Hotel Ibis Braga, Braga

Advantages: Friendly Staff, Great location
Disadvantages: Doesn't have all the mod cons

...The Hotel Astoria is situated in Coimbra, one of the four major cities of Portugal. The other three are Lisbon, Oporto and Braga, and the Portuguese (bless them!) have a little ditty to describe all four. They say, in between mouthfuls of roast suckling pig, that 'Braga prays, Oporto works, Coimbra studies and Lisbon plays'. From that you can probably guess that Coimbra is the principal university town, their version of Oxbridge. It is, in my opinion the best-looking and friendliest major city in Portugal. The bulk of the city and the campus areas are on and around a dome like hill and is the usual Portuguese mix of white marble and redbrick squalor. The residential and commercial centre however is on the banks of a wide meandering river, the River Mondego. It is here that you will find the Hotel Astoria, overlooking the river and close... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Location, Comfort
Disadvantages: Telephone charges, travel information, lack of some creature comforts, no breakfast included in room price

...We chose the Hotel Ibis Amsterdam Westcorner for a weekend trip to Amsterdam. The Hotel Ibis Westcorner is located in Westpoort, to the north-west of the city centre. Because of this it probably isn't too popular with tourists who prefer central locations. However, it is very easy to get to - just take the train to Sloterdjik station, 6 minutes and one stop away from Amsterdam Centraal Station. Almost every train west from Amsterdam stops there, so you can get back late at night without any problems, and it's also relatively cheap, at under 2 Euros one-way. There is also a bus, but we didn't try it. Actually, we found the tyrain station by trial and error - when we asked the hotel staff how to get in to the centre, they didn't even mention it, and we had trouble navigating to it from the hotel, as Westpoort is a district of tall... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Cheap, easy to find, friendly helpful staff
Disadvantages: Needs refurbishing

...My wife and I stayed at the IBIS hotel in West Swindon last weekend as we were going to a friends 40th birthday party that evening and neither us fancied the lengthy drive home in the early hours of the morning. We booked in for 1 night, planning to arrive on Saturday afternoon and leave on Sunday morning. We chose the IBIS because we wanted a budget hotel and because it was located very close to where the party was being held. Also, we could book in anytime after mid-day and didn't have to vacate our room until mid-day either so we could have a lie-in after the party if we needed to. ~~ Booking ~~ As I had found this hotel using the web, it made sense to book the same way - this can be done from the IBIS website (www.ibishotels.com/ibis) quite easily and you receive... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful