PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS A FOUR STAR AND NOT A TWO STAR AS STATED IN CIAO'S LISTING.
~Location~
The first sensible question you could ask me would be "Where is the Holiday Inn, Hamburg?" and I'm going to have to confess that I'm really none to sure. It's on the banks of the Elbe by the Elbbrukke - I think that's the bridge I could see from the restaurant. It's in a business area which goes dead after 6 in the evening and whilst it's bustling in the day, you would struggle to find somewhere to eat or entertain yourself in the evening. I was put there earlier this week because it's very convenient for the Hamburg office of the company I just joined. Most of the people who use this hotel are probably also connected to companies in the area. You wouldn't stay here as a tourist unless you had a car but a taxi into town won't break the bank at 10-15 Euros.
~ First Impressions ~
Holiday Inns vary a lot in quality so I wasn't sure what to expect. When you enter the lobby through the large rotating door it's really quite impressive. The lobby is double height with a mezzanine and there's a business centre, the entrance to a bar and lots of leather sofas. There's also a cash machine and a post box, more rattan sofas and chairs in the area just outside the bar and for some bizarre reason - which I think links to a promotion for a local driving range - there's a teensy putting green.
The reception desk is large but best avoided between 6 and 7 pm when the lines can get frustratingly long and, as I found out to my cost when leaving, it's no better at 8 am in the morning. The staff on reception are not that great - they'll keep you waiting whilst they shuffle papers, answer phones and so on.
~ The Room ~
The guy on reception told me I had a room on the executive floor - I'm not sure if that's what I'd booked or if I just got lucky. He informed me, much to my surprise, that this included a free mini-bar so as you can imagine I went straight up to check out what that meant!
When I got to the room I was really quite pleased - nothing out of the ordinary, but a very nice room. Walking in, the bathroom was on my right and there were wardrobes on the left with those nasty coat hangers that you can't remove - who do they think steals coat hangers
these days? In the wardrobe was a small safe, a chest of drawers and my spare pillow - more about pillows in a moment.
The room opened out into the main living and sleeping area which was full of things to entertain me and fill my 'what's in the room notebook'. To start with, there was a suitcase stand, which was next to the minibar (two bottles of beer, coke, water with and without gas and on my last night, a tiny pack of gummy bears - in case you were wondering) with the TV on top. It had dozens of channels in lots of different languages but only CNN, CNBC, BBC World in English - ensuring I knew what's happening in the news but it's not great for entertainment. Pay channels were also available.
Next there was an ironing board, an iron and a trouser press all mounted on the wall. By the window there was an L-shaped desk with a mirror over, a tea and coffee tray, a complimentary bottle of water and a bar of Ritter Yoghurt chocolate (wahay! - free chocolate) and a voucher for a free drink in the bar. One nice touch was the small music system, which I admired but didn't use although I'll try to remember to take some CD's next time I visit. The desk also had built in modem cables, a cheesy little artificial rose plant and three magazines - all in German.
For seating I had both the desk chair and an armchair. The windows were almost floor to ceiling (about 7 feet high) and stretched the whole width of the room with very effective black out curtains. The carpet was dark blue with a small pattern, which looks a lot less awful than my blue carpets at home - maybe it's the lack of cat fluff.
There were two beds - each wider than a single and narrower than a double. They had terracotta spotted bed covers, fluffy duvets and a single pillow on each which was so soft that I needed the pillows off both beds. Holiday Inn have a pillow choice system - if you don't like the one you have, call reception and they'll send up your choice of their 5 pillow options which range from standard (whatever that is) through anti-allergy synthetic pillows in medium or firm and two down and feather pillows in soft or medium. Knowing that the line in reception has about 20 people in it I'm tempted to call down and ask for a selection just to make things even worse.
Any grumbles about the room? Well the lighting is really poor; two small low-energy bedside lamps with adjustable positions, similar on the desk and a brighter light in the hallway. As there's no central lighting it's very easy to lose things in the twilight zone. During the evening and early morning I can hear the 'ding' of the lifts which are way down the corridor and amazingly at 8pm I can clearly hear the person in the adjoining room BREATHING. Not snoring (thank goodness) but quite definitely breathing. However, despite that, I slept like a log every night.
The bathroom was bright and white. As you'd expect there was a loo, a bath with shower over and a nice folding glass screen and the sink was in moulded mock marble with a good sized surround. Holiday Inn always supply a good selection of toiletries and their 'Etwas vergessen?' (have you forgotten something?) sign reminded me that if I had I could call down and they'll give me anything else I need for free. I've benefited from this in the past after my luggage went missing and the Holiday Inn in Cambridge gave me toothbrush and paste and even a nifty little spray deodorant. If you don't want to use the little bottles, there are dispensers for Dove shower cream in the bath and next to the sink. There were shower caps, a sewing kit and shoe sponges - don't you just LOVE hotel shoe sponges but I've grown out of snaffling all the toiletries unless they are really snobby ones. There was a hairdryer and a make up mirror and if anything the bathroom was the opposite of the bedroom - so bright that I noticed I was looking really haggard one morning. There was also a set of scales that I tried to ignore.
