Nothing spectacular about this city centre hotel. Good base for visiting Xmas markets. Room was clean. Bed comfortable. Basic bathroom. Breakfast was adequate. Used the Bar a few times. Very busy and often just one member of staff on. More
POSITIVE: Close to subway, train station (Nord), shopping Panoramic sauna in the morning
NEGATIVE: Room interior & cleanliness Unlimited free WiFi should be standard Lobby (currently looks like a basement food court) Professionalism of staff
- City 2 Shopping Mall, Delhaize supermarket, HEMA - Grand Place - Pho Pho across the street has amazing pho
Stayed here in Nov. 2013
- Close to Gare de Bruxelles Nord Station, but quite far from Central Station and even further from Midi Station
- Close to City 2 Shopping Center Nieuwstraat and Rue Neuve, also close to a HEMA for everyday personal needs and Delhaize City supermarket (right beside the hotel on the right side when you're exiting the hotel entrance)
- Staffs were friendly, but not professional and does not speak fluent English, express check-in machine not working properly
- Lobby is actually in basement so is the dining area and bar, which looked much better on website than in actuality
- Small room was poorly decorated, hallway had a persistent weird smell, washroom looks old, tub clogs badly, it gets stuffy in the room after a hot shower, regardless of climate control settings, I had to go up to the sauna facility for shower
- Gym was under renovation, hotel offered gym usage at a location right beside the hotel, a gym used by white-collars in the office towers in the area
- Don't be misled into thinking "unlimited" free WiFi, I was only offered 1 hour of free Wifi during my entire 3-day stay, good thing there is an illy coffee nearby with free WiFi (not sure if it was from illy or its associated hotel), otherwise go to City 2 shopping mall with free WiFi
The quality of this hotel is summed up by the bedside 'tables' - a faceless, plastic column with no practical purpose. We were disappointed on every level with this Thon.
In Brussels for four days, we were given a tiny room, one door down from the lifts, and facing office blocks on two sides. The latter meant that our room was like an oven with the glass windows of the hotel and the offices effectively reflecting heat at each other. The air-conditioning did not work at all - a weak bubbling was the best it could manage - so we went for the open window option. All this did was ensure we could hear every siren in the streets below. Neither of us slept much, and this was in December.
The hotel is supposed to be a four star. Frankly, it barely merits three and does not meet the standard of a basic Premier Inn. The floor is covered in vinyl not carpet.
The coffee tray allows you two sticks of indifferent coffee per day, ghastly powdered milk and plastic spoons.
There were five clothes hangers, one of which was broken, for two people staying for four days. We asked for eight more (one more than we actually needed, we like to hang our clothes rather than fold them – and there were no drawers anyway) and were treated to blank amazement- "You want eight!!!". Despite this, the coat hangers did not arrive until we asked again four hours later.
The towels were small and thin. The promised 'toiletries' turned out to be cheap, squeezy soap bottles attached to the wall - though on our penultimate day we returned to find we'd been left a small bar of soap and one micro-bottle of bath foam - and the ever-useful shower cap.
Worst of all, the hair dryer only blew cold air on its highest setting. Heat was only generated on the lowest, weakest setting. Usually I carry my own hair-dryer when travelling but, believing this to be a four star hotel, had decided to lighten my luggage load. A big mistake. Every morning I had to leave the hotel with damp hair - not great in the chill wind on the Brussels street. I complained about this on the first morning, as I sat there with dripping hair, and was told that 'there were no spare hair-dryers'. Something I find hard to believe in a hotel of this size.
We avoided the extortionately priced breakfast - no better than at any ordinary hotel - and popped next door to the small snack bar in the shopping centre where we ate freshly-prepared omelettes and toast. drank freshly squeezed orange juice and followed this with very good coffee for a mere 10 euros each.
Brussels is a great place for a break. We met some fabulously friendly and helpful people everywhere we went - except in this hotel.
Dear traveler,
We appreciate you took the time to give your opinion on your stay with us at the Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre.
We are sorry to hear you did not enjoy your stay with us and that we were not able to convince you of our strong points.
We appreciate your comment concerning the toiletries in the room. Indeed, we decided to replace the bars of soap to soap dispensers, this out of a out of an ecological and practical point of view. Our larger superior rooms and suites still have some extra toiletries, and if desirable, it can be requested at the reception.
We are aware that our towels our not the biggest ones and we are looking into the fact of changing them to larger towels.
