A step up from the Palace Central (also a step up in price) the Palace Embassy is located on a busy street, two doors up from the Hilton. It is a two-minute walk to both a Coles and a Woolworth’s and is one hundred metres from the main shopping area of Queens Street.
The Embassy offers a large dorm (eight to nine beds), small dorms (five to seven beds), four share, doubles, and doubles with en-suite. It has normal hostel shared facilities (laundry, TV room, fitted kitchen), but it does also benefit from a small TV/DVD theatre and sun decks, which have city views and a BBQ (quite handy on hot days). You also have access to the “Job Club,” tour desk and “Down Under Bar and Grill” located at the Central (which is two blocks away)
Although we didn’t find many problems with this hostel, its electronic key card system made it seem very much like a hotel. It lacks atmosphere, character, and pretty much a personality. Although the key card system is a good idea for security, it does make check in and out times pretty definite, as you cannot go anywhere without it (toilets, laundry, bedrooms, kitchen all included). Therefore you cannot check out and then make any meals if you are leaving later in the day. The staff is generally very unaccommodating. The transit pick up is also not guaranteed -- we arrived at 10 a.m. only to be told the next pick up was 12:30. Others we met waited up to an hour.
The hostel is very nice (clean with a good location) but this is a hotel layout and atmosphere with a backpacker kitchen, dorms, and staff. The mix is not really right.
— Exklusive Hostelz.com Übersicht
August 2006
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