I stayed one night on points and received an upgrade to King One Bed Suite.

The property is on the New Belgrade / Novi Beograd side of the Sava river. In keeping with the CP brand, the location may better suit business travellers, but even for tourists public transport to the old city is very convenient, except during the afternoon rush hour – further details below.

The hotel has a varied history as described in its Wikipedia article. The back of the building connects to the Sava Centar, a conference centre which also hosts a LIDL and a dm (the German drug-mart). When coming from the mall you must buzz security to enter the hotel.

My first impression of the ground floor lobby was an unpleasant smell of cigarettes, a feature of Serbia which permits indoor smoking at bars and restaurants. The smell permeated to the lifts.

I received welcome points before arriving at the hotel, but the check-in agent still gave me a choice of points or drink, and was made to feel like they were doing me a big favour by granting diamond breakfast. I was also handed a tiny ‘welcome chocolate’.

The hotel is a long thin building with the suites at the ends of the corridors, necessitating a long walk from the lifts past all other rooms. The key card is like a bank card with a chip, and you insert it into a slot on the wall instead of on the door. The chip is required to activate electricity in the room. I received no further gifts in the room and oddly, the (paid) mini bar was locked.

The suite is large and airy, with openable windows. When I stayed in late April, there was a cold snap in the Balkans, and the heating was insufficient during the night/early morning. I expect the air con would be adequate for summer heat though.

The handheld shower head had very poor water pressure and the water temperature would not stay constant, but the rain shower worked perfectly. Toilet paper was very poor quality. Wifi was a bit patchy in the furthest corners. There are standard Europe C sockets and one UK socket by the desk.

Breakfast had a good range of quality food including Balkan specialities, but zero service. A staff member was stationed at a podium some distance from the entrance, writing room numbers down on a blank piece of paper, then just pointed into the seating area and left you to your own devices. I didn’t see her move for the entire hour I ate. Servers wandered about not doing much, and only cleared plates after people had departed the restaurant.

Bus 72 runs between BEG airport and the stop ‘6 Kaplara’, about 800m away, slightly less than half-hourly. Buses 27E and 35 run to the old town in about 5 minutes, at a high frequency from early to late. The outbound stop is 200m away from the hotel, but coming back they stop right outside the hotel entrance.

Between ~1630-1830 (probably on weekdays only), there is extreme traffic congestion leading up to Branko’s bridge in the direction of the old city, so walking the 2.5km may even beat the bus. Alternatively Old Sava Bridge seems less congested and this is traversed by trams 7 or 9 towards Sava Square / Slavija (stop is 500m walk from hotel). Google maps is accurate and even has live tracking for some buses. Except during the rush hour, all buses I took ran to the times shown by Google.

In comparison with the Indigo Belgrade, the staff here were less casual and more clinical, which is to be expected at a CP. In general their level of English was textbook-like, while the Indigo staff spoke English more naturally.

I paid 31k points instead of €150, which is a reasonable price for western Europe, but I thought Serbia would be cheaper like other Balkan countries are. The price rose to nearly €200 a few weeks before my stay and then the rooms sold out, but there were never that many guests around which may be because of the large size of the building or some other factor. IHG paid the hotel €114 equivalent in RSD for my redemption. I would be happy to stay at this price if business takes me here again.


view of hotel at 5.20am waiting for the first bus 27E to old city


back entrance from Sava Centar

back entrance







view of Sava Centar from window



view of rush hour traffic towards old city across Branko's bridge, from Nesvrstanih Zemalja Obelisk - Crowne Plaza building in distance (can't really see in photo)

view of hotel in distance