What do I have in common with Barack Obama, Jennifer Aniston, Bill Clinton, Frank Sinatra, and Cher? Well aside from the fact we’ve all slept in the same bed, not a whole lot.
So which bed, you ask? That’d be the king bed of the palatial Presidential Opera Suite (formerly the Australia Suite) at Intercontinental Sydney – officially Sydney’s largest hotel room spanning a massive 245 square metres and sitting 29 floors above the ground with stunning Sydney Harbour views.
So what does Sydney’s largest hotel room look like, and what is it like to stay there? Let me explain.
Walking through the Intercontinental Sydney’s gorgeous foyer – the bottom floors of the hotel was built in 1851 as Sydney’s Treasury Building – hotel guests make their way to a bank of lifts, with Presidential Opera Suite guests amongst the few able to make their way up to level 29.
Open up the nondescript door to the suite and you’re immediately presented with a grand piano and a living room with iconic views over Sydney Harbour, Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The first thing that struck me in the Presidential Opera Suite is the sheer size of the room. To put it into context – the average three bedroom house in Australia is about 175sqm – this room is significantly larger than that at 245sqm, and it feels every one of those square metres.
To the bridge end of the room is a dining or meeting table for eight and to the Opera House end of the room is a lounge area and TV setup. Further beyond that is the only in-room balcony in the building, replete with a dining table and sun-loungers.
Beyond the living room – this time heading South – you make your way through a small private study area before you’re in another palatial room which happens to be home to the bed that I and my aforementioned celebrity/head of state friends have all slept in. The views at sunrise over the Woolloomooloo and the Heads were some of the more special I’ve witnessed, and the king bed one of the comfiest in the business.
Lucky for you I’ve saved the best until last – the Presidential Opera Suite’s piece de resistance is not its scale, nor its opulence, nor its views – but its bathroom, and more specifically its windowsill bath which you could easily lay in for hours just admiring the incredible harbour views.
Yep I’ll state the obvious before I wrap up, the Presidential Opera Suite at Intercontinental Sydney is a bit dated and that’s that. I do hope the owners spend some money on touching it up cosmetically because the views, opulence, service, and space are simply unmatched in Sydney and it has the potential to be the pinnacle of hotel rooms in the city.
For those of you without the means to fork out upward of $5,000 a night for the best room in the hotel, Intercontinental Sydney has rooms from $245 per night. We’d definitely recommend upgrading to a club level room though, which offer breakfast, evening canapes, complimentary alcoholic beverages for two hours each night – and access to the club lounge on Level 31 which shares very similar views with the Presidential Opera suite.
Intercontinental Sydney
17 Macquarie St, Sydney
