Our stay at the Marriott was wonderful, the service was great, rooms were beautiful and it is located walking distance to most everything: the Sydney Harbor Bridge (what a blast the climb was!), Opera House, train station the Royal Botanical Gardens and The Rocks.
Just one thing to be aware of...the taxi's are usually waiting just around the corner from the hotel, don't tell the valet guys you need a taxi in advance, we had to pay for an extra 25 minutes, because we did some last minute shopping and didn't notice until in route to the airport that the meter was running from the time the taxi arrived at the hotel, not from the time we all got in to leave.

In the interest of a fair review, I have to say that my favourite hotel in Sydney is the Observatory Hotel and I do tend to compare other Sydney Hotels to the Observatory. I also have to confess that I never choose to stay at a hotel whose windows do not open, and this was an exception on a night where any of my other choices in Sydney were full. I also paid a high room rate comparable to that at the Observatory so my expectations were perhaps higher.
Added to all of the above I am rather fussy, perhaps to the extreme about cleanliness so this review is perhaps best for those who are of the same inclination.
I will start with the positives, because there were some. I liked the buffet breakfast, it was very busy but the staff were extremely attentive, the coffee was great, very good choice of fresh fruit, smoked salmon and cold cuts, cheese, sweet treats, chef who cooked some great eggs, everything you could possibly want in a breakfast buffet and more.
I have no complaints about the staff at all. The pool area and gym looked great.
The negatives for me was the terrible smell of stale cigarette smoke coming from the air conditioning system. It really was very unpleasant. The bedroom was of a reasonable size but the bathroom was really small and I felt it needed some upgrading and a little more industrial cleaning and luxury for the price. The bed was very uncomfortable, very hard and despite being very tired I found it very hard to sleep. It would be fine for people who love hard beds and floors. The pillows were good. The sheets were of reasonable quality but once again had the same sort of smell as the air conditioning. The carpet had several stains and patches of sticky stuff so I made sure I put socks on to walk around the room. The iron was of inferior quality as was the ironing board and not kept in good condition. I could not iron at all with it. The alarm had been left on by a previous guest so a 2am wake up call was not great either, but I perhaps should take some responsibility for checking this. The queues at the elevators at all times during the evening and most especially in the morning were really bad. Obviously not enough elevators for the amount of rooms. I wont even mention the check out queues!! This Hotel does have many airline crews and I wondered whether their sleep had been as bad as mine. I hope not! I personally would not stay here again but if you are paying a very reasonable rate and like hard beds and are not a fusspot like me it may fit the bill.

To be fair when we arrived late on our night we were tired and exhausted plus a tiny bit cranky. The staff were very nice and the accommodation while small was clean, modern and comfortable. We didn't want room service but there is not much in the way near by of alternative eating so we had MacDonalds.

As an overnight stay it was good enough, we had friends nearby we were able to visit easily the next day. The view from the room was not great but we weren't really in there to look out the room. The location however was not fantastic for sight seeing, it would be a bit of a walk or a taxi ride to see the major sights.

We had a comfortable sleep and the room did everything we needed it too.

We stayed at this hotel on the 27th of January. Hotel was beautiful and the rooms were perfect.