illesus

Upgrade was handled for me during checkin.

saaveraward

Saw this one coming... I must be in the twilight zone. Checked in and was told I had been upgraded to a king club. Told them I booked a king club and proceeded to pull out my confirmation from IHG dated in April. Was told I booked a superior in January.

I amend bookings all the time and my system is, if I make a change, I delete the old email on file and keep the most recent one. Whatever I travel with is the most recent document.

I certainly reserve the right to be wrong, but I'm not pulling a fast one on them and no way they did the ambassador upgrade 3+ months ago.

so I call ambassador desk and of course they have no knowledge of what I booked and have nothing on file with them sending me an email in April. Useless.

so the hotel offered an executive suite which wasn't ready, so I said fine, give me the club king... in the .01% chance I was wrong. Walked in and it must have been easily 32 degrees in there. Broiling. If you're facing east in the morning, you have no shot of opening your drapes. It's as if they forgot to glaze them.

so I went back and accepted the suite which is quite lovely and staff has been VERY nice.

still, I don't want to feel dirty like I'm trying to pull one over on them with the reservation.

anyone ever experience anything like that before?

saaveraward

And yes I can confirm you can order the omelette with black truffle for breakfast in the lounge!!

saaveraward

full review. Some a little redundant since I posted earlier, but this is a copy from the ambassador thread:

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
King club IC, executive suite..... more on this below

How are the rooms?
Well the hard product looks great, but then you actually have to use it. Case in point: The shower room floods in to the main bathroom without exception. So 3/4 of your towels end up on the floor. so not being careful you walk in to a wet spot in socks. You take out the hair dryer to dry it. Outlet in the bathroom doesn't work. You take it to another room and there's a short in the hair dryer so you have to hold it just so, like a 1970's TV antenna, to make it work.

The toilet has an automatic flush and no buttons like a public washroom. Except it decides when it wants to work and behave and when it doesn't. Without going in to too much detail, I developed a four-step procedure to make it flush. Do your business. Place the seat cover down. Sit on the toilet for 10 seconds. Get up. Walk away. I'm not even slightly joking.

Every time you turn on the TV, the surround sound in the bathroom kicks on. So if you mute the TV to take a call, better get up and go to the bathroom too or turn the TV off.

How is the exec. lounge?
Lounge is beautifully appointed. Hosts work extremely hard and are very friendly, but there's only one of them to service everyone. Food is HORRIBLE. It's a great menu they can't remotely execute. Things run out frequently and are slow to replace. Omelette with mushrooms and truffle sounds great. They take the poor eggs and cook it to a point where it's so overdone, I can't believe they serve it. Then the put shaved truffle on top and drown the whole thing in synthetic truffle oil. Scrambled eggs turned out the same. Speaking to some guests, eggs benedict were cold and steak & eggs produced some sort of top round hockey puck. In the evening risotto could be turned upside down and not move. Plenty of choices, none of them good.

What was good and what was bad?
- hard working staff, but not trained well... in fact I was giving out training tips, just what you want to do on holiday!
- early Ambassador check in
- Martin, great concierge
- spacious suite, but nothing labeled on power switches and many don't work.
- slowest elevators I've ever seen
- valet uses a car elevator. expect delays
- welcome amenity fruit, charcuterie and chocolate.... very nice, but had to ask for water refresh
- booked a King Club (since verified), they thought I booked a superior and had already upgraded me. An embarrassing conversation for me to try and prove otherwise, but still front desk very nice. At one point I declined the upgrade. Walked in to the King Club and it was 32+ degrees. Anything facing east broils. The poor people at check in and concierge have to stare at direct sunlight in the morning and it's very warm. Owners must have run out of money. They deserve hazard pay for this. So walked out of that and got the executive suite. Must have been 20+ hairs on the the duvet. Not 2.... 20. Asked the front desk manager to accompany me to the room to view for himself. He thinks housekeeping may have folded the duvet on the floor before placing it on the bed. ON THE FLOOR?
- 2 drink coupons on arrival. I went to the bar. I could have had 2 beers at 8.90 each. I asked if I could have 1 cocktail instead that costs 9.50. Impossible! Against the rules! I get it, but hospitality 101. Make the guest happy, and I'm saving you money as well. I mentioned this on checkout and surrendered the coupons. Instead of waving the charge on the bill, I was offered coffee in the lobby. Uh, I just came from a horrible breakfast in the lounge. Again, basic training takes care of this stuff. By the way, the roof bar had 25 customers (I counted) on a Saturday night with 1 bartender and 1 server.

Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
ehhhhh.... This hotel has the tools to be best in class. I love the staff, even though they probably weren't told how to operate a hotel. They've been open long enough, they should have gotten their act together by now. I give them an incomplete, which is being rather kind. I'm rooting for them, but they have a long way to go.

:D!

Interesting review. They seem to be quite fully booked for September, perhaps more than they were expecting.

The only room remaining was the Presidential Suite (€1600/night) but a standard room was also available on points... so I booked it, and then the presidential suite also disappeared from sale.

Obviously, I'm not expecting to get upgraded to that but I wonder how good their revenue management is and whether they will have a better room to upgrade me to

Based on the comments lounge doesn't seem worth paying more than ~€25 for

saaveraward

Keep an eye on this place. I booked on points originally when a standard room was 400 euro (see upthread), well I got a king club on my corporate rate for 160 months later. They're definitely playing games with revenue management.

yurtripper

I love Slovenia but no way was €400 for a standard room in Ljubljana ever going to be sustainable, so hardly surprising that prices have adjusted since the launch.

fransknorge

Well I have a hard time seeing the value proposition for this hotel. I will be a week-end in Ljulbljana this fall and the IC was 160 EUR cheapest room, while other 4 and 5 stars hotels were under 110 EUR. I booked the Best Western Plus for 80 EUR, 50% of what IC is demanding and review are more positive, specially in light of this thread.

saaveraward

Ruined omelette with mushroom and truffle

FlightNurse

Is the Best Western you staying in the old part of town, if so we stayed there and liked it, breakfast spread was huge and good.

fransknorge

FlightNurse

Sorry for hijacking this thread but we liked the BW large room and wonderful breakfast.

:D!

I ended up keeping my points reservation as I couldn't find any other hotel that would meet my requirements for less than €130, and I'm happy to spend 40000 points to not pay €130.

The location suited very well as we arrived by bus and departed by train. The old town is not far, but staying here meant less walking with our bags.

The lobby is rather small and while the front door is physically huge, it's a very small entrance as well. So it always felt crowded.

There was a DYKWIA occupying the sole front desk staff member, so had to wait about 5 minutes until the concierge appeared to check us in; maybe she was there all the time and we didn't notice each other because there is a huge pillar between the reception and the concierge desk. The DYKWIA was still there when I was done.

The upgrade was to a corner room facing north and east, good view of mountains and the train tracks. There was a sweet snack instead of fruits but I couldn't be bothered to make a fuss about it. For a new hotel, I noticed that all of the front doors of rooms near mine were chipped. There were many charging points including USB points (although one had been seemingly damaged by fire).

The layout of the room was a bit weird, the bed was between the TV and sofa, and along the side of the bed rather than facing it (and the sofa) so you had to angle diagonally to watch it from both. There is a large pillar next to the desk so you can't watch the TV from there either, nor can you see someone who is sitting on the bed while at the desk.

I couldn't find any full length mirrors; had to use the one that was partially blocked by the coffee machine and minibar shelves, as there were no plugs near enough to the bathroom mirror. The shower was controlled by an on-off switch rather than a tap, so it was not possible to change the water pressure. On the plus side, the floor didn't flood and temperature control worked.

After seeing the omelette photo above we chose to have breakfast here: https://www.malcajt.com/osrednjeslov...ilna-dela.html which cost €7.50 each, and was better than any hotel breakfast I've ever had, except of course it was not a buffet so we couldn't skip lunch

Waited 10 minutes to check-out, slightly annoyed that the IHG site doesn't tell you that there is a €5 city tax to pay, especially because sometimes the hotel pays it for you but there's no way of knowing unless you stayed before, and different IHG hotels in the same city can have different policies regarding whether they collect it on points stays.

vogriphach

Stayed here a couple of weeks back. Looks-wise, probably the most attractive-looking IC I've been to. The new look reminds me a bit of the InterContinental Singapore Robertson Quay. I booked the superior room but got upgraded to a club room (without the club access). Not complaining as I'm only a gold member and the club room is noticeably larger than the superior.

Wrote a more detailed review here: https://iwandered.net/intercontinent...bljana-review/

flybyFIRE

Do you have to pay an entrance fee to access the saunas, pool, and such?