Adam1222

A bit perturbed to see a note on my reservation for an upcoming stay that the Sonoma restaurant will be closed on the days of my stay (and indeed half of December) due to Christmas, and suggesting visiting the bar instead which will be serving "the No.4 Food Menu and some additional specials." Has anyone experienced this? I assume the bar does not serve breakfast, and also fear this means the lounge will be closed.

Adam1222

As a follow-up, finally heard back from the hotel today and the main restaurant will be open for breakfast, just closed for dinner.

est-gratuite

Stayed here recently in the post virus era.

Breakfast is served in the ground floor restaurant. There is a buffet, but you can only look at it, not touch it.
A member of staff puts everything you want onto a tray which you take to your table.

The lounge is OPEN, but only in the evening for 2 hours from 6pm to 8pm to serve some warm evening food and alcohol.
The food is brought to your table, and drinks you can get yourself.
Guests with lounge access must take breakfast in the restaurant.

Windows DO open at this property for fresh air.
Views are somewhat nicer if your room is facing the river.
There are 12 floors.
My room had a walk-in shower.

Belfast city centre is a 5 to 10 minute walk away from this hotel.
Many shops and restaurants close early in this city, so check closing times before you head out.

This hotel is VERY close to "Lanyon Place" train station (formerly called "Belfast central" train station) .
This is where trains leave that go south to Dublin and other cities and towns in the the Republic of Ireland.
The journey from Belfast to Dublin takes about 2 hours.

Belfast CITY airport is a 5 to 7 minute drive away by taxi. The international airport is much futher away.
There is a train connection to the CITY airport, but I believe it's not direct, requiring 1 change.

db7

Train to CITY airport is direct but leaves you at the old airport entrance. You then need to use the courtesy phone to get the free minibus to take you to the terminal. Also the access from the station (Sydenham) requires you to use a footbridge with no lifts or elevators.

corporate-wage-slave

I had a one night stay here a few days ago. At the time of writing, Northern Ireland had tighter restrictions that the rest of the UK, these have been reduced somewhat today, including one restricting hospitality to groups less than 6 people. But bar service is still not allowed and so all food and drink must be served by the venue at the table.

But despite that, the ground floor lounge is open for drinks and snacks until 20:00 hrs, and that includes branded alcohol, albeit at the mass market end. So there is red and white wine, lager, Guinness, whiskey, gin, vodka, sofr drinks and mixers, water, tea and coffee. Hot snacks include sausage rolls, vegetable samosas and also cheese. The lounge staff bring the drinks and food to your table, given the restrictions. This also applies to the hotel's main bar / restaurant.



For breakfast it was somewhat different - the cold items where on a buffet in the usual way, albeit the range of items greatly reduced. But still there was a good range of cereals, yoghurts, bread, toast, viennoiseries, and a few salad items. The hot items are served and plated behind a perspex protected area. Self service tea, coffee and juice. This is what I went for, there were a number of other items and they would have filled up the plate more had I not stopped them. You book a 30 minute breakfast slot at check-in. This room overlooks the Harland & Wolff shipyard and has a Titanic theme tot he restuarant.





The hotel was fairly busy due an UEFA event in Northern Ireland. I was given a one step upgrade to deluxe king (so a higher floor room with a view over the city) on the morning of check-in. I didn't seek anything more than that. The digital key worked fine.

TheWiseOne

Just finished at stay here. Have to say I have mixed feelings about the place, although this may be owing to my previous experiences (where I may have been lucky) and this one.

1) Arrived and told there was no upgrade as UEFA where in town. This I did expect and was fine with.

2) Lounge was only open for the evening and was table service. Personally, I felt like this was penny pinching on their part as I saw no real reason for the reduced hours and the table service was pretty slow. Additionally, for the nibbles I was with my partner and they put only one of each dish out i.e. one small satay skewer each, one samosa each and one plate of ham/cheese/bread each.

3) No maid service. Not sure if I had to request this but I found this apart of the pattern. No mention of requesting this at check in.

4) Breakfast options seemed reduced. Only discovered eggs could be ordered after talking to the chef serving the hot buffet. No menus on tables like usual. I felt like he told me more as a favour rather than it was a option to everyone.

5) No late check out, not even 30 mins. UEFA had cleared out by this point.

That said, all the staff where very polite.

tangey

Stayed a few weeks ago, and also around november last year. The lounge is a souless place, and the food options that are served only once per person are just tiny. I mean 4 or 5 bites and you are done. As I recall they didn't have any nibbles either.

I found breakfast both times to be absolutely fine, in terms of how it was delivered and the options available.

As I recall there was a notice in the room indicating serivce was on request, which seems normal everywhere. Didn't matter to use as both times we were only staying 1 night.

Hotel is quick to respond to the in-app messaging, I asked about lounge operation and parking the day before we arrived and got the details within minutes.

