Riverside Apartments Melbourne

We have had this venue booked since 29/9/22 (well over 12 months from travel dates) and 2 weeks out from our stay date we got an email to say that they had cancelled our accommodation (2 apartments) due to a major renovation project which actually started the week before we were notified by ***********🤷🏻‍♀️ not even the hotel had the courtesy to let us know when they must have known of this ‘Major renovation’ taking place well before it started.. Not good enough & extremely BAD customer service👎🏼

We had a booking for 17 flying in on the Friday but the Monday prior they cancelled our booking? This is a place that we have loyally supported for over 20+ years! No excuses offered and no assistance in sourcing alternate accommodation. The standard has been steadily dropping and it appears that maybe lockdowns were the final straw? Either way the Poor Boys have moved on and the Riverside joins the Waterside as being dead to us!

No face to face reception - all email contact Got put in separate "annex" Lift filthy, only goes up two floors , we were on 3rd floor so had to walk up fire stairs with luggage. Room didn't feel clean and very dated. Not like photos at all. Tiny shower, mould on ceiling and walls. Lounge had lumps and bumps uncomfortable to sit on. No window in bedroom, no ac or fan in bedroom so very stuffy. Fly screens on window torn. No pillowcases on spare pillows. Only positive is the location.

They cancelled our booking the day before. Maybe cause Ed Sheeran is in town this weekend. Stated they had plumbing issues on the 17th floor. We booked 6 months ago and surely there would be a room for us on another floor. But after reading other reviews looks like we dodged a bullet.

I wish we’d seen the trip advisor reviews beforehand. Agoda only shows glowing ones. If you book a 1 bedroom apartment, you stay out the back of the main hotel behind the lane. Dodgy entrance, filthy glass lift. On entry, we discovered the table was so broken it swung sideways when I put my handbag on it (we contacted management and they promised to fix, but we didn’t see or hear from them again ) . Carpet filthy, windows filthy, curtains stained. The shower was mouldy in the corners so you just wanted the briefest of showers, there was nowhere to put soap or shampoo so you had to hold them when showering, Remote didn’t work on one of the tvs, the tiny couch had broken springs and smelled bad. I think there were permanent tenants in other units (sign on stairs addressed guests, residents and transients!) they were noisy and the foyer smelled of frying fish. To be fair, the bed was ok, rooms big and location to Southbank and trams were good. But there seemed to be a group of gang members living somewhere in the building, they were constantly yelling aggressively at one another, doing drug deals in the street and urinating in the car park opposite. When they weren’t doing this, they were playing doof doof music until 2am. We felt very unsafe. At a special price of $150 a night, we didn’t expect the Ritz but this was ridiculous. Never stay here.

Having stayed here over 15 times now I feel very confident in reviewing this Hotel. Sadly, the change of ownership has led to a rapid decline in standards. We stayed 3 nights and never saw housekeeping once in that time. We raided the dolly carts to replenish toilet paper, took out rubbish etc. The major issue is you can have up to 8 persons per room with 2 keys, after we argued for 1 extra from the original 1 key per room! So with no night reception, you need a key to enter the hotel, to activate the lift, and lastly, to enter your room? Stuck outside and you were threatened with a $200 call out fee!! Get with modern practice and organise phone apps with pin numbers etc, so authorised guests can enter at any time and not have to ring room mates at 5 a.m. to get into the building!!! What is and has been for a long time, decades, a great location, is being spoiled by cheap management & poor maintenance, water leaks in 1734 people! I arrived back on Saturday night and had to let a guest just flown in from Singapore in to the reception area and luckily knew where the overflow rooms were in Flinders Lane! She was alone, tired & pretty scared with a poorly performing, non existent reception from the Riverside!