Meliá Vienna — Hotel in Vienna

First and last visit for sure, I'm not coming back even for free. |Let's be clear, I'm no princess on a pea, but I really did expect more for €270 per night or at least I expected it to be as presented.||The hotel is not marked with a visible board and it is difficult to find the entrance. There is no sidewalk, so to get to the entrance you have to walk along the side of the road, praying that cars don't run over you.||How is it possible that they don't have their own parking? Mabey at least an agreement with the public to include it in the accommodation price? |And no one at the reception warned us that the daily ticket of the infamous €30 expires when you leave the parking during the day, I mean the ticket is no longer valid so you have to pay again when you’re coming back. ||I don't know where they were raised, but I greet even strangers in the elevator with good morning, good afternoon ect. so it would be nice to at least express business culture when they don't have one in general. One good morning never killed anyone. They don't even look in your direction when you pass by because you're irrelevant to them. It's rude, isn't it? Thank you for saying Hi on check in and check out!||Now let's see what I paid for and what I got.|I'm not evil and I'm not enjoying writing this, I'm just terribly disappointed with how we're treated. It was supposed to be wonderful and in the end I feel robbed.||The breakfast is poor for a 5 star hotel. The fact that we only had breakfast once speaks for itself.||They said they soundproofed the rooms, but how do I know that the breakfast wasn't good on other days either? If I can make out Spanish through the walls, you're all set.||The room was supposed to have a breathtaking view, but our room looked directly at the construction site. The room was booked precisely because of that famous view, and that's why the price was higher. |No one informed us in advance that there was no view as we expected.||The furniture is old and worn out. I still wonder why they got 5 stars. How are they not ashamed to have such furniture in the rooms for so much money?||The freestanding lamp in the room had three holes in the shade. The coffee table was deformed on all sides, as if someone had kicked it. The nightstand was burned with a cigarette. The carpet was also burned in two places and the wooden bar with the fridge is worn down on all sides so that the bare wood is visible.|The dresser where the bar is is all destroyed and the edges are frayed. The bed is next level. True, it's the only bright spot because the bedding was wonderful and the mattress was comfortable, but aside from that, the bed doesn't even have a base, it's just a mattress on regular plywood and the side panels are from the 80s. Destroyed, only repainted and from the looks of it, it seems to me that it's been used a few times. The only piece of furniture that looks decent is the desk and whole wardrobe. The bathroom isn't my style, but it's new and beautiful.||This all sounds like a disaster but let's face it...when you enter the room it really looks wonderful and nice but as soon as you scratch beneath the surface you see all the flaws. Personally, such things wouldn't bother me that much and it's not that bad except for the fact that this bothers me exactly 275 times.||As for cleanliness, I would say that I am extremely demanding, whether the accommodation is cheap or expensive. The cleanliness was not quite at the level I expected. All the surfaces that are visible at first glance were clean, but the surfaces that we usually don't pay attention to were not exactly clean. Maybe I wouldn't have seen it, but I noticed it all when we started to inspect the room after we noticed the first burnt spot. For example, the coffee table was dirty all over, with traces of dried dirty water dripping down... And we started to inspect the room because we wanted to protect ourselves from being accused of any damage that had occurred.||As someone who has been to many hotels, I can say that I have never felt so unwelcome. All the technical things can be replaced and renovated, but are they ready to work on the staff? They are not friendly at all, they know they don't know anything and that is clearly their motto. At check-in they manage to say 2-3 sentences in very bad English, from when to when breakfast is and what floor it is on. That is the maximum you can get from them.||As I said at the beginning, this hotel in Vienna and any other from their group no longer exist for me. Thank you for...

The rooms at the hotel are modern, they offer good views (though a building currently in construction is blocking part of the views now), but the room was too warm, we couldn’t put a temp lower than 20C. As Melia Gold I get late check out if available, but after being too warm in the room we decided it wasn’t worth staying longer.

The service I expected by booking a Melia “The Level” room wasn’t met and that’s why I give it 3 stars.

We’ve stayed at many Melia hotels and whenever we stay at a proper Melia branded hotel (as opposed to ME, Innside etc) we treat ourselves to The Level. Around the world in places like Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Thailand etc The Level service has always been great, but in Vienna it seems non-existent.

I noticed this at check in. We sat down at The Level counter and it was empty. After a few minutes no me came so we asked at the main check in counters and they told us to check in there instead. It’s the simple details, what makes The Level feel exclusive in my past stays is the separate check in area. Most of the Melia hotels I’ve stayed at will take you straight to the lounge where you can do your check in, and though I understand in this specific building it’s not practical to go all the way up to come down, I at least expected someone to be attending The Level desk at the lobby. There’s also no one to take your bags, whereas at other hotels they’ve taken them to our room while we check in.

The Level lounge left a lot to be desired. The views are nice but compared to previous stays where there’s always at least a couple of Melia attendants welcoming you and assisting you, there was no one here. Only the cleaning/food lady who would pass by every half an hour to clear plates and glasses, but she never said a word to us.

