Esplanade Hotel Fremantle by Rydges

Stayed for a week and found the hotel room a disgrace. Holes in walls, mould throughout the bathroom. Noise from foyer and bar until 12am on at least 3 nights. Ordered a hot chocolate from bar which made my wife sick as they gave her dairy when the order was for soy milk. Spoke to reception, who did not care and were more worried about receiving payment on last day and not wanting to listen to concerns. Also asked pre-booking twice that parking for hotel guests was free, but found out upon arrival that it was going to cost $30 a night, if we knew this, we would not have booked the car for the whole trip.

Woeful. We felt ripped off at checkin. We booked a Bed & Breakfast package (month before online) and they said that breakfast was extra. Argued, showed them a screen shot at which I was told was not proof! Logged into my Rydges acc and all the details of the booking were gone! Edit: details of stay are still missing nearly 2 weeks after the stay. Then, at checkout, they charged us for 3 bottles of spring water when we only used 1. We felt ripped of again! Our friends had the same experience plus their lift kept getting stuck. They informed the front desk about it to which they were told it’s just a display error ! many othere we seen informing about the elevator and were told the same thing. None of it made sense and we were made to feel as though we were being problematic. The gall....... Rooms are very tired, needs renovating to get it out of the 90's and be relevant. Will never stay there again. The only positive was breakfast buffett was excellent, thankfully, because we'd paid twice for it!

Go elsewhere – Based on a stay December 26th-28th, cut short due to the following. May I offer you two words… GO ELSEWHERE. Stay anywhere but here. If spending $400+ per night looking for amenities like a restaurant, a clean pool, clean room, or even a clean toilet or bath- GO ELSEWHERE. Don’t be fooled by the reviews, ownership has changed and standards are woeful. Quality, service, care, professionalism and even cleanliness gone. Evidently we were not the only ones regretting our stay. Freo’s biggest hotel has lost the plot. Multiple guests overheard complaining about rooms, food, service- mostly lack thereof, staff attitude and overall cleanliness.

Each morning the breakfast staff laid on a lovely buffet but ruined the ambience with a “why am I here?” attitude, most were untrained. I reserve a special mention to the gatekeeper of the buffet breakfast, who must have lost her job at the Gates of Hell- for simply being too rude. She was aggressive to one and all, berating families, children, the elderly- anyone who dared venture towards the highlight of the hotel, the buffet breakfast. She did her best to treat everyone with disdain, dishing out venom and bile equally. An awful way to start your day.

Oh and a heads up for those who like a good coffee. You even have to pay for an actual coffee, so get ready to be gouged, abused and or ignored at every turn.

For those wanting to know why this review is so poor. The toilet had evidence of its last user, as did the bath. Even the toilet roll had dirty fingerprints on it. Under the beds was a collection of items left by previous occupants and more dust that maybe a months worth of neglect could muster. One bed was broken and propped up on two bits of wood. In fairness the linens were fresh- I think the maids did an outstanding job given the overall unkempt feel of the hotel. From peeling render on the balcony, broken door catches, balcony floors that turned clean feet black it wasn’t good.

To serve your sentence here, you had to venture down grim looking poorly lit corridors, reminiscent of a movie prison scene, dodging piles of dirty plates, takeout and general rubbish. It’s appalling gut a hotel. This place also lacks parking or a valet, but offers oodles of the ambience of a morgue. Not surprisingly one stairwell smelt like urine. For those not keen on smokers ruining their fresh air and lungs there were smokers on the balconies too.

My least favourite part could have been that half the menu was unavailable one night or the following night with my 77 and 80 year old parents awaiting a drink, being refused coffee service at the bar at 8.35pm on a Friday night. The barman was disgraceful, obviously he didn’t want to be there and could not care less. The barista explained they’d “lucky not closed down entirely” but still our party of 9 were point blank refused service by bar staff 1.5 hours before last orders.

When the bar manager appeared she could only apologise, helping the matter in other ways, but still no coffees? Even bar management could not get the staff to do their job.

The Rydges Freo is a supposedly 4.5 star rated hotel but does not actually have a proper restaurant, room service is almost non existent, limited offerings and operating hours. The food options were limited, halved again due to technical issues in the kitchen. It was ridiculous.

For clarity the “restaurant” did without such modern ideas as proper tables with actual dining chairs for guests, instead you are forced, if you wish to eat in, to do it in the bar and lean in over your coffee table. That was their best option- even the front desk duty manager ran out of apologies.

What about a pool so cold, no adults were in it for three days and when I investigated and dived beneath the surface, I got out immediately. Remember all those dirty rooms and floors- guess where those feet got washed. Never saw pool maintenance and the infamous breeze colloquially known as the Freo doctor did the dusting and rubbish collection.

For anyone even thinking about a stay in the beautiful historic Fremantle- avoid the Rydges Esplanade Fremantle- a truly awful hotel.

