Empire Marquês Hotel — Hotel in Lisbon

My experience with this Empire Marquês Hotel was a bad one and was made worse by the actions and non actions of the management. My booking was canceled about an hour before I was due to check in, I was enroute. They said they made a mistake and double booked and they “provided me with a suitable substitute hotel that they already moved my reservations to”. First, I doubt this was a mistake at all and not a usual tactic to fill up this inferior hotel, and an hours notice for a reservation I made 3 months before. I chose the Empire Marques by location. The new hotel Empire Lisbon was in a much inferior area. While I had planned to be able to walk to my areas of interest, in the new location I could not. Thus having to spend time and money on transport I did not desire. I am a recent widow and traveling alone, something I am not accustomed to or comfortable about. I made all this clear to the hotel. Still they forced the move on me. They also did not do anything to mitigate my inconvenience. And since the hotel is now much further from the airport and I had to leave earlier, I could not even utilize the breakfast. No return of my money for the breakfast was entertained. I asked to speak to the manager of the Marques hotel but he/she would not take my call, call me back, or come to the front desk. Same experience with the manager of the Empire Lisbon Hotel. I believe there is only one manager for the 2 properties. This manager put the young desk staff to deal with a scared and crying customer. Never showing his/her face. The cowardly manager is the cherry on the top of this very poor example customer service. ||Within 15 minutes of arriving at the substitute hotel, I was involved in a violent incident 100 meters from the hotel when a security guard from the nextdoor grocery store forcibly removed a combative customer by pushing him into me. I was lucky to stay on my feet. ||So many things could have been done to improve this situation; none were. The hotel...

My experience with this Empire Marquês Hotel was a bad one and was made worse by the actions and non actions of the management. My booking was canceled about an hour before I was due to check in, I was enroute. They said they made a mistake and double booked and they “provided me with a suitable substitute hotel that they already moved my reservations to”. First, I doubt this was a mistake at all and not a usual tactic to fill up this inferior hotel, and an hours notice for a reservation I made 3 months before. I chose the Empire Marques by location. The new hotel Empire Lisbon was in a much inferior area. While I had planned to be able to walk to my areas of interest, in the new location I could not. Thus having to spend time and money on transport I did not desire. I am a recent widow and traveling alone, something I am not accustomed to or comfortable about. I made all this clear to the hotel. Still they forced the move on me. They also did not do anything to mitigate my inconvenience. And since the hotel is now much further from the airport and I had to leave earlier, I could not even utilize the breakfast. No return of my money for the breakfast was entertained. I asked to speak to the manager of the Marques hotel but he/she would not take my call, call me back, or come to the front desk. Same experience with the manager of the Empire Lisbon Hotel. I believe there is only one manager for the 2 properties. This manager put the young desk staff to deal with a scared and crying customer. Never showing his/her face. The cowardly manager is the cherry on the top of this very poor example customer service. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the substitute hotel, I was involved in a violent incident 100 meters from the hotel when a security guard from the nextdoor grocery store forcibly removed a combative customer by pushing him into me. I was lucky to stay on my feet. So many things could have been done to improve this situation; none were. The hotel...

Have just returned from 4 nights at this hotel, perhaps I should have read more reviews before we booked!

The good news is that the hotel is very neat and clean. The staff I engaged with spoke good English, were polite and helpful.

However.... The place completely lacks any 'soul'. It also lacks sufficient space in the bedrooms that I saw. The rooms are tiny, we were on a short break and had relatively small cases but there was nowhere to have the cases open without them on the bed. The wardrobe doors virtually wouldn't open with a person in front of them because the bed was so close. And despite there being a chair you couldn't sit in it in any other location than where it was positioned. It was clean and tidy and neatly serviced everyday though the complimentary water is only available for the first night, after that you have to purchase....

The bathroom was again, neat and clean but the location of the toilet roll holder makes it impossible to reach when you are carrying out that basic function! Plan ahead. Who on earth thought that was the best place to mount it? With no shelves for your wash bag and bits, it may tick the boxes for the rating but you wouldn't design your own home like it.

It also lacks a bar, even something very simple would be good for the odd time you wanted a cold one.

Breakfast was very formulaic, not uncommon but surely they could get better coffee?

I can't say it's a bad hotel because it ticks all the boxes. But I wouldn't go back.

There are some very good local restaurants within a couple of hundred meters so no worries there.

It's about 15 - 20 minutes walk down to the main shopping area. Probably about 5 -8 minutes to the local metro station and bus routes.

They do offer a good taxi booking service for pickup and dropoff at the airport. We used it both times. I think there was more room in the taxi than...