Like any highrise hotel doing distancing, the lifts can be a real pain. These are such that only 2 couples could get in any one lift. Here is a hint for such occasions. Always try to get a room on the top floor. By default when it arrives it'll either be empty or whoever is in it will get out, leaving it empty. Works out paticularly well at breakfast, when trying to get a usable lift can otherwise be a total nightmare.

S_W_S

Has the lounge moved from the top floor? I stayed a few years ago and can remember having a nice breakfast looking out over Belfast.
Staying here for 2 nights next week (making use of the BACF LBA service before it stops), so thank you all for providing up to date info, it's most appreciated!

corporate-wage-slave

It was on the 11th floor, so penultimate, but it moved to the ground floor by reception a year or two back. The lounge is only open in the evening at the moment, and since the new lounge locattion has no external windows, breakfast was then best taken in the newly refitted main restaurant. Which curiously doesn't have a brand name, when there must be a dock full of maritime options.

tangey

Although the lounge was indeed closed except for the evening stint, there is a coffee machine in the foyer. We were told we could use it freely. I wasn't sure if that was as diamond (in lieu of daytime refreshments in the exec lounge) or that its just free for use to everyone, but I got the impression it was open to all.

And as an off-topic, the BT building that is to 50 metres to your immediate left when you exit the hotel was the set for the entrance/staircase scenes for AC-12's headquarters in Line Of Duty, which you'll clearly recognise when you look thru the glass doors.

S_W_S

Just completed a two night stay here, overall fairly happy, but the lounge on the Saturday night let it down a bit.

Upgraded at check in from a base room to an exec room without prompting, nice room on the 11th floor with good views.




The lounge was a bit of a mixed bag, on Friday night I couldn't fault the service, top ups were never far away, and more snacks were even offered a few times.
On Saturday though it was the polar opposite, it was alot busier (to the extent that they were seating guests in the lobby outside) so service suffered, I can't blame that on the staff though as they were doing what they could. But a polite request towards 8pm for some more snacks was met with a rather terse reply of "NO IT'S ONE PER TABLE", I asked if I could at least have some extra crisps I'd asked for some 20 minutes earlier and these were duly brought. Though moments later I saw extra snacks being given to people who hadn't even asked for them as it was now 8pm, I really didn't understand that logic, but didn't fancy questioning it after the terse response earlier.

It's also a shame the lounge has moved, the previous location was much better!

Incidentally is there a specific reason why the lounge has to be table service when the breakfast is buffet? The serving area is laid out perfectly to allow a simple one way system to get drinks and snacks.

Photos of the lounge snacks over two nights below.




I ate both dinner and breakfast in the restaurant, I can't fault either, but as noted previously time slots must still be booked at reception for breakfast. When I initially checked in I wasn't sure if I would have time for breakfast on the second day, so she gave me a grab and go order form as she didn't want me to miss out!

The concierge (first one I've seen post Covid!) pre-booked me a taxi for 07:30 this morning to go to City Airport which was most appreciated.

Overall a good stay, but the lounge on the second night left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth! I would definitely return again in the future though.

Hawkbat

Just come back from a two night stay. Wasn't expecting much since the hotel was fully booked but on arrival was told I'd been upgraded from a King Guest to a corner King Suite. Had great views of the river. The person at check in was super friendly and was checking if I needed any info on tours, maps etc.

Went to the lounge both nights and was pretty quiet both nights. First night snacks were meat and cheese platter, little puff pastry sausage roll type thing and a sort of chicken pakora. Next next was pork bely and samoasas. On the second night I met a lovely couple from Glasgow and we ended up chatting for about two hours, apologies to the rest of the lounge inhabitnats (although there was only about 4 of those). 10 minutes before closing the watiress bought over 2 beers and well as two double vodka and cokes for the other couple so no stinginess on that part. They also mentioned they'd been upgraded as a gold.

Breakfast as has been said was fine, and I was quite pleased by the additon of fried slices as a breakfast offering.

All in all was very pleased and think some other UK hiltons I've been too could take a leaf out of this one's book on how to treat HHonhours customers. It was my first time in Belfast and am keen to go back and see more of the city and stay here again. It's very centrally located as well.

wizla

Room 617?…… looks like the room I had when in stayed a few years back.
Thanks for the trip report, I enjoyed reading this.

Hawkbat

Very close, 517!

sigma421

Had a bit of a disaster here last weekend. Checked into the room no problem but was woken about 5:30am by another guest trying to get into it!

Eventually discovered my card was no longer working so went down to reception. There I was told we’d been marked as a no show so our room had been reallocated. Eventually got reinstated but on a new reservation. After a bit of moaning got comped a bottle of house wine with dinner. No real apology made for what was, in retrospect, a pretty big lapse.

Despite asking at check out, we only got credited one night as they’d set up a new booking (we booked abs stayed for two). The bigger issue though is that they managed to charge us the no show fee on the original booking! Called and got this refunded and was promised follow-up from the front desk manager which never transpired.

It’s a shame, I like the hotel but I’m disappointed that this happened and that it doesn’t seem to have been taken very seriously in the follow-up.