Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport
This is post where I start to sound spoiled. Our tour of China in 2017 featured 4- and 5-star luxury hotels. When C and I and our other travel buddy go on our own, we leverage hotel points to stay in nice places. So this hotel was a bit of a rude awakening though it's perfectly serviceable. The Plaza is one of six hotels in this area owned by CenterHotels. The CH website indicates that they have “six first class hotels in the city center of Reykjavik”. But following that statement are mentions of their 3- and 4-star hotels. Is a 3-star really a "first class" hotel? Perhaps I just have a different definition. Our tour package was very reasonably priced and I assume this hotel is part of the reason. Hotels are fairly expensive in Iceland (the Radisson Blu would have gone for about $250/night and this one was only about $5 cheaper) but the difference in the Radisson vs. this hotel was huge.
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| Photo courtesy the CenterHotel website. |
I will say the location was great and the staff were mostly young and enthusiastic. Our rate did include the breakfast buffet each morning which wasn't extensive but had plenty of food to fill us up.
Our Room
The room C and I got was actually a little larger than some of our folks got. When I look at the photos on the website I'm really thinking that because we're a group we got the bottom of the barrel rooms because they were tiny.Upon entering the room, on the left was an area to hang clothes and a large number of shelves. Those shelves were very handy as there was really nowhere else to store things. We even had to put our toiletry bags there because there was no storage space in the bathroom. Sadly, there was no safe either.
The duvets were tucked up on the beds which I guess is supposed to make it look neat but it almost looks like dorm bedding. There was only the duvet, no sheet, which is to be expected. There was a single nightstand beside one of the beds and only one outlet near it. Fortunately on the exterior wall there was another outlet so I was able to use that while C used the one by her bed.
On the back wall was a window into a little courtyard that was accessible only from inside the hotel. Though we were on the ground floor, the room was consistently very warm and we slept with the window open even though the temperature was in the upper 30s at night. While this chair and table were in this position when we arrived, we soon moved the chair between the beds just to get it out of the way and allow me to lay my suitcase down on the floor. I moved the table to serve as my nightstand against the outside wall.
The multi-function piece of furniture wasn't as large here (it couldn't be, the room was too small!) as it was at our prior hotels. The mini-fridge was not hidden behind a door. Since C didn't want the two small bottles of wine - and we weren't sure if we'd be charged for them - we left them alone rather than try to give them to others on the tour.
The bathroom was very small. The toilet was straight ahead and the shower stall was in the back right corner. It had a curved door rather than coming to a point in a rectangle but that only made it smaller inside. The plastic/rubber strip at the bottom was intended to keep the water inside the shower but it could handle only so much before overflowing so the floor got we every single time we showered. On the wall you'll notice a pump bottle. That one formula is intended to be your shampoo, conditioner and body wash. (Am I sounding entitled?) I was so glad I'd brought over the toiletries from the Radisson Blu. The one decent thing about the shower was that the shelf inside was relatively large and we could store all our items there easily.
The sink area was tiny and about the only thing we could store there were glasses with our toothbrushes and toothpaste.
I visited the room of a woman traveling alone and her room was far smaller than ours. A pair of sisters in our group - whose room was one floor up - had a room slightly larger than the single room but it was still smaller than ours.
Common Areas
Near the front desk there were a couple of seating areas. Knowing a thing or two about how to keep a lobby warm, the front door was cleverly designed where you walk in one set of doors from the street, then immediately turn right to enter the hotel itself. While it was certainly cooler by the door, it was not nearly as cool as it would have been if the doors had been consecutive.
The bar is to the left of the front desk. It's not large but has both bar stools and two-top tables against the front windows.
Past that as you go into the hotel's other wing, there are a couple of additional seating areas. If you turn right and head to the back of the hotel, this is where the conference facilities are located. We'd sit here after our daily tours and chat and munch on any snacks we'd bought.
To my knowledge this hotel does not have a gym but the location is fantastic as it's right at one end of the old town. No buses are allowed in Old Town so we'd have to walk a few blocks away each day for our tours. Even then, kudos to the bus drivers for being able to maneuver through such narrow streets.
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