Hotel Downing 249 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000

"Stopped by for a quick lunch, and I gotta say, this was a really great sandwich! The chips were seasoned well, the sausage was well cooked, and the spices and flavour from the meat blended really well with the sauces and vegetables inside giving a really unique taste that I haven't really enjoyed anywhere else! I'm glad I opted in for the sandwich over a burger!"

"Great cocktails and great atmosphere. Perfect location, right in town. Dropped in here for a drink with my family after Anzac Day March. The staff were very friendly. Perfect place for a quiet drink."

"The Downing is a great hostel in a great location, right next to all public transport and in the heart of the CBD! The staff are all super friendly and as is it a smaller hostel you can get to know and mingle with all the other guests so well during their weekly events which they have on almost everyday! The hostel is one of the cleanest i've stayed in and overall has a great vibe ill deffo be back!"

"A hostel with such potential, let down by a management duo who are about as useful as an ejection lever on a helicopter. This hostel provides the bare minimum for you need for an average stay, it is very social which is about the only benefit. The many drawbacks of this hostel can be hidden by the hard working, entertaining staff, who was again, themselves are held back by the a management team who also happen to be a couple, so as you can imagine, they are full of different ideas (not!). The rooms are hot and average with cockroaches making camp in most of the rooms, the communal areas are nothing short of sub-par and although the kitchen has good facilities, it is always crowded which makes it a safety hazard when cooking. The main benefit is the location however to summarise, this is a noisy, insect infected hostel with overall okay facilities and good staff who once again are held back by a management team who are happy to kick guests out for disobeying a rule that doesn’t exist on any signs or website T & C’s and claim to ‘help you out’ by speaking to their boss ‘for you’ who was too busy anyway to come and have civilised and productive chat. This is overall not a terrible place to say if you can avoid the management!"

"A hostel with great potential let down significantly by the inexperienced young management. The rooms are hot, with a measly fan to push hot air around the room. The beds are cheap & dirty with chewing gum stuck to the side of the frames. The 'free' washing services were either being used by staff or broken. The staff who worked for accom within the hostel were great fun & very proactive in trying to make the hostel fun for everyone involved however were restricted and held back by the toxic environment created by the couple of young 20 year olds who managed the hostel. Refurbishment of the bar downstairs meant there was drilling and banging waking you up on the early hours of the morning. The nearby fire station kept you awake at night due to the noise of sirens, which you were unable to avoid as you had to keep the windows open in order to get any fresh air into the rooms. Me and my friends were not allowed to extend our stay at the hostel due to entering a restricted area that was not sign posted as restricted & instead of being made aware of this, we were belittled by the young management, in front of the other patrons of the hostel, and told we we had to leave. The constant change of staff within the hostel shows a clear miss management which is a real shame as the hostel itself has great potential and some of the staff we met would've been great assets to the team. If the hostel wasn't run by such a small minded couple, I'm sure it would be great."