I have just spent 4 days in Melbourne in an Executive Studio at The Oaks on Collins. An absolutely delightful surprise to see just thought and great design going into a mid-priced accommodation, otherwise often left as a box with a kettle. Dish washer, Oven, Microwave, Ironing Board & Iron. Ingenious shower and super comfy bed. Loved it and highly recommend it for short stays in Melbourne in the middle of the CBD and close to everything.

I am going to split my review in two parts, the hotel & room itself, and then the staff.

I'll preface this by saying that I've visited Melbourne for work and pleasure dozens of times and have stayed all over the CBD and adjoining suburbs, so when I say it's the worst place I've stayed in Melbourne, I really have a lot of experience to back this.

The OAKS building itself looks fairly nice. The location is what sold me, but let's face at during Aus Open Melbourne is pretty packed so my hotel choices were limited.

It's a short walk from Southern Cross station for those coming in to Melbourne on the Sky Bus, but in retrospect it doesn't matter where in the CBD you are staying if you come in on Sky Bus because they have a free shuttle service to your CBD hotel anyway so the distance is really irrelevant.

Anyway, check in was normal, and then had to drag my bags up a few set of stairs to get to the lift. Not the easiest of tasks but managed to pull it off anyway. Mind you, there's a small concierge desk near the lifts but I never actually saw it manned so I'm not sure what the point was.

Getting in to the room, the air con was buzzing away when I arrived so I dumped my bags to look for the bathroom. The bathroom....... where the hell is the bathroom? Right next to the bed, running at around 3ish metres long and perhaps 1.5m wide is this tiny little thing called a bathroom. The size was fine, I mean it had a toilet, sink and shower, so I guess all bases covered, but the "walls" of the bathroom were a type of frosted or foggy glass. I was a solo traveller on this trip so not much to worry about but the idea of having to watch a silhouette go to the bathroom really kills all romance, so would not recommend this place for a romantic trip, friends travelling together or family.

Other than the size and transparency of the walls, the bathroom is very poorly laid out. The toilet is less than 50cm from the bed, and any smelly toilet business can easily linger around as there were no vents or fans in the glass bathroom.

My other issue with the bathroom is the severe lack of sink space, of which there was none. Having to go back and forth to get your toothbrush and paste, then the cleanser, then make up, etc in preparation of getting ready was just a pain in the backside. Not ideal at all.

The cleanliness of the toilet was fine, but the shower had a lot of scummy bits hanging around the edges. Ugh gross.

The bathroom was also lacking the little touches that other hotels have. For me, I was personally mildly annoyed by the lack of shower caps and a blow dryer. I notice in another review they're advising that the mirror above the toilet had a blow dryer in it but I couldn't get that open for the life of me so I figured it was purely decorative while I was there. Would've been nice if they had an info pack about the room to let you know this as I would've tried to jam it off a bit harder had I known for sure it was a cupboard. Anyway, too little too late now.

One last thing about the bathroom, be expecting to hear every time adjoining rooms use their bathroom too. That's right, every flush, every time they wash their hands, their showers, all in HD surround sound. The usual banging noises can be heard throughout the general room too, but the bathroom noises kind of bothered me more than usual as I've never heard another rooms toilet flushing in all my hotel visits.

The rest of the room was OK. Didn't use any of the kitchen facilities so can't really comment on it. There was a lot of mention of a 'mini bar' in the room but the fridge was completely empty other than a few of the milk containers for coffee and tea.

The TV is tiny and is so far from the bed, isn't worth turning on.

The view for me was out on to Collins St and was beautiful. Probably one of the better things about the room.

The carpet in the room was absolutely disgusting. There were bleach spots all over it, and then brown stains all over the carpet. I thought at first the brown stains might've just been from the carpet being in the wrong direction, so I tried to smooth it out with my foot and to no avail.

The last thing about the room is that they're very dark, even with all the windows open and lights on full fledged brightness, the place was dingy and dark.

So that is my summation of the room itself. Didn't get a chance to use pool, gym or restaurant so I will get right on to the staff next.

I've noticed a common theme in the reviews for this place are that the staff are unhelpful and rude. On one hand, I'm glad I wasn't the only one treated like crap by the staff, but on the other, just makes me wonder why this hotel has developed such a poor workplace culture.

I had originally booked for 3 nights, through a third party website. Halfway through my trip, I received a phone call from home advising that I had a family emergency and I needed to get back home by the next morning as one of my immediate family members had a medical emergency. Panic mode set in here.

