Esplanade Hotel Fremantle

We went to a work ball recently and stayed here. I can definately recommend it as it's close to everything and the service is excellant.

We booked a hot buffet breakfast after our big night out. The food was great, yum yum :o)

The Hotel is located twenty minutes from Perth city and thirty minutes from Perth`s domestic and international airport terminals. The hub of Fremantle is only a two minutes walk. Wonderful old world charm

Unique Quality: I haven't stayed there but I have friends who have and I have been there for cocktails. Its a lovely hotel and at times very busy with weddings.

In 2003 we were origionally going to stay in the Esplanade as it is only 17 kilometers from the airport but the logistics involved in our friends wedding meant that it was better to keep us all together in Port Kennedy. We got to see the hotel a few times and i was impressed by the vast wooden frontage and the sheer scale of the place. In 2004 we returned to Fremantle and got to see it all close up, fantastic!

Unique Quality: 300 rooms and a fantastic pool - it seems like a large corporate hotel at first but it retains its charm, warmth and friendly atmosphere although it has a reputation poor value.

I cannot agree this hotel should have four and a half stars. In my view as a world traveller it is an average city hotel worthy of three stars. It let itself down on detail. In future I would return to Perth rather than stay there. After staying in several B&Bs in the SW before arriving here we were disappointed to find lower standards. I can understand why it believes it is the best in Fremantle during a few days we didnt see anything else.

Detail: Only valet parking at a ridiculous $25 per day; No in room safe; poor choice of satellite TV channels; no bathrobes (unless in a suite or willing to pay $10 laundry fee); poor shower/bath plumbing; shabby ironing board and no steam iron.

On the plus side the housekepping and concierge staff are friendly helpful and efficient.

We booked to stay at the Esplanade Hotel as it is the only hotel in Fremantle that provides a valet parking service as we had just bought a brand new car and all other hotels require you to park in public car parks. We checked it in with the Valet and 3 hours later collected it to find a large gouge taken off the front bumper. We had specifically asked the valet to be carefull with curbs and corners as the car is quite low and the bumper sticks out as is the design/shape of the car. We spoke to the duty manager and assistant GM who were adamant that they could not prove it was their the valet that had damaged the bumper. They would take no responsibility so we didnt even recieve an apology. They were unreasionable and wouldnt even investigate or apologise. They stated because their carpark has yellow paint and there were no traces of yellow paint on our car it couldnt have been them when we saw the valet drive our vehicle back from the other side of Fremantle to return the car to us! They made us feel like we werent important, that we damaged the car ourselves when up until they valet returned it, it was in imaculate condition, even washed before checking it in with the valet. Eventually we demanded a refund on our stay and checked out without even staying a night! Effectively ruining our weekend away and also costing us over $1000 to replace the bumper on a car we had only bought 4 weeks ago. It was disgusting how they treated us. They wouldnt listen to anything we said just tried to make excuses or didnt say anything at all. So disappointed as this is supposed to be a nice hotel! Never again will we stay there. It was truely apalling!

A couple month ago I walked into the hotel with my partner to make a book the room for my parents who come here from oversea for my wedding. The staff at the reception seemed busy at the time and told us to wait for a room service guy for a minute to show us around the hotel as well as rooms.

Since nobody came to us after 40mins, my partner asked the reception how long more we needed to wait. A lady at the reception got organised someone quickly to show us around after 5 minutes.

After checking out some rooms we requested to book 2 specific rooms facing to a small pool and next each other. The lady at the reception promised us that she made sure that she booked the rooms we wanted & even pointing at the rooms on a hotel room map and we made a payment to her.

On one day before my wedding I came back to the hotel with my parents to stay. The receptionist gave us the room keys with no explanation about any changed on our room. We tried to used the key but it didn't work so I went back to the reception to re-issue the key for us. We went to 1st floor with new keys and found one of our room which was different from the room I have booked. I got confused but I still opened the room to make sure if the room was facing to a smaller room, though I knew that was oposite side. As expected the room allocated us was facing to the street which I didn't want to book as it can be noisy at night. Additionally, there was a rubbish on the floor as soon as we walked into the room.

I went back to the reception to ask for the explanation of this wrong allocation of the room before checking where our another room was. The lady explained that it was a mistake by the staff we originally made a booking, and now they couldn't do anything for us. On the top of this, she also explained that another room was also mis-allocated and it was facing to a bigger pool which we didn't want. She did offer to upgrade one of the room which is not facing to a smaller pool. I couldn't believe that they didn't apologize at the first point even though they were aware of their mistake. They even didn't offer for a refund.

My family were in Perth only 3 nights for my wedding and I wanted to stay the day before the wedding as it is a kind of our tradition. If we were told this mistake beforehand we would have cancelled rooms and have stayed at other hotel with much better services.

I really cannot believe such careless and poor services which I have ever experienced at other hotels. I do regret that I have booked rooms at this hotel on my special day.

I did request for a refund of $1,020 to the manager afterwards and only offer from the hotel manager is one night free stay for 2 with 2 free breakfast. Unbelievalbe!!!
1 star hotel in other country would have much better services than this hotel.

Never again!