Will never be my first choice... (Inter-Continental Frankfurt)

Member Name: zOOm

Product:	Inter-Continental Frankfurt
Date:	26/06/01 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Near the river, friendly service, large sauna/jacuzzi/tanning area

Disadvantages: rooms too small, elevators!, membership packs

I was in Germany on business and decided to take my wife with me, we were booked into this hotel because it was the only one that had any rooms available.

The Intercontinental hotel is a 4-star business hotel, located about 20 min walk from the city center (or 15 minutes Taxi ride due to traffic). It is located on the banks of the river Main and this provides a good view and a nice place to go for runs if you are into that sort of thing.

There are two buildings on the opposite sides of the road and together they must have close to a 1000 rooms.

The buildings themselves are relatively old (I am guessing they were built in the 70's) and there was some renovation work being carried at the entrance of the main building when I went there.

The foyer is nice enough and get to the reception desk and the staff are as friendly as can be (this is ofcourse standard service from business hotels, so no major advantages there). We had a room on the 10th floor, hence we took the elevator (there are four of them). This is when I knew I wasn't going to like this hotel too much. The lift operates so fast that you can actually feel the G-forces on you! And if you happen to be in one that stops on every floor then you will definately get sick or at least dizzy by the time you reach your floor. There was also always something wrong with them. We were there for 9 days and every single day one of them was being serviced.

Anyway, completely dizzy and tired we struggled into the room. Open the door and I am disappointed further, the room is very small. Nicely decorated and comfortable, but smaller then I expected anyway. We could see the river from our window so that provided a nicer view then watching the street.

What does the room have?

- pay TV (with a keyboard for internet access and a games console for Nintendo).
- Minibar (you lift anything from it's place for 15 seconds and you automatically get charged fo
r it. But you can always dispute this and they will refund it for you).
- Hair dryer
- Temperature control that didn't work (basically whatever I put it on it was blowing cold air).

The bathroom:

This is the MAIN problem! It is so small! How small? Lets put it this way, you get in and have to basically move all the way to the back before you can close the door. Think about the length of a standard bath and that is the length of the bathroom. (Half of that lenght is taken up by the toilet. Now think about the width of a standard toilet, and that is the width of the space you have available for you to use!

Also, the towel rack was very close to the toilet, hence, flush the toilet with the cover open and I am sure some of the water splashes onto your towels!

The fitness center:

There is a fitness center on the ground floor. The size is comparable to other hotels however, it feels more roomy. The gym equipment look new and are useful and the swimming pool is the standard size you find at most hotels about 5 meters by 10 meters). Walk down the stairs from the area that the pool is in (there is no sign telling you this by the way) and you will get to the large sauna/jacuzzi/tanning area (this is very nice actually).

Restaurants:

"Signatures" restaurant is open for breakfast from 6AM - 10:30AM and for dinner 6:30PM - 11:30PM every day. The food is OK and the breakfast is American Buffet style. Still, I found them more expensive then other hotel restaurants.

Memberships:

This is brilliant! I check their membership programs and there are two. The first is the "Six Continents Club". What do you get? I don't know! I tried to register and they told me it would cost me US$100 to register and US$30 to renew my membership every year! I promptly told them what I thought about that and put the membership form back in its place.

The other is called "Sign
atures", however, as I have no intention of going back to this hotel I did not want to know about it.

They do give you "miles" on your frequent flyer cards though (BA, Lufthansa, Air Canada, United Airlines, etc.)

Well, conclusion? Whereas most of my colleagues think that this hotel is nice and cosy and specifically request it, I founf it small and too expensive for the service they provide.

Summary: