"We realize the claim is five star from the hotel, but from experience with real five star this is anything but that. It is a 3 star hotel at best, likely a 2, and while we expect the usual response to come back from the hotel thanking us for feedback to appear on here for everyone to see, the bottom line and fact is that some of our areas for improvement are no different from others. Instead of responding on TripAdvisor to areas for improvement, perhaps the hotel should try putting those efforts into actually improving the things that are noted. We will not return to this property but we will consider the JW Marriott or Belmont next time for sure, and this is coming from a diamond member since 2017/18.
Good
- The location is unique with access to some good restaurants and local shops, people, and culture. However, you are at least a boat ride (Hotel charges @18euro per person or local transit at selected cost) away from the main attractions.
-Generally a quiet area that has a good but limited selection of restaurants.
-Hotel is generally finished well inside architecturally, but there are some areas for improvement. Form follows function in modern architecture in general, but here they have placed form ahead of function. We have lighted room numbers and handrails which look impressive, but they couldn’t put in lighted do not disturb indicators and are still hanging out paper tags? Seriously this is in a claimed 5 star hotel?!
-Rooftop pool and view is impressive.
Areas For Improvement
- Let’s start with coffee. The room has only instant coffee available. Real (not instant) coffee including room service, executive lounge, or breakfast/bar service is not available til 7am at earliest as published. If you get up before 7, per what we were told you should just enjoy instant coffee which is ridiculous considering even mid to low end Hilton properties worldwide can somehow offer real coffee brewers in room with coffee-even our latest Doubletree in Amsterdam offers Lavazza.
- Next the air conditioning is a farce. It can only go as low as 19C meanwhile experts say ideal human sleep temp is 15.6-19.4C. Thing is when you are sleeping at night or when you leave your room, the system resets to a base of 22C. On hot days like we had, the system is not capable of maintaining reasonable temperatures below 21C as experienced on a 29C day. The system couldn’t get below 23C. So the hotel actually in trying to save money is trying to get you to handle sleep well above ideal recommended for humans. Good for their business but bad for guests. Even the corridors were overheated with no cooling active in warm but not unprecedented heat. For us the form ( beauty) doesn’t outweigh function ( air con capabilities). We are literally sitting in a 23.3 C room at 2230 when the high today was 29 C.
- The executive lounge is anything but executive level comparable to others. We saw soft drinks, water, pretzels, and local parm cheese on offer only. And only from 10am to 7pm. No coffee in the morning and we were shouted at “CLOSED” by staff when we came inside slightly late at 7:10pm looking for a few bottled waters. A total waste, don’t bother paying for it, and don’t consider it a bonus if offered.
- Pillows on offer at least for us were two softs per person and no firms at all. No 5-star hotel messes this up, but this place didn’t think that through. If you are at a 5 star you don’t even have to ask, each room has both types in equal quantity. Also no turndown service, which is another 5 star hallmark missing.
- Breakfast was average-SLH hotels get it better across the board with quality and variety.
- The rooftop pool we signed up for a time slot and watched others arrive, unchecked for reservations while also watching others overstay their reservations. It was unmanaged and not policed which led to us sitting at the rooftop bar.
There were other small issues as well. It is a visually beautiful hotel, and if that is your metric then it is 5 star. However if you have experienced true 5 star operations and service, then it is quickly realized this location is 2-3 star operations maximum."