I called the airline (Qantas) and they were brilliant. As soon as I told the staff that I had an emergency and needed to get back early, they waived all the flight change fees and charges. Needless to say I was slightly emotional on the phone trying to get everything resolved, but Qantas was aboslutely fantastic. Can't say the same for the Oaks.

I pulled myself together and dragged myself down to the front desk to speak to them about leaving one day early. I had no intention of asking for the last night to not be paid for as I had assumed being that I pre-paid the accomodation this wouldn't be an option, so I just wanted to let them know I'd be gone a day early. I wish I could remember the name of the girl that I spoke to, but honestly at the time it was the last thing on my mind. I told her that I needed to leave a day early due to a family emergency. The staff member completely and utterly brushed me off! She told me to call the website I booked through and see if they would charge for the last night (this was optional??? well in that case...), as it was up to their policy and not the hotels. Fine, I thought, I'll call them. There was zero empathy, or human emotion here, just a very cold "call the company and deal with them".

I will also add that at this stage I asked for some directions to a particular tram stop as I wasn't 100% sure where it was, and she sent me in the complete wrong direction too. This is another first for me when staying in Melbourne. Concierge staff have always been fabulous with directions and assistance. Not this time!

So I called the website I booked my accomodation through. The poor guy on the phone was so helpful but terribly confused as to why the hotel had referred me back to them, as it was at the hotels discretion to decide whether or not they'd charge for the last night. So he puts me on hold to call and speak to them, to come back later only to ask who I spoke to (I described her, again, terrible with names). The poor young guy comes back to me and says "I'm terribly sorry, I spoke to (whatshername) and she advised they'd be charging for the last night. I'm sorry they referred you back to us and I really hope everything works out for your family member". I really couldn't put any blame on this guy. He was so sweet about everything.

So I left the hotel a day early, being charged a full fee, with not even an eye blink about having to rush off and deal with an emergency at home.

I didn't expect a refund to start with, but the fact that they brushed me off to the website, who actually bore no responsibility in the decision, and had the option to refund the last night out of good will but refused to was a bit crap but oh well, such is life. The fact that the staff had zero compassion was the deciding factor in what an absolute terrible stay I had at the OAKS on Collins.

For the price range, there are much better accomodation options in Melbourne CBD that have better rooms and amenities and where the staff will bend over backwards to help you out.

Stayed here for 3 nights while I was in Melbourne for the tennis. Truth be told, I left the hotel booking to the last minute and this was the only hotel i could find with 3 consecutive nights of accommodation, so went with it. Paid about $250 a night as it was a last minute booking and a busy time for Melbourne what with the tennis.

I booked a 'Studio Executive' room which the website says sleeps 3 people, presumably 2 in the double bed and 1 on the sofa. As there were no twin rooms available anywhere, I took it as I assumed the sofa in the room would either be big enough to sleep on, or it was a fold out bed. Not so. For an extra bed in the room you have to request a roll out bed/futon for an extra charge. When I called reception on arrival they said they had sold out of these and we should have booked it in advance (even though there was no such advice or warning on the website about how a room that sleeps 3 is actually configured). We ended up having to arrange the sofa cushions on the floor to create a makeshift matress, not something I've ever had to do, even in budget 2* rooms I've stayed at in the past! The Queen bed however is very comfortable (me and my cousins took it in turns to use the bed and flipped a coin on the last night haha!)

The kitchen is very good,fully kitted out with pans, utensils etc, even including a small dishwasher.

The bathroom is quite peculiar, its behind a narrow glass partition in the corner of the room, but despite its size provides all you need from a bathroom. (word of warning, the mirror above the toilet is actually a cupboard, hosuing spare toilet rolls and a hair dryer, I didn't come across this until the 2nd night!!)

Also the television is very small and affixed to the wall quite high up so is difficult to watch and picture quality was poor at some points.

the pool is very disappointing, any sunlight is replaced by shade by early afternoon. The gym looked well equipped however I didn't use it.

All in all my stay was ok, would probably go back on cheaper rates and if i 100% knew what the sleeping configuration was going to be like. Good for a CBD location, close to Flinders Street, a short tram ride to Brunswick Street and walking distance from Southern Cross stations for the bus to the airport.

stayed there for a girls weekend .
not a happy stay A/C didn't work toliet door kept coming of it's runners .was told for a bucket of ice to be delivered for $ 5.00 .