Diamant Hotel Brisbane

What's in a name?

What is now the Diamant Hotel Brisbane has been The Portal Hotel, the Best Western Portal Hotel, back to The Portal Hotel and now the Diamant!

I visited the hotel back in the Best Western stage and reviewing that post I notice I compared it to the Kirketon Hotel in Sydney. Well, the reason its now called the Diamant Hotel is that its been taken over by the 8 Hotels Group which in fact manage the Kirketon!

With the change in name and ownership came new management and since we do a bit of work with the hotel Adam and I received an invite to have a look around and meet the team. I had seen the rooms before but it was good for Adam so he knew exactly what he was talking about when describing the hotel to clients.

After having a look around we sat down with Branka (the GM) and Tamara (reservations) in the restaurant and enjoyed a glass of wine and an array of finger food. Its always great to actually meet people that you talk to so often so it was a very enjoyable afternoon.

To celebrate the new name (and new management) the hotel is currently running a weekend promotion where you receive a celebratory bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne when you stay on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night ("neighbour rates" package).

Sydney conference

I've been lucky enough to be able to do a bit of travel this year and that continued last week when I went down to a three day conference in Sydney.

The conference was being held at the Masonic Centre which is at the south end of the CBD and since I was with a couple of friends the best option was a 2 bedroom apartment at Meriton Kent Street. I've stayed at the hotel previously so I knew what to expect and since we were there for a couple of days I upgraded to a sky view apartment (higher floors). The weather was terrible on the first day but thankfully it cleared up over the next few days so we could actually admire the view (see pictures below).

Thankfully we booked a couple of weeks early as two bedroom apartments sell out virtually every weekend in Sydney. That didn't stop us having to pay top dollar for the apartment on Saturday night ... which hurts as I'm obviously used to being "looked after" by hotels when I travel!