Hotel De Flandre

“Terrific location but avoid the annex”

While it is certainly centrally located and the rooms were clean, our experience was disappointing. It had not a hint of the warmth promised on the hotel’s website or in the descriptions and photos placed on travel sites like HistoricHotelsBelgium.com. Our rooms were in the City Garden annex which … more

While it is certainly centrally located and the rooms were clean, our experience was disappointing. It had not a hint of the warmth promised on the hotel’s website or in the descriptions and photos placed on travel sites like HistoricHotelsBelgium.com. Our rooms were in the City Garden annex which is a dramatic come-down from the lobby of the hotel—without any come-down in price. The rooms are modern to the point of soul-less; the annex setting is dim and industrial, not comfortable or cozy. It feels like you are sleeping in the factory that the building once was. We left feeling a bit deceived—luckily, Ghent is stunning.

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“Not a 4-star experience”

Starting with the positives, this hotel’s location is incredible - it’s max 5 min walk to all the key places of interest in Ghent. It’s also opposite a supermarket, which is perfect for some last-minute cravings. The negatives of the hotel don’t align with it being a 4-star property at all: - Bat… more

Starting with the positives, this hotel’s location is incredible - it’s max 5 min walk to all the key places of interest in Ghent. It’s also opposite a supermarket, which is perfect for some last-minute cravings. The negatives of the hotel don’t align with it being a 4-star property at all: - Bathroom door not closing as it doesn’t fit the frame, and getting jammed if you do try and close it. - Shower gel dispenser wall appendage fell of the wall and that was the way we found the room when we checked in. This wasn’t fixed throughout the stay. - Some plugs in the wall didn’t work, i.e. the one precisely where the kettle and the lamp was. - Our room was in the courtyard, so you couldn’t open the curtains if anyone was sat at the tables there. For some reason, the way the curtains are attached to the window is that there is a sizeable gap where someone can realistically see you involuntarily through the courtyard even though your curtains are closed. There is no privacy feeling whatsoever, we had to prop the ironing board against the curtain to make sure no one can see us. - Breakfast is very poorly set up and run. Firstly, we were asked for the breakfast time slot for our arrival, so that they can manage the traffic. Even though we arrived for our time slot, it was absolutely manic trying to get food. There was a crowd of people at the tiny hot food station, things kept running out very quickly, with slow replacements and essential things like butter not being replaced at all (???). There were two coffee machines, one of which was going through a cleaning cycle in the middle of the breakfast service, and another one wasn’t serviced as needed (milk wasn’t being topped, grounds container not emptied) - I had to give up on getting a hot drink. And when the plug doesn’t work in my room, I couldn’t get a hot drink from the kettle either. - This is a minor point but the iron given to us had a weird appendage, which should maybe be attached to the ironing board itself, but made ironing unnecessarily cumbersome. Ultimately, this hotel failed to deliver on some very obvious basic things, so I wouldn’t recommend a stay here just purely on location, as there are plenty of hotels around Ghent city centre.

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