There was a bathrobe and slippers in my room which I didn't use - but it was evident that lots of other people did. I kept finding bath-robed Germans getting in and out of the lifts on their way to the pool and I found that oddly disturbing. A hotel lift isn't a place where I expect to have to look at hairy feet when I'm heading down to breakfast.
~ The Lifts ~
My major gripe - my only one - was that the lifts were really annoying and slow. If I struck it lucky at off peak times I was able to fly up or down but it could - and often did - take 5 minutes just to get from the 15th floor to the breakfast room and another 5 to get back up again afterwards. Then 5 minutes extra to get back to the lobby to leave. I begrudge 15 minutes in the morning so much that I'd be tempted to skip breakfast altogether just because of the lifts.
~ Food ~
Holiday Inn breakfasts are famously good and worth getting out of bed for. When I went down the first day the lady on the desk tells me I have 'executive' (she pronounces it execute-ive which gives me the giggles as if it's about to be my final breakfast before the guillotine). I was instructed that I had to go to the special execute-ive section round the corner. This was a bit crazy as it was nearly full and I had to grab the last table. In the exec section waitresses bring your juice and coffee or tea to the table instead of letting you go to get your own. Other differences from the standard area included fizzy wine on ice which was more than I was likely to take advantage of, and more usefully some newspapers - including English ones.
The food selection was the same for everyone although I think we privileged few could have made-to-order eggs if we wanted them but there was more than enough choice on the buffet. There were lots of cereals to choose from (but not my fave Bran Flakes) as well as lots of yoghurts. The was fruit and even the oddly Germanic Bircher Muesli (it's soaked over night so you don't have to chew so hard) which normally I like but found a bit disappointing this time. The selection of breads was stunning - lovely versions with pumpkinseeds and nuts as well as more regular types. There were cakes and pastries and a cold buffet of salad, cheeses, meats and smoked salmon and gravadlax. The hot buffet had all you would need for a comprehensive fry up.
Breakfast is not included in the room rate and costs €16. If it were my own money I was spending I'd probably be eating cereal bars in my room because that's a lot for a breakfast.
~Dining in the Evening~
Eating on your own in restaurants is something you have to get used to - and it's so much less 'sad' than doing room service. I went down fairly early because I wanted to write some reviews after dinner. The waiter gave me a non-smoking table by the window - if it wasn't dark I'd have had a lovely view. The menu was large, interesting and very reasonably priced for a hotel. I ordered a starter of 'scampi spikes' (€7.80) and a main course of vegetable risotto with ceps (€7.20). To prevent dehydration I added a bottle of fizzy water and a glass of white wine, which adds another €8.
Whilst I was waiting a waitress brought me a basket of rolls - just the ones you part bake in the oven but they were fresh and crisp - and these were served with a rosette of almost radioactively-bright pink butter that I can only think is beetroot butter. My starter came after about 10-15 minutes. I had two skewers of prawns - six on each skewer - on a bed of fried finely chopped veg. The prawns tasted of garlic, salt and pepper and most importantly of prawns - unlike the cheep frozen ones I stock up on in Iceland that don't taste of much at all. The veg mix is carrot, mini leeks and cabbage and they had been fried in coriander and lemon.
The main course was a slight disappointment. The vegetables in the risotto were three different colours of peppers so whilst they gave colour, they didn't contribute any real variety of flavour. The ceps were in tiny pieces. I love wild mushrooms and they are usually very expensive so my risotto at just over a fiver couldn't really be expected to be full of ceps but even so they are quite hard to track down. What's not hard to find was the overly creamy sauce that was way too rich for me. The top of the risotto was sprinkled with a generous helping of Parmesan shavings but all the cream muted their flavour. I finished off about three-quarters of the dish, guzzled down the last of the wine and ask for the bill which is a very reasonable €23.
~ Other facilities ~There's an underground car park, which is secure and charged by the day. There's a small pool - about 12-15m at a guess with a 'kink' in the middle - and there's a gym which I didn't examine. They also provide quite reasonably priced massages, babysitting service, a business centre, bike rental, car hire, dry cleaning and laundry foreign exchange, sightseeing tours, meeting rooms, taxis waiting outside and a concierge service for theatre tickets.
In addition to the hotel there's also a Holiday Inn 'residence' with serviced apartments and these seemed to be very popular with the local companies.
~ Price ~
The 'rack rate' on my room was 210 Euros. That's the price listed inside the wardrobe but I doubt anyone ever pays it. Our corporate rate was just 99 Euros - about £70 - which seemed a very good price for the standard of accommodation. As mentioned earlier, breakfast - if you want it - is an extra 16 Euros.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Advantages: Good quality rooms, great beds, right side of town for the park Disadvantages: Breakfast was worth everything we paid for it - i.e. nothing
exceptional by (9%):
very helpful by (91%):
