I stayed at Quest Gordon Place for 2 nights in January on the weekend of the Men's and Women's Finals at the Australian Open tennis. Having read the terrible reviews on Trip Advisor, I had my doubts about staying here, but as it was walking distance to the tennis and to friends that I was also in town to see who live at East Melbourne, I figured it was worth a punt. After all, I thought, Quest is a reputable chain so surely they must have brought things up to a basic standard of acceptability since taking over - right?

Well, how wrong I was! Where to start with the negative aspects of my stay? I booked a Studio Apartment which was on the bottom floor - this level is actually below street level, so the room was dark and damp-smelling and had almost no natural light. Mould and dusty uncleaned surfaces abounded. It was also tiny and there was barely enough room to step around my suitcase once I put it on the floor next to the bed. I decided to go back to reception and ask if there were any other non-dungeon rooms available. The young fellow at reception (who I must say was friendly and helpful) advised that there were Studios on the top floor but they were all sold, but that I could upgrade to a One Bedroom Apartment on the top floor for an extra $31 per night. I quickly agreed to this as I was very keen to escape the dungeon.

My new room was on the top floor on the other side of the building. It's worth noting, as has been mentioned in previous reviews, that there is no lift down to the bottom floor, so I carried my large suitcase back up the stairs (which I was not offered help with) to reception level and then proceeded to the second set of lifts on the far side of the building. The hallways I walked through to get to my room were very unsightly and not at all clean (carpet weirdly covered in electrical tape and cigarette buts on the floor - this is in the INTERNAL hallways!). When I arrived at my room, it appeared nice enough - the property is a beautiful old building and my apartment was very spacious with lovely raked ceilings in the living room. However on closer inspection, I realised that everything was actually really dirty - a mouldy shower with a hair still in the soap dish and drain, sheets and pillowslips stained with mould (albeit on a very comfortable bed), dusty kitchen cupboards and draws with grubby/stained cutlery and glasses, even bits of chocolate on the floor and in one of the cupboards in the living room! Additionally there were a number of cosmetic issues like cigarette burns in the curtains and grubby marks on the walls/doorhandles/around light switches. I'd planned to report this at the front desk on my way out for the evening, however the desk was unattended and I was in a bit of a rush so I just let it go. Upon returning to the hotel that night, there was a fouled smell along the hallway leading to my room - I walked further along the corridor to find garbage sitting right there in the hallway, and judging by the smell it had been there for more than a short time. To top everything off, I was awoken at 3.30am by the sound of someone trying to open my apartment door and then pounding on it for a good 30 seconds or so before realising they had the wrong room and giving up! Ok, so this isn't really something that is the fault of hotel management, but as a young woman staying in the apartment by myself this did give me a bit of a fright. I know they can't control everything but with a 24-hour front desk, if someone came into the hotel at 3.30am so blind that they couldn't remember where their room was, you'd hope whoever was on duty might give them a bit of a hand!

However what disappointed me most of all was the response I got when I reported my concerns at reception upon checking out. I basically summarised all the issues I'd had by telling the guy at reception that my room had been pretty dirty and that I didn't feel like it had been cleaned thoroughly before my arrival (something of an understatement). Before I had even finished my sentence, he began to tell me that Quest had just taken over management of the property "like 2 weeks ago" and are waiting for approval from Heritage Victoria before they can make any improvements, so there is really not much they can do about it. Now, as I pointed out to him at the time, Heritage Victoria has nothing to do with issues like rooms not being cleaned, however he just kept repeating that they were just "working on it" and that once Quest had a chance to fix it things would be much better (although he did concede that he would go and remove the garbage from the hallway and apologised for this). Going by other reviews on Trip Advisor and information on Quest's website, they took over much longer then 2 weeks prior to my stay, so not only did he refuse to take any responsibility for the issues I encountered, but he also flat-out lied in his attempt to pass the buck to the previous owners.

So to summarise my very long review, I couldn't possibly have anticipated how disappointing my stay here would be. I can't even say that you should stay here if you just want an affordable hotel and won't be spending much time in your room - for what you get, it is vastly overpriced and there are many more viable affordable options nearby. I know Quest properties are franchised so each one is different, but for me this has really sullied the good name of the Quest brand, and they will be on my blacklist from now on.