IHG One Rewards Points & Cash

Review – Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre

a room with tables and chairs

We arrived at Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre around 14:00 on the hottest day ever recorded for Prague after a Flixbus ride from Liberec to Cerny most, followed by Metro B from Cerny most to Florence to Metro C and Vysehrad station 5 minutes walk from the hotel. I have wanted to stay at Holiday Inn Prague Congress Center for a couple of years to check out the location and facilities. At 15,000 points per night, this hotel is one of the better deals available with IHG points for a major European city.

a building with a bus in the background
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre

Kelley was reluctant to stay there. She felt Prague 4 was too far away from Prague city center and did not offer the architectural charm of other neighborhoods around Prague 1 Staré MÄ›sto/Old Town and Prague 2 Nové MÄ›sto/New Town. She likes the location of Park Inn Prague and Holiday Inn Prague is only 20 minutes walk from Park Inn Prague. One walking route is through Vysehrad park. I think one of Kelley’s main concerns is she knew Vysehrad is on a hill which means a harder walk. She was not happy with me one night when we were walking up 200 steps one night to get back to the Holiday Inn at 12:30am.

Since location is likely a concern for many travelers not staying at Holiday Inn Congress Centre for an event, I will cover several aspects of the Prague 4 hotel location in this article.

Vysehrad Metro station on Metro C line is 5 minutes walk from Holiday Inn and the option we generally used for travel between the hotel and city center. Step out of the Metro to see the Congress Centre and Holiday Inn is located past the Congress Centre.

a building with a lot of cars parked in front of it
Prague Congress Centre

The road seen in my photo above taken from the centuries old fortification walls at Vysehrad park shows Nusle Bridge towering over the Nusle Valley. The bridge is one of the main traffic arteries into central Prague. Outside noise was never an issue at Holiday Inn. I don’t think the windows opened in the room. I can’t say for sure since we never had any desire to try and open the windows on some of the hottest days ever felt in Prague. The room air conditioner worked wonderfully when it was 101 F outside on Sunday June 30.

a city with many buildings and trees
Nusle Bridge Prague

Prague Congress Centre is on top of the hill directly adjacent to Nusle Bridge. The neighborhood below the bridge is Nusle Valley with lovely architecture and several restaurants and pubs.

At check in we were offered a choice of 500 points or 2 drinks at the bar. We took the drinks option.

Room 637 Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre

The hotel has six floors. My only complaint about the 6th floor is the ice machine is located on the 5th floor and I made lots of stairwell trips. Three guest floor elevators operated fast, but there did not seem to be a high occupancy for the hotel. The Congress Centre event during our stay appeared to be some kind of young women’s dance competition based on the teenagers we saw practicing routines out front of the Congress Centre on our walks to and from Vysehrad Metro station.

a room with a bed and a tv
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre 637

My only real complaint about the room is the refrigerator is an electronic minibar. There is a warning that any items removed will be charged. I did move a few items during our stay to shove some food inside. I explained at checkout I had moved a couple of items and replaced them. They did not charge me.

a room with a bed and a table
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre 637
a bed with white pillows and two lamps
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre 637 bed
a bowl of tea and cups on a table
Holiday Inn Congress Centre 637 coffee

One odd thing in my opinion is the room only had two hangars for the closet. I assume the staff could have wrangled up more hangars for the room if needed.

a bathroom with a sink and toilet
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre towel rack

We found most hotels disable the heated towel rack in summer. Kelley was thankful to find this towel rack heated up and she was able to wash and dry clothes each day of our three night stay. Laundry had been our plan since we arrived at the Holiday Inn on Day 8 of our 23 day trip and needed to wash and dry some clothing.

a sink with a faucet and a mirror
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre 637 bathroom
a bathroom sink with a weight scale
Bathroom scale to remind me my beer intake rate exceeded my walk it off burn calories rate.
a shower with a glass door
Rare hotel shower half door where Kelley did not flood bathroom.

