The Sebel Canberra Civic

Stay away from this hotel. Do not use! We left an item behind in the room and have since had great difficulty communicating with this hotel to get it back. We have been fooled around with for multiple days. "We are looking for it. Waiting to hear from this people, that people. We are doing you a favour by looking for your item, the hotel takes no responsibility etc etc. We will get back to you", and other similar lies. On the night of our stay we found that the intercom in the room did not work. We could not find anybody to ask for a spare pillow, this was at 9.30 pm. The beds had cheap spring mattresses. Not one of the six guests in our party reported a good night's sleep. The staff working here just cannot be bothered. It has been a while since I have experienced such abysmal service from a reputable hotel. Stay away, stay away. It looks gloss and glam from the outside but it really is not.

Great service, clean apartment and good amenities. Parking was SUCH a drama. There is no easy place to stop your car to unload luggage. We parked around the back in a 2hr limit parking spot and just had to keep paying every 2hrs until the meter stopped at 530pm(I think). Starts back up at 830am so make sure you pay for parking again! Great location, 3min walk to Canberra civic shopping centre and a park for kids.

The treatment we received on our stay was amazing. The rooms were clean and spacious, the food was incredible! The parking was limited but we received a lot of advice from the wonderful man at the front desk. 5/5 can't wait for our next stay.

Location itself is good but before booking when I called to ask about parking, I was told its available "just across the road" . In reality it's at the Canberra Centre which is kind of across the road but in reality if you want to pay only $14 a night, you need the rooftop parking there. Its a huge inconvenience to get to the rooftop by foot , then get your car out (easily 20 minutes spent) and in fact on the first day got lost finding my car because there are three different rooftops at the centre ! Also, reception hardly ever answer the phone as they're overworked. On my 1st night, after ringing multiple times, someone finally answered "'...'CEPTION!!!" rather than any pleasant greeting. It is most DEFINITELY not a 5 star establishment but rather bog standard 3 stars with no parking.

The room was too small for our family. The images online made it look a lot bigger than it actually was. The room was a hotel room with the smallest kitchenette, no dishwasher, no washing machine/dryer, no rubbish disposal and no parking. We were directed to park across the street out in the open for $18 per day or in the actual canberra centre shopping car park for $30 per night. The positive point was that the receptionist upgraded us to a larger room after i asked about it.