From the busy Albany Highway, the Bentley Motel looks pretty nondescript. But once inside, you enter another world. My room was stylishly renovated with king bed, shiny new appliances, attractive artwork on the wall, classy glass splashback in kitchenette. Crockery and cultery sets in slick cupboards. The bathroom was beautiful, too.
But after such a great first impression the gloss soon wore a bit thin - plastic fake-floorboard flooring; intrusive traffic noise from the highway; worse still, thin walls between walls that allowed you to hear the neighbour's TV through to the time it was switched off at 2.00 am, plus other nocturnal activities; and not to forget the little things like el-cheapo tea bags, Nescafe and UHT milk sachets that belied the classy, upmarket look of the room.
I could live with most of those things but my biggest gripe is about being asked to shell out an extra $10 a night for wifi (though I was told it was free in the dining room). I stay at a lot of hotels, including some expensive ones in big-city CBDs, and this is the first time in more than a year that free wifi was not part of the deal. For a suburban motel the Bentley is not exactly cheap at $150 a night. At that price, wifi should be free.
