De Gulde Schoen — Hotel in Antwerp

The hotel is beautiful. It is wonderfully furnished with lovely, quality fittings, and a fantastic use of color and patterns. Unfortunately the charm stops there. There is no interest in the client, no little extras to keep someone who is paying a premium room rate happy. During our extended stay, we were mainly nodded at when entering and leaving the building by the receptionist, who was often sitting off to the side. ||||The room was clean and cleaned daily, but there was no turndown service, which I definitely expect at that price. The white rug was stained in both rooms. It looked sloppy and uncared for.||||We had breakfast once, but service was extremely slow and we felt we would be better served elsewhere in the morning, when we often had appointments and were raring to go. That meal was extremely copious, but it seemed like the kitchen just threw together everything they had and presently it.||||Mostly out in the evening, it was only once when we had the possibility to try the bar. We had had an early 'dry' dinner and figured we would get a nightcap at the hotel. It was 21:50. The barman told us they closed at ten. 'No problem' we replied. We'll sit here until then and take our drinks up to the room. Well, long story short, he had already closed his register and wanted us to wait until his colleague arrived at the end of his shift. I tell you, no customer care. Needless to say, we didn't get our drink.||||Upon check-out, there was an error on the bill. It took a while to sort out because the receptionist was dealing with another couple. It would have taken 15 seconds to explain the situation so we could leave, but no. I understand he had other customers, but a true professional would have realized that we had time imperatives and given us a solution. (May I call you when I have finished?)||||Last part of this review, just because I realize there is nothing they can do about the street noise, is that we were not forewarned about it. Unfortunately you can hear the partying until and then the garbage truck...

This place is no longer a hotel! It has been transformed into an airbnb-style managed place but still claims itself as a professional hotel with a front desk on many booking sites. If you try to call the number they provide during the "welcome email", it is no longer active, and they do not respond to their email address, at least not within the duration of a several day stay.

When we arrived, the hotel had "for rent" signs on the front window and looked completely abandoned. We ran into one guest who was staying here through airbnb and showed us how to enter, via a small side door. We then had to do the same for an older couple who were outside the following evening bewildered. They didn't even have a room number and had to go around to each room trying their access code since that is all that you are provided 48hrs before your stay, without clear instructions of what to do with it.

The room itself, at first glance, was as beautiful as the photos showed, because it used to be a luxury hotel. However, they have not been well-maintained since the transition and are starting to lose some of their grandeur. Our room was incredibly dusty, the toilet leaked on the floor when it was flushed, one of the windows had been repaired with tape, and the heat/AC unit did not work. It seems like even when it does work, you are "restricted" in what you can set - nearly every button we clicked led to this - and whichever mode we tried to turn on, the unit would go on for a few minutes, make a lot of noise, blow zero air and then turn itself off. Despite it being several beautiful summer days and evenings in Antwerp - highs of 23C, lows of 10C - our room was unbearably hot at night to sleep. We had one window that could open and even with this, the room temperature only lowered by 1 C.

Overall, the only positive about this place was its location. But at the prices they charge, if you were specifically looking for a real hotel like we were, (in order to avoid just these sorts of problems!), you will be sorely...

I’m very confused about this hotel and our stay there. We chose this hotel because we saw it form the outside as we were walking through the city, and we thought it was very pretty and special. We went online to checkout the rooms and all the details and we still thought it was super pretty and special; that’s why we decided to book it. So first of all, it was super very expensive, but since it was only one night we decided we wouldn’t mind paying this high rate. When my fiancé and I got there we were immediately confused: even though it was nice and pretty, it wasn’t enough, not enough for what we payed. As of they tried very hard to be very fancy, but its fanciness felt off and forced. The room was super big, and I guess also comfortable but I found the entire decoration to be not of good taste. Breakfast was also very puzzling; the restaurant was barely a restaurant, small and empty. The food was good but I had to order it to the lady from front desk. I don’t know if I’m making any sense with this review, all I can say is that all the while, we found ourselves feeling like we had overpaid for what we were getting. And that we never understood why it was so expensive if it wasn’t even that top service, top installations, top food, top everything. I would never recommend paying their prices, I think it is not worth it, I would...