Hilton Vienna Waterfront — Hotel in Vienna

The hotel is overall very nice according to Hilton standards. Rooms are big with big windows, nice view and a typical Hilton decoration. They are very well equipped too with plenty of space for your clothes and other items. The only big disappointment was the beds. One of the main reasons I usually choose hotels from the Hilton chain is the very comfortable mattresses in beds. However, to my surprise this time they were firmer than usual and as a result I woke up with back pains every morning. Bed size is good and sheets of good quality to the usual standards. The bathroom is nice and convenient, the only issue I had with that was the water pressure on the 5th floor which was not sufficient.

The location right next to the river is good and bad at the same time. You have a very nice view and nice atmosphere when sitting outside for breakfast. Especially at the gym on the top floor the view is amazing, but on the other hand there is nothing nearby apart from a small supermarket, and this is probably the biggest issue with this hotel. No public transportation right next to the hotel either. The closest metro station is located around 10min walk away at the “Stadion”, where there is also a small mall area to do some shopping and eat something, but it closes early, and from where you can easily reach any sightseeing and commercial area in the city by metro. For us that was not a big problem but for older people this could be a big issue, especially when you need to carry big luggage between the metro station and the hotel.

If you have no problem walking, you can also walk to “Prater” a couple of kilometers away where there are many lunch/dinner options, the park to spend some time especially with kids, and a metro station. We did it 3 times during our stay and it was a nice walk along the river for the most part.

The biggest highlight of the hotel was definitely the breakfast. Very complete, with big variety and most importantly very good quality. You get pretty much anything you need for a full complete breakfast to start your long sightseeing day. The ambience and decoration at the breakfast area was very nice too, inside and outside next to the river, with nice big tables.

However, the bar area was a disappointment. One of the evenings me, my wife and our 2 small kids wanted to sit outside to get some drinks. There was a small outdoor area open for serving and it was all surrounded by wind protection glass walls. We took a seat at a table and soon later we realized the person at the next table was smoking a cigar. We had to change the table and moved a few tables away. Before we even got our order a company of 3 old people sat at the next table and started smoking. Again with the small kids we needed to switch tables for one more time, but there was nothing available away from the smokers so we had to go inside this time, where the ambient was not that nice. Not only that, the bar personnel totally overlooked us, they seemed they paid attention only to the customers sitting outside. It took them around half an hour until someone finally came to us to take our order. In the end we didn’t enjoy it at all. The outside bar area looks more like a smoking area and the inside is not that nice especially in the summertime. Unfortunately there is no non-smoking area outside and that small area is occupied by smokers.

Other than that the pool area is small but nice, our kids enjoyed it a lot and the gym was pretty nice too, small but with good modern equipment. We didn’t get the chance to use the wellness spa section.

Finally something to point out is that along with the typical Hilton standards you have unfortunately the typical Hilton customers. Rich Arabs who do not respect and jump queue lines, groups of Americans who are shouting in quiet places etc.

Overall we are satisfied and happy with our stay at Hilton Vienna Waterfront. There is still some room for improvement, especially regarding the outdoor smoking policy and the bed mattresses, but the overall experience was...

We looked forward to spend 3 days abroad at last, so we chose a seemingly perfectly located hotel, a Hilton no less, with a view to the Danube. The hotel room was quite good, everything ozoned, cleaned, and the bed was really big and comfortable. The room was quiet, their walls are probably soundproofed. We only had some city view, maybe on the wrong side of the 7th floor. The decoration is cool, elegant but not brand new. I wasn't impressed with the mirror in front of the toilet, I really don't like to watch myself using it.

So, 2 stars, no more. First, they reserved the whole cost of our stay, plus some. Okay, they have to be sure we don't rob them, or we look somewhat suspicious, who knows. The parking space is okay, not cheap, and the best spots are reserved for "diamond members". As the bottled water in the minibar is also reserved for them. So we - regular, common class tourists - carefully set them aside.

Our reservation had breakfast and dinner included, so at the reception, they booked us to have a dinner at 19:00. The restaurant was closed, due to the pandemic risk, and we could have eaten our dinner at the tables on the coast. But....they had a party event at the whole evening. We tried to sit, then stand, and ask around, feeling like some kind of greedy intruders. Back at the reception, we tried to complain, and the lady made the phone call, not believing us, and confirmed there is no place for us to sit and eat. Maybe later, but no promises. She offered to use and thus make us to pay for the room service if we are "really" hungry. Or, we could go and have dinner in the city, she assured us there are good restaurants. Thanks a lot, I presumed as much. By then we were tired from travelling, annoyed and "really" hungry. Not ready to discover the hidden gastronomy of the inner city, quite far away. There was a Penny Market nearby, still open for 15 minutes. We hurried to buy something to stuff our faces with, in our dignified hotel room. At the other days, we could not get a place for us to sit, because everyone used the free wi-fi out there at the tables, or watched the soccer championship. Or it was raining heavily. We never had a dinner there, but they didn't bothered to ask, and they charged it anyway.

We barely hoped to get breakfast, but in the morning, the indoor restaurant was open. We are fully vaccinated, but does it only matter in the daylight? Weird logic. The restaurant is nice, with big glass windows, and stylish wooden surfaces. The breakfast is always the same, no variation. They don't waste anything, the same sponge cake was served for 3 days, but they tried to conceal it with some rearranging. The pre-made scrambled egg was the worst ever....tasted like some unflavored wall plaster. I always wanted to eat for the whole day, but failed to find anything really tempting. There are no suitable breakfast meals for the children, unless you want them to eat muffins or blue cheese or overdone bacon slices.

So, we packed our things at the last day. At the checkout, they charged the expected amount of money. But...they still reserved the money deposited at the first day. They told us to wait a few day to get it back (it was labeled as a regular purchase) but nothing happened for weeks. Maybe it's not significant for them, but it's a half month's salary for many of us. We wrote emails for the reception and the accounting, but they didn't bother to answer. My husband had to make phone calls to his bank, and prove the payment was made.

We won't visit this hotel again, or any hotel which has ties to the Hilton company. I'm sure they value their diamond members better, but they could still give some attention to the average...

If I remember correctly, this is not the first time I had to wait to check in at this hotel. Of course Hilton encourages its guests to check in via the app, and I had dutifully done so, but there was no point to this, since once again I had to report first at reception. I don't really care whether it's something about local legislation that makes this tedium necessary, because in this case Hilton shouldn't ask its guests to go to the effort of checking in online and requesting a digital key. So it's Hilton's fault either way.||The executive lounge was useless. In the evening, there was exactly one dish (distributed among two receptacles which, at a more generous hotel, would have naturally contained two dishes), and that single dish consisted entirely of some sort of meat. There was no meaningful attempt to balance that with cold dishes, either. I spent all of ten seconds in the lounge. Even were I a meat-eater, the fact that there was exactly all of one dull-looking dish would have been a disappointment.||Breakfast was also disappointing. It is true that there were a lot of options, but these were almost all animal-based or refined carbs. Among the hot dishes, there were beans in tomato sauce, but no grilled mushrooms, no vegetarian or vegan sausages, no mixed vegetables. Even the grilled tomatoes had cheese on them. There were "potatoes", but only in the form of industrial breaded croquettes that were not obviously made of potatoes and for all I know also contained cheese. They were definitely not made in the hotel and I wonder if anything was. One expects a little better.||I inquired in person the next morning until what time I could keep the room. The answer, 12:00, came back unhesitatingly, as if I had merely been wondering what the universal checkout time at hotels was. This is obviously indicative of a staff member who was not properly trained. The correct procedure is to check the details of the guest, as these may offer a potential reason to accommodate with a later checkout time (in my case they surely do, as I have diamond status). Whether or not a late checkout might be warranted, if it is impossible because the room is unique and another guest has booked it, or because the hotel is fully booked, then the reason is stated with an expression of regret. As it happens, the hotel was definitely not fully booked (the hotel appeared in a search for six rooms for the coming night, at a price low enough to suggest that it was very far from being fully booked). So my initial inquiry was handled as poorly as it could have possibly been.||I tried again later via the Hilton app's chat function and was able to get a checkout time of 14:00. That didn't stop staff from knocking at 12:50 to inquire when I was leaving. In fact, the staff member entered the room before I could get to the door, despite the do-not-disturb sign. I said I'd be leaving at 14:00 and the staff member said, "I'll tell my colleagues." I don't see why his colleagues who gave me the 14:00 checkout time couldn't tell his other colleagues. All very annoying and unnecessary.||And of course, no one ever mentioned the need to update my key. I had it done at my initiative.||In the end, the typically German arrogance of the checkout clerk was too much for me to want to prolong the conversation with him enough even just to get a card for the executive lounge or the hotel gym, as I had been promised in the chat when my checkout time was extended. It is best to respond in the language in which one has been addressed. Instead, I sat around in the lobby for a short while and then went and spent four hours at the airport. I was glad to...