Meh

I booked this hotel for a leisure stay in Wien. It was a new addition to the Hilton family in the city and an interesting location, not in the center but close to Schonbrunn castle. 

My first impressions after arriving were bad. The stay was not bad in general but I will  tick on "not recommend" on this review, one would need to manage his/her expectations as the hotel has some quirks and downfall. It seems those would be room dependent. The hotel is not new, it was a Radisson before. It was partially renovated, not as in some rooms are and some are not. More as in, they renovated some things and left as it was some others. The result is a mix of old and new.

Check-in was fine, my upgrade was confirmed (I booked a Standard room and got upgraded to a Junior Suite with balcony), a cookie offered (and refused). The employee was happy to serve and smiling (to be noted because not all staff was like her). 

The room was big and spacious, with floor to ceiling windows on all walls. I choose at OLCI a corner room, which may or may not have been a mistake. You can notice the mix of old and new furniture. For example the chair is old and look out of place, the desk does not look new either (it was stained).

The room had a separate entrance with a walk in closet, a toilet, a bath room. Living room and bed room were separated by a wall. 

If you look closely, you will notice the complete abscence of visible electrical plugs. There are some but not enough and basically, they are used for the appliances : telephone, lamps, TV, coffee maker. To use them at the desk you need to move the TV and unplug something (I unplugged the TV). At the bed they are at floor level behind the nightstand, to access them you need to move the nightstand. As I understand from the staff, not all rooms have that issues. But how would you know which one has plugs at the desk and bed ? 

The bed was a bit soft but OK and you notice there are only two pillows. 

Other issue : the AC. It is old, from the time of the Radisson and do squat, basically. The room was incredibly warm when I entered and I slept with both windows open (in March). 

Next : light controls. There are switch controlling the various lamps in several places, except for the toilet and walking closet, which are controlled by motion detector only. And there is only twp masters, which are beside the bed. These master turn off all lights completely, including the toilet one, and can only be turned on by switching the master on again, which is unintuitive behavior (at all hotels if a master turn off or on, but individual lights can still be turned on). So at night if you need to wake up, you need to turn on the master and everything you had left on will turn on again. 

Minibar is free, it contains a few drinks.

The bathroom was nice and modern, but the shower pressure was quite poor. There is a shower behind the bathtube.

The terrace is large and big, covering the entire room. It has sun protection that can be controlled from the room. The view is towards Schonbrunn but the castle is not really visible.

I did not find the service completely good. Some staff were very nice, but some others were useless. Special mention for the breakfast staff member who can not tell what is what (to his defence, most of the items are unlabelled, so it is hard to figure out what joghurt is what among 4 choices or the various musli). The person doing my checkout could not be more bothered and did not read me my total or confirm the card to use, just a "You want a receipt ?" (this is a new trend at several hotels I noticed, they do not bother to confirm the final amount anymore). 

There is a restaurant but it was closed in the evening so ....

Breakfast was good but underwhelming. There was the basic I would expect, but nothing more. Quality was not outstanding either. 

The location is very close to Schonbrunn castle, a good 10 minute walks from the U4 line and close to several tram lines. Overall it is 30 minutes to reach the city center (Stephansdom), and a bit shy of one hour to reach the airport (not using the rippoff that is the CAT). 

The gym is small, it contains a few multipurposes resistance machines, and the basic mixes for cardio. Notably no peloton bike. 

The hotel is not really bad but it is not outstanding or even good in general. It is just "meh", it does not feel like a doubletree (a HGI would be a more suitable branding). It seems poorly managed, with a sort of lazyness attitude (not renovating everything, not labelling all foods at breakfast). Some of the staff try to make amend for the shortcoming (I was proposed to change room) but overall it felt short of impress me.