This weekend in Sydney was the first time we have used AirBnB for booking our accommodation. Mostly this was down to the fact I wanted a kitchen, to enable us to actually cook some meals ourselves – trying to find coeliac-friendly food in an unfamiliar city can be a bit of a nightmare, so knowing we had somewhere central and easy to get to, where we could prep food for ourselves was one less stress.
Because we took a while to get around to booking, we missed out on a couple of cheaper options that we had liked the look of. But what we got instead, slightly above our usual upper limit for accommodation bookings, was a stunning 1-bed apartment with the most incredible views.
THE GOOD
Our hosts were lovely, including allowing us to check out super late (as late as 5pm if we wanted). The apartment was sparingly furnished but lacked for nothing we needed for the weekend. There were plenty of power points. The accommodation was between two major train stations, and within 5 minutes walk of a range of useful bus stops. There was a supermarket literally the other end of the next block, which was fantastic. The kitchen was compact, but had everything, including a full-sized oven.
THE AVERAGE
There was nothing bad about this apartment. Arriving home from Vivid at 10pm on Saturday to a neighbour blaring music so loud it was clear in the hallway is a risk in any block, but incredibly, the apartment door was so good we couldn’t notice it over the road noise once inside. The black out blinds did a wonderful job of stopping the street lighting getting in, but the one morning we weren’t awake before the sun, the sun woke us by sneaking in the corners (I suspect this is a seasonal thing, where there would only be a handful of days the angle is right).
THE EXCELLENT
The view. Honestly, I could have sat and watched the view for days. We had an unhindered view of the north half of Hyde Park, and could see all the way out to North Fort at Manly Heads. Who needs the Opera House / Harbour Bridge combo when you’ve got that? The walkability to get everywhere was lovely. The compact size meant the apartment was easy to keep warm (although a couple of the mornings we would have loved a blanket / dressing gown for chilling out watching the view without getting in to street clothes while the heater warmed up).
Explorastory 