Elder Abuse from Rydges Hotel Staff in Western Australia – In March 2023, my parents, my partner and I stayed for the first time at The Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, and our experience was delightful, so I attempted to book the same rooms for two nights, one week apart on a recent trip (October and November 2024) my parents and I made to visit my sister, who lives in WA. Unfortunately this time we were unable to book the same rooms. We made multiple efforts to change the rooms for the ones we wanted but we found the staff unhelpful, disingenuous and ultimately abusive. The front of house staff are filmed by hotel management, and ultimately we got rooms that sort of met what we were wanting, but the hoops that I and my elderly parents were made to jump through, while they might individually be explained away as accidental, unfortunate or unintended, given the huge number of misdirection, mistakes and outright lies we experienced, the only sensible conclusion to draw was that, for some reason, we were being subtly bullied.

Our requests were relatively simply: my parents needed twin beds, and being aged nearly 90, a walk-in shower and I had a preference for a twin bed due to back pain. We paid for superior rooms with "park views" and on both occasions my parents did not stay in a superior room, however a refund for the cost difference between a standard room and a superior room was refused. I was also seeking that our rooms were situated close together and this was not facilitated on both nights. In fact it might have been difficult for the hotel to provide rooms further apart than the ones we were allocated.

During the room resolution process, we were provided with inaccurate or untruthful information about the following : - the rooms you wished to book are not available to book online (they are) - the rooms you wish to book are not available to book but you may make an "application" for the rooms to be allocated to you (sounds unlikely) - you cannot book specific rooms as room allocations are made on the day (why?) - Elevators can be used without room key cards (they cannot) - that the hotel has no rooms with both twin beds and a walk in shower (not true) - that changing rooms was impossible as the entire hotel was booked out that night (not true) - that the rooms we had been allocated were close to each other "practically opposite" (initially they were 70 to 80 metres apart, and ultimately the rooms we had were even further apart and on different levels) - that due to the lack of twin bed rooms with walk in showers my father would have to sleep on a "roll-away" bed (he didn't).

Whilst I was returning our hire car, my 88 year old father (who is frail and uses a walking stick), in attempting to obtain a room which did not have a shower located over a bath and to book breakfast, was made by staff to: - relinquish his room key card which meant he could not use the elevators, and was unable to return to my mother who was waiting for him in their original room - asked to go away and come back later as staff were "busy" - provided with a room which had a shower which flooded the floor of the bathroom and was not advised that slip resistant mats or additional towels could be requested from housekeeping. As a result of the shower flooding the bathroom floor on each night they stayed in room 167, one of my parents was unable to shower due to fear of slipping and potentially experiencing a life-threatening injury.

During our registration process it seemed that my credit card was incorrectly recorded (although this was rectified without me providing my details again ...) and so I could not hire a movie or initially order room service. However the room service staff were very helpful and resolved the room service issue without further action from me.

At one point when my patience became severely frayed by the insolent and abusive demands the reception staff had made of my elderly father and sought to identify the staff member who had behaved in this way. When she attempted to justify her behaviour to me, I made a rude hand hand gesture (admittedly not a good response) and walked away. I then received a visit at the door of my room from a tall man after 10pm who may have been the night manager. He repeatedly advised me he could have me thrown out of the hotel and rebuked me at length about my behaviour and when I attempted to explain WHY I was so frustrated with his staff, he demanded that I provide email evidence of the unhelpful and disingenuous behaviour we had experienced. Apparently if I do not have written evidence of their behaviour, it didn't occur. I invited him to either throw me out of the hotel or to leave and when I attempted to end this unproductive discussion by closing the door on two occasions he prevented me from doing so by pressing the weight of his body against my door.

On the morning of our departure, two days ago, I provided a written account, similar to this, of our experiences marked attention to the General Manager of The Esplanade Hotel. On the services card provided in each room, there is a printed message from this manager assuring guests that she is committed to ensuring their stay is comfortable and welcoming feedback. Yesterday at 9.16pm she contacted me by telephone to discuss my complaint. I let her know that as I had made my complaint in writing that I wished to receive a response in writing, but I have yet to receive a response from her or anyone else from the hotel.

The Esplanade Hotel is situated in a very pretty part of Fremantle and has a lovely old Victorian facade with extensive balconies. In my traipsing up and down the corridors of the hotel between my room and that of my parents, I encountered guests of the hotels who were both delighted by their stay and similarly disgruntled by poor service. I did not solicit these opinions, they were, in both occasions, freely and volubly offered. So if you decide to stay there you might have a delightful stay as we did on our earlier trip, or equally you might have a nightmarish experience as I and at least one other guest did on that night.

As my sister lives in WA, I will continue to transit through Perth airport but I will never leave the airport to visit Perth or Fremantle ever again, and obviously, I will NEVER stay in a Rydges Hotel in future.