1/10 and not 0/10.
Location: 9/10 – can’t really fault the location, walking distance to two fine shopping areas, lots of restaurants, cafes, services, supermarkets etc.
Total: 38/70 = 54%
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