Sadly, I found an awful restaurant (and you can read more about it below). I slept badly as the room was too hot, but eventually fell asleep sometime around 4am. I'd woken up around 3am. By 7.30am I was awake and soon I was sitting downstairs in the breakfast room (which would have been a cosy restaurant except for the fact that my hotel – the Best Western Royal Centre – didn't have one).
After my work was done I had lunch in central Brussels and found the restaurant full of African dignitaries (the European Union and the African Union had been meeting over the past two days). I wandered over to the Central Station, took a train to 'Bruxelles Midi' and then a Eurostar back to London, arriving just before 5pm. A short train journey from Victoria and soon I was home.
It would be outrageous not to mention the Boris Bikes, but even if I'd wanted a ride – in all honesty this was a whistle-stop trip and there was not enough time – it would have been impossible as a membership card was required and, as far as I could gather, it wasn't a case of 'pay-as-you-go'.
Best Western Royal Centre Hotel, Brussels.
I’ve said it before, I know, but first impressions really do count and while I was looking forward to relaxing in my room at the Best Western Royal Centre hotel in Brussels recently, I was on a loser from the word go.
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| Room 506, Best Western Royal Centre, Brussels. |
First, the receptionist informed me that there was no
restaurant – only room service (and the menu didn’t look too appetising) – and
yet the hotel had four stars plastered over the front door. Surely, four stars
mean you get a restaurant? Not in the Best Western Royal Centre. Dare I call
for a ‘level playing field’ on the star rating system in Europe?
I don’t know about you, but room service is never ideal.
It’s ‘making do’, it’s the equivalent of a ‘working lunch’ or sitting at home
with a tray on your lap, eating while watching television. I hate room service
– surely, half of the attraction of staying away is eating in the hotel
restaurant? – and I can’t stand it when I walk along a hotel corridor, en route to the elevators, and see plates of leftover food and soiled cutlery on a tray awaiting collection.
Horrible!
There’s breakfast, but that’s about it.
So I’m staying in room 506. Not a problem, but the door is a
bit sticky. You might think I’m complaining unnecessarily and, to a degree, I
am (we can all live with a sticky door – for a while) but it was the second
negative I associated with this particular hotel experience.
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| View from room 506, Best Western Royal Centre, Brussels |
I’d travelled by Eurostar from London to Brussels (a
pleasant trip) but I’d been wearing a suit all day and was glad to get to my
room and take it off. However, I started to wonder whether the room was on a
slope as the wardrobe’s sliding doors, separating me from a selection of unruly
coat hangers, kept rolling back as if they were on a hill. To add insult to
injury, as I tried to get the pesky hangers off the rail, the rail simply
collapsed, taking with it all the hangers; they clattered noisily to the ground
and I wondered if the noise was familiar to residents in nearby rooms – or,
indeed, whether they had experienced the same thing.
Another problem was the WiFi. I wrote this review on
Microsoft Word rather than rely upon the incredibily slow internet; there was a
business centre downstairs, but I’m in my room and the last thing I want to do
– at nearly 11pm – is go down five floors in the lift just to do a spot of
writing.
The room was fine. It was a twin room. It was clean, had everything
I needed, there was even a minibar! I’ve said it before that a full minibar
means that the hotel trusts its guests and this minibar was full with drinks
and, of course, a Toberlone – the chocolate equivalent of U2 (it’s SO
international!). The phone worked, it was all very good except for the wardrobe
with its sliding doors and dodgy rail.
I went out in search of a restaurant in which to eat dinner
and after 20 minutes of wandering around resorted to a strange place called De
Ultieme Hallucinatie – about 15 minutes on foot from the hotel. Not a good
choice and now I wish I’d taken a chance on the flamboyant looking Bloom!
Hotel’s restaurant, but alas, I endured slow, poor service, a menu I couldn’t
understand and food I didn’t particularly enjoy – gooey lamb chops, sweaty
vegetables and sticky potatoes. The only redeeming part of the meal was the
Rochefort Trappist ale (11.5%). The bill with dessert came to EUR27.50.
Breakfast was fine and now
I must check out. Would I stay here again? Yes, but I’d leave more time to find
a decent place to eat – although the Bloom! Hotel might be next on my list.
Having said that, how can a hotel plaster four stars over its doorway and not
offer a decent restaurant? However, in its defence, a hotel without a
restaurant means you have to explore the city, which ain’t a bad thing.
