We booked this hotel because we had one night in Brussels, travelling on the Eurostar, and
things more central were about 6x the price. Figured it was worth a shot and I'm really glad we did! This is one where I wish it were on a scale of 10-- this is a solidly 7/10 or 3.5 stars, which obviously isn't an option here.
We arrived about 2:30 and checked in at a quiet front desk, got to our room and were pretty disappointed. It was a disabled access shower (the kind where the whole bathroom gets wet when you shower), which was annoying but not a dealbreaker. The non-smoking room smelled like someone had smoked and cleaned, again not quite a dealbreaker. And the wifi, which worked perfectly in the corridor, didn't work in the room at all. Third strike and I headed back downstairs to request a new room.
It was chaos, a big group of guys was checking in, as were several other families. Not a queue, just a hoard of people trying to get to the desk. We could see it would be a long wait, so my husband went up to the room to phone to see if that was faster, while I waited. I could hear the other side of the conversation, where the desk agent said there were no more rooms, they were busy, and he'd sort it out "in 20-30 minutes" (but didn't take any notes of which room was calling, so that was a fake promise). I moved towards the other desk agent and eventually was helped by the woman who had checked us in. I asked to switch rooms, and she was friendly and helpful and switched us immediately, so no idea what the other guy's problem was!
New room had a normal shower, strong wifi and didn't smell like smoke. The bed is comfortable, and the room was clean. Decent blackout curtains, and a surprising amount of room for luggage. It's definitely basic (one kind of multi-use product for hand/body soap and shampoo, no tissues), but at that price what are you expecting? The A/C had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the heatwave outside-- it wasn't hot, but it wasn't cold, either.
It's right across the street from the Eurostar station. It's about a 25 minute walk to Central, which is where most tourists would spend their time, I suspect. Sablon, a neighbourhood which looks like it is between Central and Gare Midi on maps, actually also takes about 20-25 minutes to walk to, just because it is up and down a massive hill.
For the money, I thought this was an excellent value, as it was 1/2 to 1/3 of hotels in Central. Other than the slight hiccup with the initial room, we were happy with the hotel and will consider staying again (although I will also investigate the two Ibis hotels that are a bit more centrally located as well, and if pricing is similar, will give one a shot) read more