Another thing disappointing of the lounge is that there’s no “afternoon tea” like other Level stays I’ve had, and the only thing they have is “cocktail hour” but don’t bother with it. At the time of it the cleaning lady only changed some of the snacks which weren’t so good and added 3-4 more bottles of extra alcohol which weren’t good (cheap stuff). As mentioned before, in other Melia Level lounges there’s always someone there and at cocktail hour they tend to have a “cocktail of the day” and they make it for you, or you can request any other drink. Once again, there was no one here. The lounge was empty aside from other guests. Aside from the alcohol the coffee machine was by capsules, whereas every other Level lounge I’ve stayed in has a better machine which the attendants can make you stuff like lattes. Not here. On a plus side they do have wine and cava all day (10 to 10), so my advice if you stay multiple nights is don’t bother with cocktail hour, instead have your wine/sparkler anytime in between.

They allow dogs, and after doing my booking where I commented we had one, I got a separate e-mail telling me it was 39 euro PER DAY. I knew there would be a fee but do think 39 euro is steep. Later when I wrote back asking questions including if dogs were allowed in the lounge (the answer is no), I got yet another reminder that it was 39 euro a night.

Room service was decent, we ordered it for dinner and the tray was still outside the door the next day at noon/check out.

The only person that really treated us like we have in other Melia/Level experiences was at breakfast. Level categories can have it exclusively at the 57restaurant with views. The lady attending us (I didn’t get her name) was so nice and caring, she really did make us feel like not all service was lost and she really gave good service parallel to other Melias we’ve stayed at.

Overall I would say that the staff isn’t rude or anything like that, rather that there’s simply no service (aside from breakfast as mentioned) for Level guests. Having someone at the Lounge to greet you and be there if you need anything (many Melias even have a separate concierge-like desk to attend guests in the lounge) would make a difference, also adding better snacks/drinks or perhaps an afternoon tea slot...

We recently had to stay at Melia because we had a booking issue with another hotel during a conference in Vienna and our room was not ready. Almost all Vienna was fully booked, so the price went sky rocket, 500€+ for one night. Our expectations therefore were accordingly, and we were looking forward to a good night sleep after a long and hot day with a beautiful view in a large room.

Reception, hotel: Upon arrival, the receptionists were very warmly welcoming us and acted super friendly, as expected in a 5-star rated hotel, nevertheless important after our other hotel troubles. The hotel corridors appeared worn out to me with many scratches and missing paint here and there. Also sterile and with a lack of style in my personal opinion.

Room: The room was huge, with one side facing the construction site of DC TOWER II, the other (shorter) side facing Danube. With the corner pointing towards south, naturally, the sun was heating up the room all day like a glass house. Now, you would expect that an AC solves this problem, not in our room though. The AC was not functioning. Before we unpacked, we asked at the reception if there is a possibility to fix this, or to change rooms. A quick check of the last available room revealed the same problem, AC not working. Generally I am not a fan of ACs. They are loud and often too cold. But sleeping in a 32° C room was not an option, neither changing hotels anymore. A technician would solve that issue, but was not available anymore at this late hour. In the tallest building in Austria, no technician on duty or on-call? Yes! We then got ventilators by the receptionist, something that I found in several other reviews when browsing through them. The problem with the AC seems to be a known (reoccurring?) issue and doesn’t seem to have been fixed over weeks or months. Windows could not be opened, only a small slip to let in at least some air. Furthermore, apart from the general style of the room which did not necessarily impress me, it all felt worn-out to me. Holes in the fake-leather-wall were simply taped. The shower and water tap were making a very loud noise when turned on. Some surfaces could have used some repairing.

Breakfast: There were two breakfast areas, naturally you want to go to the top floor to enjoy the nice view. And that was the highlight of the breakfast. I am traveling a lot for business purposes and have seen many hotels with many different styles of breakfast. And I therefore don’t need more than yoghurt and müsli. But even this was far below my expectations, and cannot be rated more than below average. Anything else did not look appealing enough to me to try it. The coffee I got served was coming from the same vending machine I took it myself earlier, tasted burned and was not worth it. Unfortunately I didn’t try the à la carte breakfast menu to review this too. The staff was nice and helpful.

Summary: The whole stay was not only a disappointment but also caused stress to us due to the overly hot room. The staff was trying to help but also felt helpless. Reading through earlier reviews the problem seems to be persistent and not solved due to lack of money, I assume. Giving the fact that the hotel owns ventilators to counter this issue (when I asked at the reception for a solution, I saw other guest picking up a pair of ventilators) just underlines the severity. The breakfast was maybe worth of a 3-star hotel, but even in such I have found better breakfast. At the checkout, I asked for a discount for the issues we had but all I got was a free transfer to my other hotel and a discount when I book the hotel again, which I am definitely not...