Nautilos on The Harbour in Newcastle

Messaged leading up asking about parking and had no reply, Ended up having to ring the booking agent to get an answer and to pay for parking. Had to ring on the day to get check in details even though we checked in much later then when they were supposed to be sent. Also had to ask where the car parking was as there was no signs. Poor communication regarding check in and parking.

Apartment was on the main street, tram line. Which wasn't the street address listed of the apartment.

Cleaners entered the apartment before the 10am check out.

My daughter accidentally left her pillow at the property. We realised before we had left Newcastle and rang the agent to arrange to pick it up before we left Newcastle. The agent said they had contacted whoever cleaned the apartment and no pillow was left behind. They also said they had contacted the head of housekeeping to confirm and it definitely had not been there, however if it turned up they would ring me and arrange to post to us. We delayed our trip home until late afternoon hoping it would turn up but when we rang back they said it was definitely not left in the apartment. We started our trip home and halfway home we had a phone call by a different person saying they had a pillow that was left behind and could we pick it up, I explained that we were already 2 hours away from Newcastle and explained the situation. They advised we would have to send them a prepaid postage package if we wanted the pillow returned.

The apartments operates in a manner where check-in information is sent via SMS. However, we waited and waited for the SMS after the check-in time (2pm), but no texts were sent. Called several times just for the staff to tell us that the room was not ready and was undergoing cleaning. We waited until 4pm just for the staff to tell us again that the rooms were still being cleaned and that it might take another hour or so. Due to this inconvenience, a staff member gave us options to either receive $100 refund and a late check-out for the inconvenience and late check-in OR cancel the reservation and book elsewhere. We were all exhausted and many hotels were already booked out by that time of day so we decided to wait another hour and accepted their offer of the refund.

5pm, three hours past the supposedly check-in time, we finally checked in into the apartments. Upon arriving, the apartment door was opened with cleaning supplies by the door. There was a young girl playing on her phone as we walked in and told us that she needed to mop the floors. We waited outside on the balcony around thirty minutes before finally being able to use the apartment. There were cobwebs lingering around the top corners of the ceiling, the furniture were worn-out and everywhere was dusty, the blinds were missing a few parts, and the bed quilts had a foul smell.

It was not a pleasant stay, we woke up the next morning and left as quickly as we could.

We waited for the refund but it never came. Called up to ask and was disregarded very quickly that they 'don't do refunds like that'.
There were no big expectations for the stay, just needed it to be clean and comfortable.
Nautilos on the Harbour could not provide either.

Beware - poorly managed apartments. Giving credit where credit is due - the rooms were great. Well appointed and the layout is fantastic; however, it would be remiss of me not to note issues that were encountered during my stay.

I received a not so nice call from a woman named Sarah telling me that check out is strictly 10am and I must depart immediately from the property as another guest has paid for early entry at 12pm. This was after I called in advance and spoke to someone named Tony to let management know that my Airbnb booking said checkout 11am. Tony said this was fine. The cleaners showed up at 10am as they clearly had not been notified. Another man told me ‘yeah that’s unfortunate but we have someone coming at 12 so sorry to rush you...but we need the room’. Absolutely appalling to make a management issue a customer issue. I have a screenshot of the booking as proof which I sent to management and no one has acknowledged the mistake.

Lastly, the fact that we only had access to the building with 1 pass when the room sleeps 6 was very inconvenient. For a 3 bedroom place, 2 passes should’ve been made available. It greatly impacted our stay as we all had to stay together - a terrible inconvenience and honestly, it would be easy to improve the customer experience by investing in more passes.

A great spot which could offer a far superior experience with a few tweaks to the way things are managed.