Bratislava – Ibis Bratislava Centrum

I had one night at the Ibis Bratislava Centrum, staying loyal once again to Accor Hotels. It’s centrally located in the city, around a five minute walk away from the city centre with its restaurants, museums and craft beer bars. It’s also quite convenient, as might be obvious from the photo, to the tram line. The slightly odd thing in terms of first impressions is that they drape the mat outside the front door so that it’s over the top step, I’m moderately surprised no-one has fallen down the stairs, especially as some of the tiles are chipped and damaged.

The room is the standard Ibis design, but I’m content with that. The staff member at reception was friendly and helpful, but there was quite a queue to check-in when I arrived. Fortunately, I’m rarely in a rush unless there’s a bakery or craft beer bar involved. As a minor point, they could though do with more power points, they are all over by the desk and they could probably do with them by the bed. I think that’s usually resolved though when the room renovations take place.

My welcome gifts and I particularly liked that chunky fridge magnet. Well, and the chocolate and the peanuts, there’s always a need for food based gifts. Call it an edible bribe.

And my welcome drink from the downstairs bar, the Urpiner Classic 10. It was the only beer that was available as a welcome drink and to be honest, I’m surprised that the fridge magnet didn’t stick to it as it tasted so metallic. It’s a very basic beer which was pretty devoid of any flavour, maybe some malt although I wondered whether that was just some slightly tasty dust. But, it was free, so I drank it.

The breakfast room was relatively quiet, which always makes for a calm start to the day. The staff member at the little desk had a friendly welcome as I arrived, but she said my room number wasn’t on her list for breakfast. She phoned downstairs to the reception desk and seemed pleased with their response as I was allowed in without any further query.

There were a variety of different seating types. This room is only used as the breakfast room as the bar is downstairs and the hotel doesn’t offer hot meals.

The breakfast buffet selection.

Delicious. There was a limited hot food selection, but I ignored that as usual, going for the cold food selection. That baguette was really decent, I had quite a lot of that bread along with half the hotel’s tomatoes, gherkins and pickled onions. I know how to live….

The view from my window over the city. It’s probably not the best view from a hotel room in Bratislava, but I liked looking at the trams going by. I also managed to make my room very cold, which pleased me greatly that the air conditioning was working, as the temperature outside was ridiculous.

I’m not sure that I entirely like “only use the stairs in an emergency” as that clutters up the lifts needlessly and also isn’t exactly the inspirational healthy message to give customers….

The on-line reviews for the hotel are a little mixed, so I thought I’d meander through the negative ones to see if there was anything exciting.

“Horrible noisy hotel, the room is dirty. The guests comprise of out of control kids and drunk Brit’s on stage parties.”

Assuming that’s stag parties, that is a problem and I think is a challenge for the hotel. There was a British stag group when I was there with the stag dressed as someone from Guantanamo Bay, but the staff coped with them admirably.

“I had an absolutely awful experience on the phone with the receptionist. After being sworn at multiple times and being told “I see people like you every day with your bullshit” i couldn’t face going to the hotel itself and booked through an Airbnb instead.”

I find it odd how people manage to make a receptionist react like this, although I’m highly sceptical about this narrative anyway.

“Location is crap.”

It’s in Bratislava. May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Bratislava hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeasts swinging majestically…

There are a lot of complaints about the air conditioning, so I might have been very fortunate to have a room where it worked so well. I have twice this year gone to reception at hotels to reject a room for being too hot, so I have a lot of sympathy for customers stuck in a room which is too hot. At least the windows open in this hotel, unlike some IHG hotels which seem to so often have sealed windows.

“No mini bar no room service.”

Aspirational.

Anyway, I liked this hotel as it was clean and comfortable. I suspect the staff member was fed up with putting my bag in the luggage store as they did it the day of my stay and the day afterwards, with it being a slight faff to get the key, walk to the luggage room and all that, but she pretended not to be annoyed. The breakfast was decent and I liked the welcome gifts, so another win there. It was more expensive than I’d usually pay at around £60 for the room and breakfast, but I wanted to be in the city centre for at least one night. Hopefully I’ll stay here again, all rather recent.