For once in a while, it would be nice to experience a glam hotel. Gladly, we do not need to leave Sydney to find world-class accommodation where you can get luxury for an evening or two. To help you in your search for a temporary high life, I compiled luxury spa hotels overlooking the boutique offerings and the city that provide vicinity to the extravagant night on the town.
The Langham Sydney
The Langham is the place to be for the old-world opulence. Friday afternoons are reserved for tea, petit fours, and scones. The Langham has the class and glamour of an international institution with the charm and ruffled curtains of a boutique hotel. This place will definitely have you feeling like a royal with panelled walls, plush shuts, and velvet and sumptuous furnishings.
Be sure to stop in for a splash in the Roman bathhouse style indoor pool on the downstairs.Click to book here.
Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour
Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour is the first luxury hotel in Sydney. You can splash out to one of the corner rooms of this five-star beauty and enjoy the view of Darling Harbour. The bedroom has a long wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, but the bathroom has one of the city’s best sights with thin glass on two sides. Enjoy a long soak while watching the city buzz by at its regular frantic pace.
You can also spend some time in the infinity pool, which is just about over the Darling Harbour. Click to book here.
The InterContinental Sydney Double Bay
This luxury hotel has 140 contemporary rooms and suites, several restaurants, a rooftop pool with cabanas, bars, and retail spaces. This area hosted the previous iterations of US presidents, AU Prime Ministers, Princess Diana, and Michael Hutchence. After a huge renovation, the InterContinental Sydney Double Bay is at its brilliant best.
For a time-out tip, walk along the New South Head Road to the Murray Rose Pool that is ripe for a dip any time of year.
Shangri-La Hotel Sydney
Extensively renovated in 2015, the Shangri-La Hotel Sydney has a fresh palette of gold and silver and specially commissioned artworks and carpets. Made of three brass rings hanging in the atrium of Horizon Club, the impressive chandelier fulfils the architect’s original vision of the building as a lighthouse. The rooms also evoke classic luxury with marble bathrooms and the harbor front hotels’ most enormous city windows.
For the place’s activity, take a stroll through the beautiful waterfront Barangaroo Reserve located on the hotel’s west side.
The Darling
When the menus extend to the bedding, you know you are in a swanky hotel. With 400-thread Egyptian cotton sheets and a hand-picked pillow menu, you are sure to get a good night’s sleep and find a neck height that is right for you.
Even if its name sounds posh, they ensure that it is reflected in every inch beyond the bed – from the textured wallpaper and tailored furniture to the eucalyptus-scented pool.
There is a Japanese restaurant, just downstairs from The Darling, where chef Chase Kojima serves some of the best sushi and sashimi.
Park Hyatt
The close-up vista and jaw-dropping Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are the significant selling point, but you get what you pay for – the cheaper rooms provide glimpses of the more expensive suites framed through their windows. The current refurbishment has transformed the high-end suites into uber-minimalist apartment-style hangouts. Other extras include a deluxe spa, a rooftop swimming pool, and much-vaunted 24-hour butler service.
The Park Hyatt’s Bar makes some of the best cocktails and best club sandwiches.
Pier One Sydney Harbour
The Harbour View Suite has waterfront vistas, gleaming white furnishing, and luxe toiletries courtesy of Appellees Apothecary & Bar. This hotel can maintain the heritage-listed building’s original timberwork intact.
If you want to experience the BridgeClimb, then it is time to do it. Locals leave just as astonished as tourists after they enjoy views from its summit. Climbs run regularly.
West Hotel
Sydney’s CBD is not like Melbourne’s. In the latter, laneways are teeming with small bars and boutique hotels for a double whimsy dose when you are staying in the city. In Sydney, you will be surprised at how they managed to create an intimate feel at the new West Hotel Sydney, a boutique accommodation project from Hilton down among Barangaroo’s new towers.
Ovolo Woolloomooloo
There are plenty of rooms with harbor views and a cute little pool here for the lap-swimming inclined. Enquire and book into Insta-worthy Rockstar Suites, which have marble bars, hammock nooks and round, eccentric neon lighting, and harbour views.
The Ovolo is right next to one of Sydney’s loveliest walks. Explore around the finger pier to Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, then go through the Royal Botanic Garden to the Opera House.
Taronga Zoo Wildlife Retreat
With its purpose-built 62-room retreat, Taronga has taken bold strides into the luxury accommodation market. This complex timber-clad, sleek lodges surrounding the private bushland garden full of native fauna, is a fusion of elegant sophistication and sustainable design. High-life and wildlife exist side by side.
