Azzurro Pod Hotel - City Darling Harbour

This hotel has a great location, just across the road from the light rail & Darling Harbour, but the hotel itself is extremely run down. It's a heritage building, in desperate need of a renovation. All the walls inside are dirty & need to be painted, there's 3 floors, with only stairs access, broken banisters, holes in walls, only ceiling fans in common areas & pedestal fans in bedrooms. The Windows are filthy, old looking blankets on beds, stiff sheets, no teaspoon & tea cloth for making a coffee or tea, the bar fridge was I'll fitting & no shelves inside & ice/freezer. The first day I arrived, my room was like an oven even with the fan on & windows open. The communal toilets stank of urine, no shower caddy or shelf, or mat, & the water took ages to change temperature in the shower. You can pay an extra $7.50 here for breakfast in the dining room if you want, which is cereal, toast, coffee & juice. They also offer free luggage storage before check in, & $5 per bag after checkout. There is a back courtyard for smokers, but it's not very pleasant & very run down. I also saw a rat one night. They lock the doors after reception hours, so you have to smoke outside in the street. On the plus side, besides the good location, the hotel was reasonably quiet, & the receptionist, "Yuki", was very lovely to chat with, & always very helpful. Basically, this hotel is a very basic accommodation if you're looking for something cheap.

Pretty nice place. The TV couldn't be plugged in, the water pressure was pretty low, and the doors don't immediately lock, but overall, it red a nice place to spend a night or two. Standard facilities for tea and coffee in the rooms, along with a hair dryer for some reason. The toilets are shared, but not communal. Pretty easy and cheap to get a comfortable room and bed for a night, and easy to check out at 5 am the next morning.

If you like buildings with character and history you will really enjoy this rare old beauty. Being on Darling Harbour, it is surrounded by the modern glass and concrete hotels that cost significantly more. I opted for the double room with ensuite The sweeping high ceilings kept the small room from feeling confining. Clean, sweet and basic. The hotel is amazingly situated, with the ICC, shopping and restaurants all in easy walking distance. Public transport/trains a four minute walk, and will get you just about anywhere. Parking is across the street from hotel. The staff show a love for the hotel and its history, and make the effort to know each customer by name. I stayed for three nights to attend a conference at the ICC and felt right at home.

We booked this place as compared to the other hotels around it this stood out as the cheapest for the area, so for this reason we certainly weren’t expecting the ritz but there are a few things that could be fixed up. ||Let start but saying, check in was easy, staff were very friendly cannot fault that. Room was spacious enough, had a small clothes rack with hangers, a fridge, a kitchen style sink and a fan. I knew it didn’t have air conditioning when booking but for me it was soooooo hot. As it was twin beds, even on pivot the fan would not reach us both. We had the window open too but there was no breeze, and the road below can get a little loud. I brought with me a small towel which I was wetting and sleeping with which helped. As I said though, I knew it had no air con so this isn’t the fault of the hotel, possibly if I had asked for a second fan we could have gotten one but I’m not sure.||Then next day I popped down as I needed to change up a note to use the washing machine and dryer, but could not see anyone on reception for at least half an hour despite it being between the times they are supposed to be there, I walked all over and could find anyone so ended up walking to a local shop and buying something small to get change. Even when I went to breakfast area there was no one, not even in the kitchen so if we had come down wanting breakfast I don’t know how we would have gone about it. Not a major issue though. ||The thing I would take biggest issue with is one of the first floor bathrooms seems to have a big problem with bugs. Not sure what they were but they were grey in colour and there were hundreds of them gathered in the shower and around the toilet. Not the biting type thankfully but still not very pleasant. Wasn’t a problem in any of the other bathrooms though. A couple of times I did go in there though just for a quick wee and there was no toilet paper either so maybe a few extra checks throughout the day just for this would be good.||Location-wise you are only about a 10 min walk if that to Darling Harbour which is lovely, lots of restaurants etc. About a 3-5min walk to a small convenience store with anything you might want for your stay. ||Overall I am not disappointed with our stay. We are on a budget at the moment as travelling all over so it did us for what we needed. Air con turned out the be a bigger issue than I anticipated but I knew they wouldn’t have any so can’t blame them for that. Only that one time was not able to see staff when needed, and a little work on the bathrooms is all I’d say. ||I have also seen a few reviews commenting on lack of breakfast variety. When I translated to English pounds it is £7.50 for coffee, tea, juice toast, eggs amongst other things I cannot remember right now. For that price I hardly think you can complain, you would struggle to find any cheaper!

We stayed there because it's close to Darling Harbour & other attractions, but doesn't cost as much as other hotels. We stayed on the ground floor with a fairly new bathroom. The rest of the room had dated but clean furniture. But if it was modern then the price would reflect that! The staff on the front desk was pleasant & helpful. We had an enjoyable stay.

Good for a cheap stay. Gave it 3 because: - Staff were friendly and very helpful - I could store my gear after checkout - The bathrooms/showers were new - I didn't hear any other guests throughout my stay I didn't give it 5 because: - The building is old, with that rising wet smell in some areas - The furniture and fittings within the rooms are old - There was no microwave and small bench space in the rooms - The wind through the air vents made a clicking sound (I'm sensitive to sound when i sleep) But the bed was super comfy, and putting all the things aside that come with an old building, it was adequate, and a good price per night. I recommend for short work trips.

1 night stay. Great location for everything we needed close to public transport trams and ferry's. Staff were so friendly and helpful. Room was clean and tidy - no air con though. Beautiful old building. Over all for what is was, I'll give 4 star based on service

Very well situated for Darling Harbour and Sydney CBD, this is a pretty basic hotel with no bells and whistles. I had a single room with a shared bathroom, which (at $87.00) was not great value considering there are backpackers with double rooms for less cost and the same, if not better, level of comfort, facilities and service, albeit slight further out. Still, considering the location it wasn't too bad. My window opened and closed, the room wasn't filthy and the shower was hot, which was pretty much all I wanted. I probably would look further afield for future short stays.

I suspect that I am getting pretty close to having stayed at most of the cheap hotels in Sydney, to the point that I am going to find myself having to stay further and further afield. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is a bad thing that. This place wasn't too far away from the city, in fact it was just across the harbour. Mind you, many of the rooms were more like dormatories, but that didn't mean that I ended up having to share with people. They do have a breakfast room, but you should note that the showers are also shared amongst the occupants. However, it wasn't too bad.