We stayed here over Easter for 4 nights. Booked their standard room through wotif and got a reasonable rate (compared to their normal rates anyway).

The location of Crowne Plaza is its best asset. In the middle of Canberra City, it's a short walk to the Canberra Centre shopping centre which is huge and has all the shops you could want, plus some very good restaurants. It also backs on to a lovely park. In a place like Canberra where a car is essential for getting around to most places, it's nice to be able to walk to see some sights as well.

Check in was smooth, however we were assigned a room that overlooked the entrance to Casino Canberra, which is part of the hotel complex. That should have been a warning sign to ask for a room change (that and a touring rugby union side seemed to have taken over the whole section where we were staying), but we tried it for one night.

The room itself is pleasant without being anything special by 4 1/2 star standards. It's quite small for a start, not a lot of room to put 2 suitcases on the floor. It's obviously set up for the business traveller in mind, as there's a desk/work area directly behind the bed as you walk in, the bed, then a small table/chair, then the window.

The king size bed is very nice and comfortable, there's a flat screen tv with a few foxtel channels (fox sports 1,2,3, sky news, travel and living, fox 8 and nickelodeon from memory). I don't understand why though hotels bring in these nice new flat screen tv's but still don't have digitial tv on them? When the analogue service is eventually switched off they'll have to upgrade them all again. The bathroom was nothing special, though the shower pressure was very good. I really don't like showers in bath tubs though.

Ok the first sign the room was going to be a problem was the paper thin walls. We had some rugby guys in the next room to us, and while they probably weren't talking softly, they weren't shouting, and we could clearly here everything they were saying. You could also here when the neighbours took a shower, the water noise coming from the pipes was way too loud. The rugby guys weren't the problem at night though, the problem was the drunken idiots coming and going from the casino all night. All their shouting could be heard quite clearly, and obviously this disrupted our sleep.

The next morning I went down to the front desk and asked for a room change to one that overlooked the park. The front desk people were very nice and accomodating and got us another room straight away. This room was exactly the same as the previous, but had a lovely view of the park, much much nicer than staring at the entrance to the casino.

This was then all good, however the paper thin walls came back to haunt us, as we had very loud drunken idiots next to us who would not be quiet, banging away, swearing their heads off past 1am, it was very frustrating. I called the front desk who to their credit came straight away and told them to be quiet. This worked for a little while, before the noise began again. Another call to the front desk worked, as security came to their door and we didn't hear another word out of them that night.

Our other 2 nights were more uneventful, but the thin walls just ruined it for us.

The third day of our stay housekeeping didn't service our room. I suspect what happened was when we moved rooms the front desk forgot to change our room details, so no one knew we were staying in that room. Late in the day after we moved rooms we had a knock on the door from a staff member who seemed surprised there was someone in the room, but they didn't say anything or question why we in there. I have a feeling they assigned someone else the room while we were out, they opened up our door and noticed our things and went back to the front desk to complain. I had to ring housekeeping to complain and while they didn't admit it it sounded like they messed up our room change.

We tried the seafood buffet on the Saturday night at redsalt. For the price it really wasn't worth it, the food was ok, but there wasn't a huge amount of seafood on offer, and for us wasn't value for money. We've been spoiled by the amazing buffets in Las Vegas, and this pales in comparison.

Parking was luckily not a problem, but could have been. On Friday and Saturday we came back from having been out for the day, and managed to grab one of the last few remaining car spots. Paying $15 a day to park you would expect a larger car park. The car park is very tight and difficult for large cars to park in. Given the lack of car spaces compared to guests and the fact everyone drives in Canberra the car park should be for hotel patrons only, not the general public who go to the restaurant or casino.

It's unlikely we'll be back to Canberra anytime soon (nice place but once a decade is more than enough!), but when we return it won't be at the Crowne Plaza, which is a shame as its location is the best. With all the problems we had we couldn't recommend this to anyone. For the price we paid we expected a lot more.

We chose this hotel for our weekend stay as it is an easy walk to theatres, restaurants and the main shopping area.

We booked using our Priority Club membership and were upgraded from a deluxe room to a suite on arrival. The suite has a very large separate living room with dining furniture for 4, as well as couch and 2 arm chairs and a large flat screen TV. The bedroom is very similar to a standard bedroom, with a well separated and very functional desk area. There is also a balcony with table and chairs and a view over the park.

There is free internet access - both wireless and a network connection were available.

The service both at reception, and when we requested items to be brought to the room, was helpful and efficient. Our only criticism would be the bathroom, which is a bit dated.

We stayed at this hotel over the weekend. It was OK for a 4* hotel. The room was spacious - overlooking the end of the Glebe Park and some building construction.

I read in the hotel website that it was recently refurbished, but the bathroom looked a bit dated - mould around the tiles. The beds were OK - but we have slept in more comfortable ones before. The breakfast was standard and the fruit looked a bit old and not fresh.

The car park was a bit of a challenge for a long car, but we managed to get in and out alright. We may stay here again due to its convenient location, right in the centre of the city - other than that not much to crow about.

Crowne Plaza Canberra turned out to be slightly better than I expected, although I do have a fairly high expectation of Crowne Plaza in general.

The room was very clean and modern, with a nice segregation between the desk area and the bed area. The hotel thoughtfully provided a mouse mat for the glass desk (without a mouse mat, a laser mouse would not have worked) and power points were neatly arranged at the side. The desk was quite large and the chair was quite comfortable.

The room had a very large window, adding to the feeling of space (although the main thing I could see were the leaves from a tree). The room had a good quality feel to it, with comfortable bed and pleasant bathroom.

Location-wise, it is close to Canberra Centre (a large shopping centre) and many government offices, so it is more convenient for many places than more upmarket Hyatt Canberra. The staff were friendly and helpful.

It represented a good value for money (I paid around $180 for one night), especially as Canberra hotel rooms can be quite expensive.