Last weekend I headed down to Sydney with my mum and three best friends from University to go wedding dress shopping! Our wedding is six months away and whilst I was incredibly nervous about the dress shopping experience I was really excited to have a girls weekend in the city! I’d done a great deal of research and found a lot of beautiful dresses at Luv Bridal in Parramatta that I absolutely adored! I booked us into the luxurious Meriton Church Street Serviced Apartments in Parramatta for the weekend and it was the most amazing weekend where I am happy to say that I ‘said yes to my dress’ and then celebrated with a very indulgent weekend at the Meriton in our very luxurious River View suite!
Sorry the quality of the photos isn’t up to our usual standard, they are all taken on my iPhone, not our camera as I hadn’t planned to blog about this weekend but as the hotel and entire weekend were so perfect I couldn’t help myself but share it with you all!
Dan and I often choose to stay in serviced apartments when we travel, with some of our favourites being the very exclusive Beaufort House in Knightsbridge, the Q1 Resort & Spa on the Gold Coast, Montmartre Residence in Paris and Go Native Serviced Apartments in London. This was my first stay in a Meriton hotel and am happy to say that I would happily book with them in any of their destinations on future trips. I like the fact that they promise better quality and guarantee value and their motto is that you shouldn’t have to compromise on your standard of living when you travel. Their serviced hotels offer spacious, serviced suites with more facilities than many hotels and very quickly feel like your home away from home. Meriton has some of the highest accommodation in both Sydney and Brisbane and promise the stay of a lifetime with unparalleled panoramic views, a luxurious Penthouse Collection and an array of five-star facilities including heated indoor lap pools, fully equipped gyms, saunas and spas (which is basically everything you could want and more)!
After an incredibly successful dress shopping experience we headed straight to the hotel! The hotel offers secured parking right next door and they kindly sent us very specific directions to find the car park as it was down a small lane that I’m sure we wouldn’t have managed to find on our own. The communication with the hotel was fantastic from the minute we booked until the day we arrived with friendly updates and helpful information such as the parking. Our booking was also able to be amended or cancelled until 24 hours before which is almost unheard of these days and is very much appreciated as sometimes things happen and you do need to cancel! The car park cost us $18 per car and we were there for just under 24 hours.
On first impressions we were all very impressed! After a quick and friendly check in we jumped in the lift and headed up to our suite which was located on the 20th floor of the hotel! I had booked a luxury Three Bedroom Riverview Suite for us which sleeps up to 6 and is very spacious with a floor space of 116m2! There were plenty of squeals when we let ourselves into our suite with girls dropping bags and rushing to choose rooms and pull back curtains to check out the incredible views! We continued to be more and more impressed as we realised just how stunning our apartment was and how amazing the views were, offering sweeping views down the Parramatta River and across the city, all the way to the silhouette of the CBD in the distance!
Our apartment had two double bedrooms and one master bedroom, all with wonderful king beds (my favourite in hotels)! Each room can either be made into king beds or 2 king singles depending on the configuration of your group. There were TVs in each room as well, along with built in wardrobes and stunning floor to ceiling windows with black out drapes to ensure the perfect night sleep! We all slept incredibly well in our lovely soft beds that were made up with the high quality linens.
The master bedroom had a private, very spacious en suite bathroom with an enormous bathtub and shower! The apartment also had a second bathroom which contained a shower and each bathroom had plush towels, indulgent complimentary toiletries and hair dryers.
We loved the stylish decor of the living, dining and kitchen areas which were luxurious but also wonderfully comfortable and had us feeling right at home within minutes of arriving! We particularly loved the open plan living areas and fell in love with the water colour artworks of the city which were dotted around the apartment. The living area had a lounge and dining table which each seated 6 people and was perfect for us to celebrate a successful wedding dress shopping trip with plenty of wine and cheese! The living area also had a TV and DVD player, along with telephone and complimentary WiFi and cabled internet. Again, we’ve stayed in a lot of luxury hotels and apartments around the world and find that it is rare to have complimentary internet in Australian hotels and so were very impressed by this. There was also a lovely balcony off the living are and temperature controls in each room allowing us to maintain the perfect temperature during our stay!
When we travel, we really enjoy staying in apartments mostly because we love having access to a kitchen as eating out every day can become tiring and also quite expensive! Our suite had a fully equipped kitchen with stove, microwave, fridge, freezer and dishwasher along with cooking equipment, glasses, cutlery and plates. We also all really appreciated the complimentary tea and coffee machine with pods that was provided! Whilst we dined out that evening, we enjoyed breakfast in our apartment the next morning and it was the perfect way to end a lovely weekend with my mum and best friends!
Oh and there was also a laundry with a washing machine, dryer, iron and ironing board which would be perfect if you were staying there for more than a few nights. Even the laundry had spectacular views!
If you are a regular reader of our blog you will know that when Dan and I travel we always try and choose hotels that have great wellness facilities, particularly pools and saunas! Dan was really jealous when I told him that the hotel would have an indoor heated pool, spa and sauna! The hotel also had what looked to be a very well equipped and clean gym, despite the gym being open 24 hours a day we still didn’t manage to find time for that (oops)! After a big day of travel and wedding dress shopping we all quickly changed and headed down to the wellness area. We spent a good hour or two sweating it out in the sauna, soaking in the pool and spa and enjoying the facilities. The Meriton also has an outdoor pool (which we could see from our 20th floor apartment) but it was closed during our stay.
The hotel is located on bustling Church Street in Parramatta, which gave us countless dining options literally at our doorstep! It was nice to park our cars and be able to walk everywhere and not have to worry about driving in the city and parking. As I mentioned earlier, we absolutely loved our views of the city and the beautiful river just below us. It was my first stay in Parramatta and it is actually quite a nice part of the city, one I would happily return to!
The staff at the hotel were impeccably presented and wonderfully helpful and friendly throughout our stay and went above and beyond to ensure our stay was perfect. We felt very comfortable and safe during our stay at the Meriton with 24 hour assistance, electronic swipe card access to our apartment, 4 lifts which ensured we never waited more than a few seconds for our lift and 24 hour reception and security staff on site. From our experience we’ve found that only the very best serviced apartments provide daily housekeeping to suites and I’m pleased to say that this is a service that Meriton provide. Their daily refresh includes all beds made, a light service and the replacement of used towels, in addition to the bi-weekly full housekeeping service. This really shows their commitment to their guests to ensure they all experience a true luxury serviced apartment stay.
Our apartment was gorgeous and between the girls, my mum and myself we all couldn’t stop gushing about what a lovely place to stay it was. There was actual discussions about how it is much nicer than all of our houses and how we’d all happily move in! The apartment was luxurious, stylish and spacious ensuring we all comfortably had our own space and almost instantly felt at home. We also booked our stay direct with the hotel for $490 per night which was incredibly reasonable for such a luxurious apartment (with incredible views) and a great location! We’d all happily stay there again and next time Dan and I visit Sydney we plan on booking into one of the Meriton hotels in the CBD, so stay tuned because we’ll be sure to tell you all about it! Our stay at the Meriton Church Street Apartments really helped to make my wedding dress shopping weekend absolutely perfect and I’m sure when we go down for my final fitting and to pick up my dress that we will stay there again.
