Crowne Plaza Antwerp

What is your Priority Club status?

Diamond Ambassador

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?

It was a bit meh.


Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?

Booked 2 Queen beds standard, got 2 Queen beds "superior" (as per reception) / "standard minifridge" (as per website). I didn't bother asking about a suite upgrade (or even an upgrade to the slightly bigger rooms on the northern face of the building).
Was offered choice of Breakfast or Points, and proactively got a 2pm checkout
The minifridge was there, but didn't work.
The room description (and the TV hotel directory) mentioned bottles of still & sparkling water in the fridge, but there were none. Instead, there were glass bottles that you could fill from a water dispenser (filtered tap water) in the lift lobby. I don't mind that in general, it's invironmentally sound and the water tasted fine, but the "sparkling" option on the dispenser didn't work, and if you publish a room feature, it should actually be available.
Modern TV, lots of channels including BBC, no Chromecast.
Very fast wifi.
No welcome gift, fruit, or welcome message of any kind.

How are the rooms?

Small. The "superior" rooms seem to have been renovated recently. They just about fit the beds (the 1 Queen bed have a little sofa chair as well), a desk along the wall, a small cabinet with the fridge, and a small wardrobe/bag stand area. The bathrooms are of decent size though, and feature a nice walk-in shower w/ rain shower head.
The aircon was on full (max cold & full blast) when we arrived. The controls didn't work, and someone came up from reception to check it out. She removed the control panel and had a look at the wires connecting it to the wall, and just at the point where I was fully expecting her to pull out some pliers and cutr the green wire, she just took the whole thing off the wall. That did stop the aircon (and the fan). It also meant that we'd have to rely on openingg the window, which was OK temperature-wise (a mild early summer's night in Antwerp), but got the Freeway noise in, and would not be a feasible option on cold or very hot nights.

How is the exec. lounge?

N/A

What was good and what was bad?

Good:
Location was near where I needed to be, and the hotel can easily be reached from the motorway.
Ample parking (€ 17/day).
Rooms were clean.
Fast and free wifi.
Good breakfast, if you don't mind overbaked bread rolls (how can you ruin frozen bread rolls?! even your average HIX manages to competenly de-frost them).
Nice fitness centre, and the pool looks great. It's closed for renovations, but that will probably remove some of the criticism the hotel tends to attract (wear and tear in the pool area)

Bad:

Maintenance (aircon).
Poor status recognition.
If you don't have business nearby, the location is in the middle of nowhere


Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?

Rates were good for my stay, but if I didn't have to be in that area of Anwerp, I'd probably chose somewhere else unless the price difference was ginormous. The new HIX in the City centre (oprning mid-June) looks promising, and the rooms can't be much smaller than here. The Indigo gets good reviews and it's locataion means it's great if you arrive by train, but it tends to be more expensive.