Ask For One of the Nice Rooms! (U Tri Korunek Prague)

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	U Tri Korunek Prague
Date:	17/08/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: New rooms are excellent, modern, clean and nicely furnished, good location

Disadvantages: Older rooms are not so nice

This hotel seems to be a tale of two cities and although we had a fabulous time in the room we were allocated, people we recommended it to have since not had such a wonderful experience.

This hotel is located about 2 miles outside the city centre of Prague but the trams run in and out every few minutes, are dirt cheap and go straight past the block this hotel is situated in, location is therefore pretty good and the centre is accessible. The other bonus to being located further away from the centre is that there are an abundance of cheap, non-touristy bars and restaurants in the immediate surroundings.

We stayed here in December 2007 for a long weekend and located the hotel via Expedia which bought it up on a special offer where if you booked 3 nights the 4th was free, this meant it cost us around £180 for the room for 4 nights which seemed a bargain. It is well worth shopping around as it seems to always feature on Hotels.com and in Expedia sales.

Anyway, when we arrived we located the hotel easy enough, it feels like it is in a residential area and as I said before it is a couple of miles on the tram away from the city centre, we used googlemaps to find it and it was not too tricky. First impressions from the street were not overwhelmingly positive, it looks like a bit of a run down block of apartments and the check in is tiny and feels like it is in a hallway of a terraced house.

We were surprised after being given a key to our room to be directed back out on to the street and around the corner. I have since learned this was because we were lucky enough to have been allocated one of the newer, refurbished rooms which at the time we visited were not accessible from the older block.

Our block of rooms had their own entrance off the street, which we had a key for and our actual room was on the 3rd floor. The communal lobby was evidently brand new and freshly painted etc and the lifts were stainless steel and very modern.

Our room was so much more than we were expecting and we were over the moon with it! We had dark wood flooring, brand new furniture which was all very contemporary, a large comfortable bed, feature walls painted in striking modern colours, a flat screen TV and a large bathroom which was quite amazing featuring underfloor heating and a double walk in shower, spotlights and a brand new suite.

Our windows looked across the street but the view was inoffensive and netting ensured that we did not feel overlooked. The room was very quiet and we felt safe and secure within the building, despite being removed from the reception and restaurant areas of the hotel.

The restaurant was actually a seperate entrance again off the street on the corner of the block. Breakfast was included in our room rate and included all the usual suspects of a European hotel, cold meats and a range of cheeses along with bread and pastries, coffee, tea and juices and a small range of hot items in trays such as scrambled eggs and sausages. All the food was of a decent standard and there were plenty of tables.

In the evenings the restaurant served from an a la carte menu and had a licenced bar but we did not use this as there were so many cheaper options in the vicinity.

Hotel staff were all very courteous and helpful and all spoke very good English which, to be honest, we found to be the case with most Czech people we encountered.

Now, having had such a great experience we recommended the hotel to a friend who visited Prague about 6 months after us. He did not experience the same high standards and reported back that the room he stayed in was in the older block and he considered it to be scruffy and in need of updating. I would therefore recommend that you request the newer rooms if you have an option, I believe that booking direct with the hotel you can choose the newer rooms for a slightly higher room rate and I would say that this is money well spent.

On Tripadvisor, the reviews seem to echo our findings, that the standard of rooms fluctuates quite a lot between the newer and the older blocks. I would say for the location and the price this is still a good base from which to explore Prague but you should be aware of the vast differences between the two sets of rooms.

Summary: Make sure you know which kind of room you have booked!