Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre Review – it’s not hot in your room – it’s just you sir!

The Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre is located about 3 miles away from the Prague Old Town Center. I consider this an advantage since it gets you out of the crowds and just 500 feet behind the building is Vyšehrad - likely my favorite place in Prague.



Check-in was friendly but pretty lackadaisical. We requested a quiet room and got a room in the middle of the building that had a non-working AC. Since it was 100+ degrees outside the room was basically unusable. We called down right away and the technician came by eventually. He 'fixed' the AC so a little bit of cold air would come out and we were hopeful that it would eventually cool down the room. None of this happened - it simply stayed hot. We called down again and the same routine happened - an angry technician (the same guy) came by to tell us the AC was working - we highlighted that it was 100+ degrees inside and he told us to shift the curtains - seriously?

We slept in a sweaty room and complained repeatedly. On day two finally, we were able to switch rooms.











The hotel is renovating its Executive Lounge - very few Holiday Inn have an Executive Lounge in the first place. Since it was closed there was a buffet near the restaurant area and free soft drinks and coffee (which was excellent!) was available. We thought that was a great treat and used it for the first two days.

When we came back the third day a restaurant employee assailed us and told us we were 'stealing food' from the buffet. Our pleading that we were eligible for the Executive Lounge was no good to him and we had to drag our heated exchange to the front desk which simply nodded it off. No apology or nice words for us.

We later found out that the Executive Floor has newer rooms with a better AC but many of the hotel rooms had to suffer through AC problems for years. It is a common issue in most rooms.

We found some of the staff to be helpful and friendly and others like the restaurant employee and front desk agent who checked us in hostile and angry.

The good news the Internet is free and was very stable at 10 MBit for as many devices as we could muster.

In sum this hotel is a mixed bag - I appreciate the idea to institute an Executive Lounge for Platinum members. The hotel has (some) nicely renovated rooms and fast Internet. I liked the location a lot and some of the staff were superbly friendly. However, the hapless service and hostile behavior of some of the staff spoiled it for us. I would not return if I get a choice.