Martin's Klooster Hotel — Hotel in Leuven

The employees of this hotel (and really most Flemish businesses of this region) need to learn about something called hospitality. A hotel is more than a building, it should include some warmth and inviting atmosphere for guests. Not here.||From the moment we arrived, I could tell that guest experience was not on the priority list. Check in was at 3, and it was 2:15 when we arrived. We’d just come from the US, 4,000 miles and over 20 hrs of travel, and we were told that check in was not for another 45 min. You have got to be kidding me. Then we arrived in the room, and it smelled so strongly of vinegar that we had to open the door to get rid of the smell. I noticed the mattress was sagging a lot, so I took off the sheet to find not a mattress but a giant cushion only about 6-7 inches thick. The ‘nicest hotel in Leuven’ can’t afford a proper mattress? To make it worse, it wasn’t a king as promised, rather it was 2 twins pushed together! My husband is 6’5”, and we came for his work trip together and to enjoy a nice get away, so this was disappointing and concerning that someone finds two twin beds pushed together appropriate. ||The front desk remained cold and unfriendly and acted as though they were doing us a favor letting us stay there. There is one man who appears to be a manager who is okay, but there is also one woman who I routinely tried to avoid due to her poor attitude.||It has been cold, cloudy, and rainy this week, so it would have been nice to have access to hot water to make tea or another hot beverage. Well, no such luck here unless you use the nespresso machine. But the cups are meant for small European cups of espresso, not a mug of tea or hot chocolate.. So I had to go out to get something hot to drink which somewhat defeats the purpose when you’re trying to warm up. ||And that leads me to the people in this area: rude and prejudiced. In all of my travels to France, Italy, and working in Singapore, I have never encountered the level of bs that I encountered here. Flemish hate the French. They also hate speaking French and will avoid it (or the French speaker.) Absolutely nothing in this area is in English or French. You may as well be in The Netherlands. Restaurant menus, street signs, and people don’t want to see or hear French, and they’ll begrudgingly speak English only when they realize there is no other way to communicate with you. As a fluent speaker of French and Italian, I thought this was petty and ridiculous, that is until it affected me personally at the Leuven train station where I was shouted at by an employee for not understanding Dutch. There is literally no sign or any words at all in English or French, so you’re on your own trying to figure out.||We wanted to enjoy our time in Belgium, so we ultimately decided to check out 2 days early and stay in Brussels because of the aforementioned issues with the hotel and because of feeling isolated and discriminated against for not being Flemish.||If you are not Flemish or at least fluent in Dutch, don’t bother coming to this hotel or this area. It is very clear that you are not wanted, and this hotel will not have your back. The phones in the room don’t even call the front desk when you need something. I had to go downstairs limping several times to request ice for my newly sprained foot (the sidewalks are uneven, and it rained all day.)||An overall bad experience in this hotel and in this town. Will never come back. I talked to another American hotel guest (seemingly the only other American guest) who felt...

A budget hotel pretending to be something it is not. All the pictures on Booking . com and google show some really nice old building in a good setting. That building is not even part of the hotel but just nearby. Martins Kloster is a poorly decorated modern style hotel full of cheap furniture and rude staff. There is a tiny part of the hotel that has nice old rooms which prompted me to book a room. On arrival I was told that none of these were available. The guy said "next time you come here, make a special request in advance for an old room".

No problem, I will remember that when I am back in Leuven in another 30 years.

So I was given keys for a tiny room that was very ugly and nothing like the pictures I was shown at all. The ugly carpet in the hallways must have been selected by an interior designer from the 1960's. The room was 180 euro a night and was worse than a budget hotel. The hotel offers no amenities - there is no gym/sauna etc. I have no idea why it is classed as a 4 star hotel. Breakfast is a rip off at 30 euro so we went to a cafe nearby. The parking is also very expensive.

Overall this place is a massive overpriced budget hotel living off the beautiful building next door with rude staff.

While the location is good, there is actually an Ibis 100m away, also close to the centre. Stay there for...

This is a very nice hotel. Located in a historic building. The staff were friendly, and we really rated the evening bar - sitting in the garden on a hot day after nightfall was wonderful But, we were in room 201. The problem here was the hot water. It didn't arrive for the shower or bath on day one (despite quarter filling the bath). A hotel handyman came the second day and said that we needed to run the water for at least 10 minutes to get hot water (I think because room 201 was a long way from the boiler). I think this is totally unacceptable for a 4 star hotel, and at the very least we could have been warned about this before hand. But for what they charge they need to fix the problem. The shower also didn't have a screen so was difficult to use when we finally managed to get hot water. In all other respects I'd recommend the hotel. But if you go, check that the hot water is running...