Originally Posted by
Stripe
This is the one in Somma Lombardo, right? I stayed there several times over the years but I'm pretty sure it was flagged as the Hilton Garden Inn Somma Lombardo, which if course is more accurate than Malpensa. I also recall they did operate a shuttle to the airport. Kind of silly to not do one now.
It was fine for a short day stay after arrival at MXP or prior to a flight the next day, but I wouldn't recommend it as a base for wider exploration of the area. These problems may have been corrected, but the wifi was consistently slow or inoperative, and the room temp was impossible to make comfortable. The breakfast was quite good.
There's a bit of confusion here.
The subject of this thread is a new hotel, opened yesterday, whose name is Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa. The hotel is completely new, after a total renovation of another hotel structure (previously known as Domina Inn Malpensa, but also as SHG Grand Hotel Milano Malpensa), of which essentially only the external walls have been preserved.
Incidentally there was in the past, and until 31 December 2022, another hotel called Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa approximately 300 meters south of the location of the current hotel. This "old" Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa, with 207 rooms, opened in 2008, after a rebranding of the previous Grand Hotel Malpensa and has had troubled periods in its history. In fact, it operated from 2008 to 2011 (left Honors on June 27th) before changing ownership. Subsequently, the franchising contract was re-proposed to the new ownership, returning to operate as Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa from April 5, 2013 to December 31, 2022, with the definitive rebranding into Dolce by Windham.
Having made these premises on the history of the "previous" hotel, it never had the name Hilton Garden Inn Somma Lombardo but always Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa, even if the locals confidentially called it "the Garden Inn of Somma Lombardo".
However, I find that the idea of continuing to call Hilton Garden Inn Milan Malpensa a completely new hotel, which ironically has also been repainted in red like the previous one (if you look at Google Maps which still shows the old Street View images the hotel was yellow before the recent renovation and repainting) is a bad marketing idea.
I am pretty sure this will generate many misunderstandings for a few years, especially because the two hotels are about 300 meters from each other.
Due to the location I have never considered, and will never consider, these hotels (both the old and the nearby new hotel) as airport hotels, because, as I have already written previously, there are many better options in the area, but at least in the old HGI there was a shuttle to MXP.
The only driver of choice could be the Hilton Honors membership with the related benefits. And in fact when I was there I used the hotel mainly as a base for excursions in the lake area or to go to sleep after a dinner at the lake without returning to Milan.
To conclude, I'm sorry to have to contradict you regarding the use of the hotel as a base for excursions in the area, you probably don't know those areas adequately, but that location is excellent for exploring Lake Maggiore, both the Piedmontese and Lombard sides, which you can reach in about 20 minutes. Furthermore you have easy access to the main highways, whether towards Milan, Turin, Varese, Como (and its lake) or Switzerland.