Accommodation Review – Apollo Bay Seal Apartments, Apollo Bay

Howdy all and happy Sunday wherever you are as you read this latest post o’ mine! Well, I guess you will be reading and seeing more about my very recent trip to Apollo Bay on Victoria’s south-west coast over the next few weeks. It’s along the famous ‘Great Ocean Road’ and is a wonderful seaside spot with access to loads of stuff in the Otways, a little mountain range there. A little over 2 hours to drive there from Central Melbourne, it, along with other towns in the region, is very popular especially in Summer. But today I am starting by reviewing the accommodation we had there, and that is a rented apartment through Hotels.com at the Apollo Bay Seal Apartments.

I booked through Hotels.com because I needed to retain my credits in their reward program as I had not booked through them in 2022 until this point and they would have expired at the end of the year had I not. Ten nights spent in accommodation booked through Hotels.com gets you a free night of accommodation at the value of the average price paid for those ten nights. I think it’s a pretty decent deal and is more tangible than the ‘Genius’ discount of Booking.com.

The cost for two nights was $473AUD, so it wasn’t cheap. But it was a full 2-bedroom apartment with a decent kitchen. According to the current exchange rate that’s pretty much smack on $300USD so $150USD a night, which all in all is actually a pretty reasonable price to pay.

Check in was classically Australian, I received a text message early in the day of arrival to tell me I had apartment number 2 and that the keys were under the mat. That was the extent of the interaction I had with management, although there was a guy around the apartments when we arrived who appeared to be doing some maintenance who waved to us.

From the road – it’s on the Great Ocean Road – it was a little tricky to spot without an official sign on the road or anything it was down a concrete path behind a couple of houses. The driveway to the apartments was pretty steep, but there was enough space for all the cars – there were 10 apartments in total that I counted although management/the owners may have been using apartment number one for themselves.

The location is not actually in Apollo Bay, rather a smaller settlement called ‘Marengo’, which was 1-2 kilometres from Apollo Bay. As far as locations go I thought it was fine, Apollo Bay itself has a few restaurants and a supermarket, but it’s unlikely people go there without a car so it’s just a quick scoot up the road if you need anything.

The apartment is modern, with polished wooden floors and carpeted bedrooms. It has a reverse cycle air conditioner for the main space, and in the 2 bedrooms there was an electric heater in the cupboard. I imagine winters are very cold there – it was cold in November but we have been going through unseasonably cold and wet weather of late.

Very spacious, high roof, a bit of a climb up stairs to get to the apartment but nothing insurmountable. The main bedroom had a large queen or even king sized bed, firm mattress. The secondary bedroom had two singles which weren’t so good – low to the ground, soft and a bit ‘springy’. More suitable for kids rather than adults.

The kitchen had a four cooker gas stove, fridge, microwave, cutlery, plates, etc as you would expect, along with a toaster, kettle and dishwasher. The bathroom was spacious (they COULD have got a bath in there if they wanted!) and the shower was hot with decent water pressure. As with the rest of the apartment, it looked modern and quite stylish too.

Lots of light and lots of space, a balcony too which was nice. Negatives – well there were a few things they could have done with, on top of having someone there to ask questions etc if you wanted. Firstly a broom and pan would have been great – in just a couple of days our feet brought in a bit from outside. The towels provided were a bit… disappointing I guess. Brown is not an inspiring colour and the towels were a bit meh. And cooking wise there were only a couple of saucepans and frying pans which were really big. And just a few little finishing touches were missing I felt – such as bar soap, bottles of water, amenity kit – but these are more things you expect at a hotel rather than an apartment. I should add I think it’s a pretty new place and so perhaps there are a few things that will materialise a little while down the track.

All in all though, it was a pretty great place to stay! Certainly the sort of place that I would stay at again if I was visiting Apollo Bay!

Andy’s Ratings:

Value for Money: 3.5/5

Location: 3.5/5

Noise: 3.5/5

Service: 2.5/5

Cleanliness: 4.5/5

TOTAL: 17.5/25 [70/100]

Thanks for popping by! May the Journey Never End!