Commonwealth Hotel Newcastle

This is a review of the accommodation as we didn’t have a drink or eat there. Nice rooms, clean, good aircon and very comfortable bed. Shared bathrooms were clean, showers hot with great water pressure. Staff were great and really helpful. The location is good too. My only suggestion is to add hand towels or dryers in the bathroom.

For what the price is the room is fair. Next time I would book a room with an ensuite as I was travelling with a child. The shared bathroom was clean and only small so not too many people in while in use. The rooms were clean with a TV, AC and fan, and a tiny bar fridge. It would help to have a larger fridge. The pillows are not great, so I recommend taking your own pillows. And the blind, however, did break, the staff did not have enough time to fix it while we were there. The sound from below is faint when in rooms as the pub is old and solid walls minimise external noise. Mia from front bar was wonderful with helping me carry my suitcase upstairs, as I did not know that the rooms were upstairs, and if you have a bad back, keep this in mind as there’s two sets of stairs to carry your luggage up to your rooms. The staff were generally pretty friendly and welcoming. I didn’t get a chance to try out their food which is a shame as I’ve heard good things about the food from the kitchen.

Good price and location. Poker machines can be heard from the room. The free games etc and the patrons cheering when they win them etc. Good times being heard is generally nice but not when this keeps you up to all hours. Better insulation might assist with the noise. You can hear the other doors slam during the night and they slam hard with no absorbers. This can wake you every hour or so. The property has lost some condition since the ownership change and is starting to look tired. Very clean and staff are friendly. Brilliant location.

We cannot speak to the food, but as for the hotel rooms: we had a night full of noise (mostly from the people and slot machines downstairs until 4am) but also because of the old windows. The bed wasn’t to a hotel standard. The funny thing is they must have renovated the bathrooms but didn’t even buy a new bed? We definitely would not stay here again, but as mentioned before we cannot speak for the food…

Having stayed there before, the staff were their usual excellent self, except I would presume the bar manager, who seemed to have a permanent scowl, food as always was excellent, but room was average and a bit tatty, we had no kettle, had to walk to maccas to get a coffee, shower room was a bit grubby and only one toilet with no hand towels etc.. im not sure I would recommend staying there , and because no one there til 10am when I left keys, couldn't let my concerns be known, as a former publican , could do better