Crowne Plaza Milan - Linate by IHG — Hotel in San Donato Milanese

All in all, a very disappointing experience. We called looking for help to understand the best way to come to the hotel from a nearby railway station, to see if they had a shuttle. After being put on hold and passed around for a half hour, we finally gave up with no helpful information or any kind of answer. Then, when we arrived at the railway station nearby after a very long day of traveling and delays, there were no taxis. We tried to call the local taxi service and raise a ride through a rideshare service, but nothing was available. As there was no shuttle, we called the hotel to see if they could help us arrange a taxi. They refused.

Then, we arrived. The woman at the front desk was extremely kind and polite and quick and helpful. Our room was spacious enough and slightly dirty. We were exhausted from a long day of traveling (half of it trying to figure out how to get to the hotel), so we just accepted it.

We asked for help arranging a taxi for the next morning as despite this being the "Linate" airport hotel, there is no shuttle service. They didn't want to schedule a taxi and asked us to arrange it in the morning. This worked out well enough, but the taxi ended up being 30 euro (it was Sunday); it was about a fifteen minute ride.

The wifi worked with a little work.

The bathroom was okay; the shower worked well but didn't look very nice. The bathroom toilet flush was broken and came off when used.

Having no other choice, we went to the hotel restaurant. This location is remote and not near anything - not even the airport. We were seated quickly. The man who seated us turned off the air conditioning even though we found it warm and asked for him to turn it back on. We had another woman who helped us, and she was very kind and helpful, as was the bartender.

We ordered picanha which seemed more like roast beef; it wasn't prepared as we are accustomed to but was fine. It came with chimichurri, which was good but odd. The bread selection was excellent. The house wine was fine. All in all, the hotel restaurant was a bit on the pricey side, as was expected. They do have less expensive (though not nearly as enticing) options at the hotel bar.

The bar and overall ambience was very nice.

We slept well enough, though the room above us decided to rearrange their furniture at 4:30am. Of course, this isn't the hotel's fault, but it was still irritating.

The next morning, we called to cancel our wake-up call. A person at the desk giving off Michele Girard vibes told us very curtly he would cancel the call, but he didn't and we were interrupted by the call anyway.

All in all, the place was fine. The price was actually good. This was not the experience we were expecting from a Crowne Plaza property, and I cannot recommend it overall.

I was expected a three or four star experience, but between the extremely poor (borderline rude) service getting to the hotel, no shuttle service to the airport, the dirty room and the broken/dirty bathroom, I can't in good conscience recommend this location. There are many other hotels in Milan I would recommend...

This hotel employs idiots and liars and makes you pay through the nose for the experience.

The room's air conditioner cannot seem to be turned off, even after a call to reception. You just have to set it to whatever temperature you think is best - in an analog dial with no numbers for temperatures.

The bathroom is entirely too small because half of it is taken up by a huge porcelain bidet (or a sink for children, it's not entirely clear how to use it). The water pressure in the showerhead is mediocre to poor. The doors to the bathrooms (in all the hotel rooms) don't actually lock. They don't even close very well, there's a small gap remaining between the doorframe and door.

The food has no variety and tastes terrible. There are no vegetables or fruit available, only cheeses and meats (well, there are some semi-rotten apples available, and canned peaches and pineapple). The main course is (always) scrambled eggs so raw they might hatch if you sit on them, and pork sausages that just taste inexplicably bad.

There are 5 or 6 elevators, I'm not sure exactly because half of them are always out of order and they're very, VERY slow. There's also a silly 5-person limit which caused congestion in the lobby as more people arrived waiting for the elevators than the amount of people who actually got into them.

There's no free WiFi, which is already bad, but what makes it terrible is that even if you pay for it (and it's not cheap) - the connection is jittery and slow. As a bonus, they had a "special offer" for 72 hours of WiFi for the price of 1.5 days. The man at the reception repeatedly and thoroughly explained to me that this means 72 hours of actual usage and can last a week or a month if I log out every time and conserve my hours well.

However, after 72 hours (out of which only 12 were actually used, as their statistics page showed) the account expired and the kind lady at the reception denied knowledge of who that other guy was or what he explained to me and said that's how the special 3-day offer I purchased works - not actual usage, just flat 72 hours. No refund, no more internet (unless I pay for more, of course).

The hotel itself is located inconveniently in a place that forces you to either walk 15 minutes to the nearest metro station or walk 5 minutes to take a bus to it.

The beds and room service were excellent. Other than the WiFi scam, the people at the reception were very friendly and helpful.

For this price, you should definitely go...

The only saving grace with this property is that it provided a dry roof over my head, a decent espresso at breakfast and a smile from the breakfast staff.

Worst aspect was the room smell - as I entered it was like that of a dead rodent - completely different to that of the hall/corridor immediately outside the room. I was even more disappointed to experience this at the end of a long, tiring day having been informed at check in that my colleague and I were being 'upgraded' from our company's standard rooms. After telephoning reception to request a 'downgrade' to our usual rooms, I was informed the hotel was fully booked; probably due to the corporate event of another company taking place during our stay.

My colleague and I had separate rooms on the 16th floor - my colleagues room smelt somewhat better than mine, but still definitely not the freshest. With its mezzanine-located bed and bathroom arrangement, I most definitely DID NOT consider my room to be an upgrade. primarily because it took even more precious time of my short stay to navigate between suitcase and sleeping areas - the in-room stairs being too narrow to haul a large suitcase up and down - never mind there was little room beside the bed to place such luggage. Further insult was the poky-small bathroom size.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the air con was noisy and the window blinds let in light at night around the edges. In contrast, the secondary (sun?) blind was broken and impossible to raise (for more light) when I first arrived in the room.

The corporate video I couldn't help but watch when turning the TV on spoke of the attention to detail that Crowne Plaza takes pride in seeing to. That really did get my blood pressure up.

Overall I am completely unimpressed with this hotel: the final kick in the teeth was the curtness of the barman on presenting our complimentary drinks vouchers, followed soon after by the depressing songs being sung by the (otherwise talented) singer/pianist.

In its current condition (16th floor 'upgrade rooms' especially) and apparent disrespect for their own values regarding attention to details as expressed in the in-room TV advert - I cannot recommend staying...