Our rooms are equipped with coffee and tea facilities for one day. It is refilled on a daily basis. If more is required, please do not hesitate to contact the reception, who will send someone to your room with more of whatever you require. The same goes for the milk. If you prefer normal milk instead of the powder milk, provided in your room, our colleagues from the reception are more than happy to give you some of the milk, which is served on the breakfast buffet, to put in your coffee or tea.
Our hairdryers were all recently replaced and should be all functional. The hairdryer has two buttons, one for cold air and one for hot air. Please don’t hesitate to contact the reception if it doesn’t work properly or when you need more information on how to use it.
Our reception can be also contact to report technical defaults in the reception. All our air conditioning systems where changed during the renovations and have all individual thermostats, so that you can choose your own desired temperature. The rooms are verified by our housekeeping department, but it can happen that some issues escape their attention, and we do apologize for this. But our technical department is always more than happy to resolve them for you.
A room change can always be requested, if you are not happy with the view of your room. If we have room available with the view you like, we will change your room.
We have rooms with carpet, vinyl and parquet. If you have a preference of floor, you can always ask the reception to assign you a room according to your preference. Of course this is upon availability and can not be confirmed upon reservation.
We regret to hear you think the breakfast is too expensive. We believe we offer a good price/quality buffet with many fresh and local products. During the year, the breakfast is at half price in the weekend, and for those you who do not want a copious breakfast, we also have our quick breakfast for only 9 euro, which includes a coffee or tea, an orange juice and 3 pastries.
Please do hesitate to visit our website as we believe that our Thon Stanhope hotel or Bristol Stephanie hotel are more what you look for in a hotel and will meet up to your expectations.
We do hope we’ll have the pleasure of welcoming you in one of sister hotels in Brussels.
Best regards
Elke
Stayed on 24th Floor - the water pressure to the basin was so low it was hard to tell if the tap was actually on. Brush your teeth with the complementary water instead - not the end of the world. The shower could have been used to strip paint - seriously, the pressure was incredible - which matters more to me.
WiFi was OK around 4-5MB and stable, the TV was OK with some British channels. The standard of fixtures and fittings in the room was OK for the type of hotel (weird gap on the side of the bath panel - room 2401) but generally clean and usable. Staff were friendly and helpful.
The fitness centre was basic but seemed to get better during my stay - a water dispenser arrived at some point in the week but wasn't plumbed in. I thought maybe a TV or some music would have improved it but I guess having a fitness centre in a budget hotel at all is pretty good.
Noise wasn't too bad so high up, but you definitely are aware that you are in the middle of everything with distant sirens. That said, location for Rogier Metro station is ideal and there are a number of places to eat in the vicinity. Breakfast was fairly standard fare, lots of choice. For some reason the milk was always warm which I found a bit offputting!
Dear traveler,
We thank you for your objective feedback on your stay with us at Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre.
We verified the water pressure in your room. Indeed, the tab in the sink wasn’t running correctly due to the filter in the tap. This was replaced by our technical department. Please do not hesitate to contact our reception if you notice these things during your stay, so that it can be fixed straight away by our technical department. We are aware the rooms should be impeccable upon arrival, unfortunately some things do escape the attention of the floor supervisor. We will inform our Housekeeping Manager, so that in the future a better follow up can be done.
The water pressure of the showers has been verified and adjusted as well by our technical department. It is now running at a lower pressure and it can also be manually adjusted by the mixing tap.
The fitness was indeed recently renovated and we decided to re-open it before the water dispenser was delivered. Unfortunately our supplier did not deliver all the pieces, so it could not be installed right away. This has been resolved in the mean time.
There was a TV before the renovations. We intend to re-install it, the new flat screen was ordered, but we are still awaiting delivery.
We are glad to hear that you liked our breakfast. Nevertheless, we are sorry to hear that the milk wasn’t properly cooled. It is kept in the fridge before serving, so we’ll take it up with our F&B manager, so that he can verify why the milk container does not keep it cooled. We do apologize for the inconvenience and will do the necessary follow-up.
We do hope we’ll have the pleasure of welcoming you again upon your visit to Brussels.
Best regards
Elke
Came to Brussels for a long weekend break to take in the Christmas fairs, light show and to visit Brugge (3 nights 4 days).
The hotel is ideally sited for this and is a 5-10 minute easy walk from the train station after a 12 minute journey from the airport and then from there a nice 20 min walk along a boulevard to the main areas and markets. There is a metro station right outside the hotel if your lazy.
