ibis Styles Port Macquarie

The staff were great, and we had an ocean view. When I raised the noise, they generously gave us a complimentary breakfast. Still, the breakfast area was right at the top of the stairs, just outside our room, and at 7 each morning we woke to clattering cutlery and crockery. With no doors there, we could hear everyone's breakfast conversation, so sleeping in wasn't possible. A set of doors, or at least a sign asking people to keep the noise down, would help. Road noise is also something to consider, as the hotel is on a fairly busy corner. We stayed seven nights in a twin room, which was an upgrade and useful for keeping our luggage in the second bedroom. The location is terrific, within walking distance of town and the beaches, but calling this a “boutique hotel” feels like a stretch. The rooms are dated, and I'm not sure when the photos were taken, but I'd guess not recently. Some cupboard hinges are there but the doors are missing, so we had to look under the sink. The water pressure was horrible, the old wait-to-get-wet routine. There's no lift, which makes luggage difficult, and because our room was near the stairs there was constant traffic carrying bags up and down. The WiFi was terrible, so we ended up using a phone hotspot. These are all first-world problems, I know, but for the price of a “boutique hotel,” I expected better.