Somerset on the Pier Hobart

Rooms and decor

The rooms are two-story duplex apartments — a living area downstairs and a loft bedroom tucked upstairs. The whole place sits inside a 1930s pier building on Elizabeth Street Pier, and with water wrapping both sides of the jetty, the apartments genuinely feel like you're staying aboard a boat. Each unit is fitted out for a real stay: a full kitchen, a washer/dryer, a wide-screen TV and a minibar, plus an en-suite that has both a bathtub and a shower. It's a setting no other hotel on this list comes close to.

Food and amenities

The best part is the view: every single unit looks out over the Derwent River and the historic harbour. Breakfast is served at window tables where you can sit and watch the sailboats come and go across the cove. Because each apartment has its own kitchen, you can grab ingredients from the Salamanca market nearby and cook dinner in your own room rather than eating out every night. There's also 24-hour reception, a meeting room for anyone mixing in some work, on-site parking and free high-speed Wi-Fi.

Location and getting there

This is the waterfront in the truest sense — the building is literally on a pier in the bay. From the door it's about a 3-minute walk to Constitution Dock, where you'll find the floating fish punts selling fried fish, and roughly 6-7 minutes on foot to Salamanca Place. That puts the Saturday market, the waterfront restaurants and the harbour ferries all within an easy stroll, so you can leave the car parked the whole stay.

Things to know before booking

The starting price runs about $171 a night and climbs to roughly $314 for the larger units, putting it in the upper range of this list rather than the budget tier. Because it's an old pier building, the rooms come with their own quirky layouts instead of one repeated plan, so the unit you book may be shaped a little differently from the photos. And the duplex units have stairs between the two floors, which isn't ideal for older guests or anyone with mobility issues.

Our take

Guests score it 8.7/10 on Trip.com and 8.6 on Agoda, and the marks lean hardest on location, which sits at 9.5. Somerset on the Pier Hobart is the pick for families and couples who want to wake up to a river view in a room with its own kitchen. If you want the experience of staying on a pier in the middle of a historic harbour, this is a location nowhere else can replace.