A gorgeous old hotel close to the centre of Geelong. Atmosphere, comfort, quiet and friendly. We are assured there is a friendly resident ghost as well but he didn't appear for us on this visit! Breakfast is a simple help yourself affair - cereal, toast, juice, tea, coffee etc. Not cheap but would definitely recommend as an alternative to the newer hotels and apartments down on the waterfront.
Lovely atmosphere and rooms. Very intimate with a very nice courtyard. Honesty bar is a great idea. Service was exceptional. Definately an option for that couples weekend away!
Reading other reviews, I can only conclude that some people are hard to please. Who'd be in hospitality?! Yes, I would have liked a more accessible powerpoint, yes the kitchen/bar is pretty tiny - but on the scale of what's important, these things are trivial, and if you want all the 'mod cons' go to the Sheraton down the road. (I have stayed twice at the Sheraton and will never stay there again by choice now I've found the Haymarket which is a gem.) The Haymarket has a lovely feel, and in Geelong that's hard to find. We arrived very late on a Friday night so the hotel was closed and we entered via a laneway with a nearby hotel in full swing with loud music - oh oh, we thought, have we done the right thing choosing this place? However, the instructions as to how to get in worked perfectly, and our room directly on the courtyard was absolutely sound-proof. The heating had been put on for us too, which was greatly appreciated late on a cold winter night. Service at the Haymarket is a feature, the people we met were really lovely and very happy to help in any way they could. We loved the cosy lounge, the free wifi, the honesty bar (though be warned, it is locked at 9pm which we hadn't realised - and we were so looking forward to a glass of muscat in bed!). Breakfast is a reasonably simple affair but not basic - coffee is real and very good quality, bread is wholemeal, and there is a nice range of fresh fruit. The bed is one of the best I've slept in in a hotel. The hotel is located about 5 or 10 minutes walk from the centre of town. Parking is limited to four cars only. Note that although upstairs rooms are probably out of the question for a disabled person, the downstairs room we had would be quite OK for a fairly mobile wheelchair-user. In all, we loved this place and will be back next time we are in Geelong for a Cats match! By the way, we ate lunch on Sunday at Petteval winery - it was outstanding.
This hotel has aspirations, but it just doesn't make it. Nice friendly staff, lovely antiques in the room, good bed & bedding, nice bathroom, chocolate on the pillow, lovely little sitting area downstairs. But overall not great, and too many small details missing and jarring. The location is a bit odd - up past some dubious shops and my room looked out over a distinctly unscenic tyre replacement yard.
It's a renovated period building - but whoever didn't bother to replace the ceiling cornices, which made the bedroom look oddly unfinished. The hotel promotes itself as offering 'luxury', yet supplied a very ordinary DIY breakfast complete with ordinary bread and little Kraft plastic packets of butter, honey, marmalade etc. Not my idea of luxury. Good marks for real coffee, but overall it's 3 1/2 star. Once was enough.
I am an experienced traveller and after reading the reviews decided to book this hotel. All I can say is that by selecting a hotel based upon reviews does not always work out. This is one of those times. The other reviewers obviously were not used to the standard required for a 41/2 star hotel. This one fails to make the grade. Although good, clean and tidy with friendly staff, it is simply not up to the grade as advertised. I suspect that the grade has been selected by the hotel to justify the price. Therefore it is overpriced as it is really at 3 star level.
