Crowne Plaza Utrecht Central Station
What is your Priority Club status?
Platinum + Ambassador
Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
My sister was alright with it, I was slightly displeased.
Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Twin Beds Standard, received likewise. There's nothing to upgrade to anyway - the hotel only has standard twin beds (which I needed), and probably a few rooms which are "premium" (but come with king beds).
How are the rooms?
Small. 25sqm. Feels like a standard HIX layout.
Quite liked the bathroom, which my sister agreed. Shower area (no bath, thankfully) came with the
Hansgrohe shower/rainshower setup very similar to the one I used at citizenM Zurich. Great lighting and space was quite well used. Toiletries used here were Rituals' The Ritual of Karma range, which is a definite nod to the hotel's Dutch origins.
Rooms are on the 7th, 8th and 9th floor. Reception (and everything else) is on the 3rd floor. Entrance is at the ground floor, from the Hoog Catherijne mall, beside Comptoir Libanais. Hampton by Hilton's entrance is directly a floor above, and I presume they took the 4th to 6th floors.
How is the exec. lounge?
No exec lounges in this hotel. This hotel is already struggling to fit whatever it needs for a Crowne Plaza, considering it sits inside the Hoog Catherijne mall, and shares the same vertical space with the Hampton by Hilton.
What was good and what was bad?
Good
Location: very, very central. It's inside Hoog Catherijne, which is one of the (probably
the?) largest malls in the Netherlands. And it's in a good spot for exploring Holland - Utrecht Centraal is less than five minutes walk away, and Utrecht Centraal in itself as the busiest NS hub (even more so than Amsterdam Centraal) means it's really near and fast to both Rotterdam, Amsterdam by train, and to destinations further such as the Ruhr valley and on the OBB NightJet.
Rooms were very new; bathroom is very well-arranged (imho) for a small room. I appreciate the usage of Rituals toiletries over something more bog-standard.
Neutral
I didn't get the bad smell people were warning in reviews about in the lifts.
Bad
There are a few things I wasn't much too pleased with the hotel about. Minor quibbles, but I think overall it adds to an experience that "this money could have gone elsewhere".
1) Out of two lifts, only one was working, so it was a bit of a pain to get in and out of the hotel. Every single time we went out or into the hotel, even at midnight, it'll be full. Some people on the seventh floor couldn't get to reception to check out until the lift took two more trips.
2) Housekeeping seems to have been "making the bed, changing the towels and adding more toilet rolls", and nothing else. I was kinda amused that they didn't bother replenishing water.
3) No recognition of IHG status at all. Wasn't even offered welcome points, and I realised it because the HIX at Wuppertal (where we are staying for the night now) did. However I do suspect the room they gave us on the 9th floor was an automatic nod to this by way of the system.
4) The "twin" beds seem particularly small, like a bit smaller than single. I'm quite sure they're single because the HIX here is, and the twin beds at the Crowne Plaza feels even a bit narrower than the HIX. I didn't really seem to sleep particularly comfortably with their pillows (which seemed to be of odd height each that no position or stacking seemed to make them comfortable) - this complaint was echoed by my sister.
5) The lighting in the room. Why is half the room nearer to the bed head covered in some sort of darkness?
Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
Maybe, under certain circumstances. I paid 380 EUR for two nights. I don't really think it's worth it, unless you really need to be in 1) central Utrecht (for example, if I needed to be around TivoliVredenburg where I might have 3(!) concerts to go in November), and 2) if the Hampton by Hilton upstairs is also pricey - however, usually both price out around 120 EUR (CP) and 110 EUR (Hampton) on dummy dates sooooo.
Personally I think I would stick with the citizenM in Amsterdam (particularly citizenM Amsterdam South, my usual choice), which can be had for the same or even less.