The service was appaling. They were not at ll interested in serving guests and when one person in our party told the bar man that he was perceived as being condacending he couldn't care less, he even told us so!

The Crest Hotel was a good comfortable place to stay. If you are a budget traveller and you want a SAFE place to stay, this is a place I would recommend. Its in Kings Cross which is in a red light district, but the GOOD side to this is the food. THe food is amazing on Darlinghurst Street. You can get pizza, kebabs, indian food, thai, malaysian, chinese - you name it. And very cheap prices! Best of all,
they are open all night. The street has peddlers who ask for money and
you might see some red light workers on the streets in the early hours
of the morning or late at night but having stayed here twice I had no problems.

The views were incredible, the bed although it was old was comfortable
and clean. The sheets were clean. I took off the main cover. The bathroom was clean. It came with a table and a basic tv, an alarm clock that worked (this is very important).

Overall, for 80 dollars or so and for its central location close to Elizabeth bay and the harbour views to the opera house I would have to say I was satisfied. What more could you ask for on such a cheap price? Seriously you get what you pay for and a little extra here. IF you can handle the fact that the hotel is old 70's style hotel and needs a renovation then you will be most pleased.

Sydney hotels this close to the harbour dont come cheap, and I guarantee you that no place, no matter hoe expensive does not come with the range and diversity of food choices as this place. Take a step out of the hotel and you will be amazed. For $10 dollars I got 2 curries, 2 tandoori chickens and 2 slices of pizza.

You go anywhere else and you will pay almost $20 dollars for that.
Also the hotel is within walking distance of the botanical gardens. I stayed at Manly once, and it required a ferry and a bus and cost me almost 50 dollars return.

With regards to safety in Kings Cross - this is my advice for you. The
only way you might get into problems is if you actively look for this kind of thing. If you walk down the street at a brisk pace and dont stop like I did, you can avoid any troubles.

Hopefully some people out there will be agreeing with me. As with anything - you get what you pay for - THIS PLACE - you get what you pay for and extra.

I stayed at the Crest hotel for two nights in April. I had a room on the 14th floor. And indeed it looked nothing like the photos on the hotel-website. There were stains in the carpet, the in-room fridge did not work. Some of the light switches were cracked. In the bathroom there was mold in the shower and plaster peeled off the ceiling...so far so bad.

But the hotel is in a great location, good restaurants and bars nearby, excellent train and bus connections to all major city-attractions. And since I only needed the room to sleep and not to hang out all day, I must say the room smelled surprisingly fresh, the beds were clean and comfy, and I got an unbeatable rate considering it was easter-weekend.

We got a taxi from the airport which was about a 20 minute drive at a very reasonable rate. On arrival at the hotel, the area didn't look too bad (how wrong I was) and from the outside, the hotel looked OK. The reception area looks fine, but the staff were miserable and didn't seem to want to be there.

The room was an average size, with a mini-fridge and TV. The view was of Kings Cross, very noisy and not a pretty sight at night! The carpet and wallpaper was stained, would not walk around bare-foot! The bathroom was very small, shower curtain was filthy and some of the towels were stained.

The air-con did not work in the room (we later found out that the air-con had broken in the whole hotel) which made for a very unpleasant night sleep.

The area surrounding the hotel is Sydneys red light disctrict, lots of prostitutes, strip joints and beggars around.

On the plus side, the breakfast is decent and the hotel is around a 10-15 min walk from the city centre and the city sight seeing bus stop is a few metres from the front of the hotel.

Hotel is ideal for anyone who is on a tight budget and doesn't really mind about the standard of accommodation.