HEALTH HAZARD
Mould growing all over floor in Room 1. As soon as you open the front door, you can smell mould (if you are discerning). But for us, the first place we go to, as soon as we check in is the bathroom. Upon opening the bathroom, a sea of green mould is staring at you from the floor. I took pictures and sent it to Alan & these pictures were also seen by Air BNB support. This isn’t tiny mould. This is a big bathroom floor approximately 12 feet x 12 feet of green mould all over the floor. I felt sick immediately and quickly brought it to Alan’s attention. He suggested getting in a cleaner but I told him, it wasn’t something a cleaner could attend to, it needed a professional grout cleaner to get rid of the mould, which had thickened and was bright moss green. It was disgusting.
Alan offered us another room, significantly smaller shower (3 feet by 3 feet) and the rest of the toilet/faucet space (excluding the shower, was 8 feet by 3 feet. We didn’t mind, considering it had no mould on the floor and was ventilated.
There are some good things about the unit. The heater/AC unit worked well, the tiles in the bathroom and walls in the bedroom and living room were nicely appointed and of good standard.
WiFi was always reducing in signal until it stopped. They have three WiFi options (Motel Marengo, Motel Outdoor 5G & Motel Outdoor 2G). When one drops off, you are advised to try the 5G one. But unfortunately, the connection doesn’t last before dropping off. For us, we didn’t want to continue to ring Alan to complain so as not to become a nuisance. So we just used our mobile data.
The last thing I want to say is for others coming with expectations based on what they saw in the photos. I advise toning down the excitement because from our experience, some things did not match the advertisement or photos.
For example, THE BEDS. We booked our room and it was advertised as SELF CONTAINED QUEEN STUDIO. For a start, the bed was not a QUEEN BED. A standard Australian bed is 80 inches long & 60 inches wide (please look up Australian Queen bed sizes if you are in doubt). What we got was a bed that was 60 inches long & 41 inches wide. It wasn’t even a standard Aussie Double bed, as the double bed dimension in Australia is 74 inches long & 54 inches wide. So it was something between a single and a double. Two big people would definitely struggle to sleep on it without being on each other. The good thing is, we were a happy couple and weren’t obese or big so it wasn’t an issue of fit for us. But the issue here is FALSE ADVERTISING. It is really important to ensure that your customers get what they’ve paid for or as closely as possible to it. As you’d expect, all customers make bookings based on information and photographs that the host provides and the best hosts get very happy customers. I travelled from Melbourne and would definitely be coming back to Apollo Bay in the searing heat of the summer. Would I consider coming back to this motel when that time comes around? The honest answer is a polite No. For the price we paid ($448), it was very disappointing.
At the end of the day, you want an overall level and feeling of comfort. The bed was uncomfortable and that’s not great. The hallmark of a great stay is when your bed is comfortable and you wake up feeling renewed. The sleep was the kind that gave that low key body ache after considering time on the mattress. We couldn’t keep complaining, we just gave up. In all honesty, this facility has really good potential, only if the owners can upgrade in the places that matter.