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POSTED: 20 MAY 2011

Destination: Sydney

JOHN ROZENTALS uncovers a treasury of experiences at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Sydney. Images: SANDRA BURN WHITE

If you’re heading to the Sydney Opera House or one of the harbour city’s many theatres or nightspots, there can hardly be a more romantic assignation to start and finish your journey than the InterContinental Sydney, which rises above the historic Treasury Building in Phillip Street.

The hotel’s winter Sydney Escape package will get you some pretty flash accommodation, full buffet breakfast and car parking from $325 per night per couple, but I reckon it’s well worth forking out an extra $125 to upgrade to Club InterContinental.

That gets you unlimited access to a 31st-floor lounge with magnificent sweeping views over sydney harbour and all that goes with it. You also get complimentary morning and afternoon tea, plus free twilight drinks and canapés that will set you up well for an evening out. It’s also a splendid spot to have breakfast.

Club InterContinental also gets you upper-level accommodation, in terms of both height and level of furbishment. And don’t worry if they suggest eastern view rather than northern view. Looking out over the Harbour Bridge and Opera House is obviously great, but so, too, is the view over the Botanic Gardens, Government House, the Domain, Garden Island’s naval dockyard, the well heeled Eastern Suburbs and up the gracefully curving harbour to North Head.

And the staff will help you design your own special Sydney experience, even if that means the hotel passing up a few dollars of restaurant or room-service revenue. We had no problems at all bringing in a feast of oysters and prawns purchased earlier in the day from the fish markets at Pyrmont.

Phone 9253 9000 or visit www.sydney.intercontinental.com.

DISCLOSURE; John Rozentals and Sandra Burn White were guests of the InterContinental Sydney.