Four Points by Sheraton in Sydney

I am currently staying at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Sydney Australia, a hotel my friend Patrick reserved for me via Motif.com. Knowing that it was my first time in this beautiful country he reserved a room with view to the Sydney Harbor. Well let me tell you that having a room in the second floor (254) does not have a great view of the Sydney Harbor so make sure that if this is what you want you need to make a reservation on the higher level floors.

The hotel was over booked and the receptionist had to do some magic to accommodate me on another room, ergo the second floor assignment. (I was displaced by a large Japanese group which was checking in the next morning) Patrick had reserved a room with a King size bed which was not available on the rooom assigned to me. Having said all this I did agree to take the room since I was extremely tired and figured I'd probably crash. With this 'downgrade' I got two complimentary breakfasts. So far things are OK.

I had heard that there was wireless on the first lobby, so I decided to go to the first floor and find out what the story was; was the service free, how much did I have to pay, etc., etc.? The receptionist said that I could use the complimentary internet service on the lobby, always taking into account that it was just to check things out otherwise I would have to pay for internet in the room - $29.50 a day, $12.00 an hour and customers could not surpass the 2 hour limit. As she saw that I just wanted to use my computer briefly she gave me a $5.00 internet card ... which allowed me to use the computer for 1/2 hour. That's all I needed so I bought the card. When I got to the second floor where the Business offices were I discovered that the card was not useable on personal computers. You had to use it on the hotel computers. I discovered this when the 'IT help desk' (who ended up being the watchdog of the area) informed me of this small detail.

At this point my patience had reached it's limit and decided to go back to the front desk and claim my $5.00 back and tell the clerk that I wasn't willing to take anymore trade offs. I reminded her of my willingness to trade down my room without any fuss and that I wanted the hotel to make up for all this inconvenience. After talking to her manager, the front desk clerk informed me that I had free internet for 24 hours and in addition to that I received two complimentary drinks at the bar. Sometimes it pays off to gripe about things.

I went to the bar to work on my computer and after struggling with the wireless internet I decided that I had to pick my battles and I just was too tired to complain about the intermitent or non-existent internet service.

On my way to the room I decided that I would stop by the business services area and see if I could log on to the internet. I discovered that by using the ethernet cable I had immediate access to the internet. Voilá! Oh, by the way, did I mention that the second floor of the hotel does not have internet nor wireless service? Add that to your list of things to watch out for.

Finally, having said all this I must admit that it is hard to get mad at such friendly and apologetic people.