Hotel is clean and colourful, not a great fan on the seating which where mainly plastic and not comfortable. The staff were excellent and David on the desk especially was a commendable asset to the hotel giving us good information about places we wanted to visit and was a friendly face throughout our stay, nice chats on our returns in the evening.
The room was small but fore-filled all our needs great tv with stations from home (uk) and with a good alarm built in. Shower excellent, clever soap and shampoo dispensers - hairdryer - small fridge.
Hotel is highly commended for its environmental policy - by hanging a tag on your door you can request your room is not serviced in exchange for a 5 euro voucher for use at the hotel bar. So a free beer for picking your own towel up and quickly arranging your own bedding. Bed excellent but pillows too soft, needed to have more.
Did not use but fitness centre and sauna on top floor looked good.
Access to free internet by using one of the two computers in the hotel lobby.
Pet hate is why all hotels insist on charging extra for wifi and the thorn was no exception. If must just add it to the overall cost and then say free!
Good breakfast in the mornings with really excellent coffee but my only real complaint from our stay was that the food was warm at best. During my stay they were serving small sausage balls and I was at the service when they topped up the heated container - they were put in stone cold right from the fridge is my guess relying on the heater to heat them - very bad practice!
Had the food been hot would of been a real joy. Lots of options.
Would we stay again ?
Despite the lukewarm breakfast Absolutely if only to say Hello to David again and because overall the hotel was in the perfect location for a weekend break when sightseeing the christmas markets which is why we came.
Thank you, I'm hard to please but you did it.
Dear traveler,
We thank you for your positive evaluation on your stay with us at the Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre.
We are delighted to see you were satisfied with the service you received from our staff and that you appreciated the location and infrastructure of the hotel. We will definitely pass on your appreciation to our receptionists, as encouraging words are always nice to hear.
Nevertheless we regret to hear that the food at the breakfast was not properly heated and we do apologize for this. We will inform our F&B manager, so that he can take it up with the kitchen. This is definitely not acceptable and the food should be hot when served. The serving plates are only there to keep the food warm on the buffet. We thank you for pointing that out to us.
We have 4 lobby computers in total, all with free internet, 2 at the entrance of the restaurant and 2 more in the conference area. The WIFI is for free the first hour, afterwards it is with a daily fee of 6,95 EUR. If you book your stay through our own website, the WIFI is included for the entire stay. But we will look into your suggestion to include the WIFI for everyone.
Extra pillows or bedding can always be requested at the reception. We recently ordered some new pillows with another supplier, so that we'll have a wider variety of thickness of pillows.
As you have noticed during your stay, we are concerned about our environment and take specific actions. One of these actions is indeed to invite our guests who are staying for more than one night not to have their room serviced. In exchange, a 5 € voucher is given which can be used at the bar. But you can also donate this voucher to GoodPlanet. This organisation teaches youngsters to live in a sustainable way.
We are looking forward to welcoming you again upon your next visit to our capital.
Best regards
Elke
This is a hotel in central Brussels, just next to all the other big hotels. I found the hotel clean, service was friendly, but the overall image was a bit on the more worn side. I was disappointed that WiFi was not included in the room price - I think network access should definitely be included for any business oriented hotel these days.
The sound isolation could be better as well, the traffic was quite noticeable even with ear plugs.
Dear traveler,
We thank you for your feedback on your stay with us at Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre.
We are sorry to hear we were not able to convince you of the efforts we've made to pimp up the hotel by the recent renovations of the bar, restaurant, reception and rooms. Only some meeting rooms remain still to be renovated, but this should be done next year .
The internet is free of charge. We have 4 computers in the lobby with free internet. The WIFI is free in the entire hotel for the first hour, afterwards it is indeed with a charge. If you book through our webpage, the WIFI is for free during the entire stay. Our corporate and MICE clients have also the WIFI included in their package. We’ll look into the possibility to include the WIFI in the room price of the remaining reservations.
The hotel is situated in the centre of the capital, therefore outside noises can not be avoided, unfortunately. The hotel has 29th floors, the higher your room is, the lesser you here from the outside noise. We started up the project to have the single glassed windows changed into double glassed windows, which should improve the sound isolation.
We do hope we’ll have the pleasure of welcoming you again upon a next occasion, so that you can see we continuously work to improve our guest's comfort.
Best regards
Elke
