easyHotel Basel — Hotel in Basel

Easy Hotel (Basel).

No elevator. Room 13 (street-side). Typical traffic & people noise but all quickly subsided at a reasonable hour & didn’t start-up again until a reasonable time. Cute balcony-two chairs and a table.

Location. The Google map location is correct. From the direction I approached, the tree foliage hid the sign (won’t be an issue in winter!). The lobby entrance is shared with the restaurant entrance.

Check-in. I followed the directions - no issues. Note: If there are no blank key cards, use the provided phone to contact the staff (possibly someone located at the Hotel Alexander, a few meters down the street). Note 2: WiFi instructions posted all around the lobby.

Luggage storage: Worked well for me. Free lockers hold all but the largest bags.

Room: Clean (kudos to the staff!). A place to sleep & clean-up. A fan was provided in the room. The temperature and humidity were unpleasant, but the fan made the room bearable. Mid-summer, so I didn’t test the radiator. Small, all-in-one shower/sink/toilet. Hair dryer provided, as were a set of towels and liquid soap dispensers in the shower and at the sink.

Lights & power. Room lighting was passable (all fixtures worked). Two power sockets noted: one near the TV and one at the head of the bed (center of the headboard & co-located with a light switch). Both sockets worked.

BONUS: Area map & a transport pass provided.

Speaking of which (transportation): Bus 30 travels between the SSB & the Ban Banhofs. The hotel stop is a few meters away from the hotel, under the bridge (visible from the hotel entrance, looking left & across the street). Ban Banhof is walkable and nearly a straight line walk to the hotel.

Service. Every staff member I came in contact with was polite, professional, and helpful. Most were at the Hotel Alexander, mere meters away (exit EasyHotel, turn right, walk to the end of the block, Big facade, adjacent restaurant with outdoor seating. Yummy Ukrainian and Georgian food. Also the location of the breakfast buffet. Typical European fare: hard boiled eggs, sausages, veggies, cold cuts, cheeses, bread, cereals, and assorted toppings...

The room was fine and as expected but the system to check in did not work and the wifi did not work properly.

The check in procedure requires you to self-check in at a kiosk and everything went fine until the end when it said "Printing out your room number, please take it with you" and the machine did not, in fact, print anything out. Nor did it display my room number on the screen or give any indication whatsoever of which room was mine. After this point, there was no way to look at my reservation in the system or get ahold of anyone. I had to try my key on every room until I got to the door that opened. By some miraculous stroke of luck, my key worked on the 3rd room I tried. But had I been on the 5th floor, I would have had to try this on probably 50 rooms. I sent them an email from their in-room tablet to alert them to this and I am still waiting for a response 2 weeks later.

The in-room tablet contains the password for the wifi. Too bad there are 2 conflicting logins. I also sent them a message from the in-room tablet regarding this and I am still waiting for a response 2 weeks later.

And once you finally do get logged in to the wifi, there's something wrong with it where certain functions do not work, like they have some things blocked for some reason. I could not use wifi calling, I could not use Telegram for text messages, and I could not stream video or do video calls. I guess they are trying to save money on their bandwidth.

Oh, and when they say you can use the tablet to call them, well that doesn't work either. It just gets you a "The number you have dialed has been disconnected message".

I have previously stayed at contactless places that don't have any staff and I have enjoyed them. This one, however, needs to work on ensuring that their equipment functions so that you can successfully complete the check in process. I regret going cheap, I should have just paid the $50 extra to go to...

Just pay the extra 15 CHF and stay somewhere nice: arrived late at night and there's a check-in screen out on the street, so I thought it must be closed. It was cold, so gloves off I had to type in details, get out my passport to type in number, got charged a fee with no explanation (it didn't say tourist tax, and I thought room fully paid). Then it turned out hotel was open and someone on reception.

Room was freezing on arrival - it was February and all the radiators were turned off. The plastic cubicle style bathroom clearly gets insufficient ventilation and there was mould around shower and rest of it.

It was two single beds with no effort to make them stay together - like a topper or a clamp.

Positives: ok location, cheap, generally clean.

That said, I just wish I'd paid a bit more for one of the other budget chain hotels...