Floor 1 Executive Lounge

I don’t think the front desk mentioned the Floor 1 Executive Lounge, however, I saw the sign in the elevator and checked it out to learn my key opened the door. The lounge was underwhelming and the small windowless room was not an inviting space to hang out. There is a large second room with big screen TV, computer and printer and some comfortable chairs, but I was unable to locate a TV remote control. Also, the room did not have the air conditioner turned on and it was hot and stuffy during our stay.

I primarily used the Executive Lounge for cold soda from the refrigerator and on one visit I grabbed the last two sandwiches on the tray. There appeared to be some small offers of food and desserts during the day, but the trays were usually empty every time I checked.

a table and chairs in a room
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre executive lounge
a small refrigerator in a room
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre executive lounge

Lobby

a room with tables and chairs
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre lobby
a group of flowers in a vase
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre

I attempted to get Kelley to dine in the restaurant one night, but she wanted to go to the room. The only time the bar was happening was the night we arrived back at the hotel at 12:30am. That is probably not a fair assessment since we were hanging out around the city all day on two of three days at the hotel and the day we arrived we stayed in the room most of the evening due to the heatwave.

Dining and Markets around the hotel

The only restaurant around the Holiday Inn we tried is Kandelabr Restaurant Vysehrad (Tripadvisor #418 of 5,112 restaurants in Prague). The restaurant is across the Nusle Bridge road directly opposite the hotel. We had good food and beer.

a counter in a restaurant
Kandelabr Restaurant Vysehrad, Prague
a restaurant with tables and chairs
Kandelabr Restaurant Vysehrad, Prague
a plate of food on a wooden surface
Kandelabr Restaurant Vysehrad, Prague 125CZK/$5.60
a plate of salad with cheese
Kandelabr Restaurant Vysehrad, Prague 145CZK/$6.50

Pilsner Urquell 0.5l = 47 CZK/$2.10

Yam Yam Thai Restaurant is directly outside Vysehrad Metro and I wanted to try it out, primarily due to the Stella Artois umbrellas, but we never made it there.

Zabka Market is the small corner grocery store I frequented, about 10 to 15 minutes walk from Holiday Inn. They had cold beer, dairy, fruit, deli meats, breads and pastries.

a map of a city
Google Maps – Holiday Inn to Zabka Market walking route in 10 minutes.

Even walking to the market had some interesting sights.

a sign on a wall
Prague 4 building memorial plaque

There is actually a gas station with a market on the road beneath the Holiday Inn. I never checked it out.

While I explored Prague 4 on morning walks, the more interesting aspect of the Holiday Inn location is Vysehrad Park. I covered Vysehrad in a recent article last week.

Loyalty Traveler – Vysehrad, Prague, the city’s other castle hill with great views.

Hospůdka Na Hradbách, in Vysehrad park is one of my favorite outdoor pubs in Prague and less than ten minutes walk from Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre. Kozel pints are 33 CZK/$1.48 and Pilsner Urquell 42 CZK/$1.88.

The pub is a year round spot. We drank there and watched fireworks on New Year’s Eve 2017

a hammock between two trees
Kicking back in a hammock with a glass of beer is a nice way to relax.

Holiday Inn Prague Congress Center cost 15,000 points per night for two nights and 10,000 points + $39 for one night on IHG Rewards Club Points & Cash rate. I received 4,500 points back as an IHG Rewards Club Mastercard member and earned 4,500 points from completing one of my  IHG Rewards Club summer Accelerate promotion tasks.

Loyalty Traveler – IHG Rewards Club Accelerate summer 2019 complete – 5 nights, $485 spent, 52,505 points earned.

 

 

 

3 Comments

  • Bobo August 2, 2019

    Nice review, Ric. I stayed there in September and thoroughly enjoyed the Vyšehrad location.

  • HADLEY V. BAXENDALE August 2, 2019

    Thanks for the review, Ric. I certainly will consider it the next time in Prague. 15,000 points is a good value.

  • Lucy August 9, 2019

    I stayed there in October.

    Generally, the staff are convinced that they are not hotel employees serving customers but are instead high-ranking bureaucrats at a very powerful government ministry in some third world country facing a beggarly plebeian asking them for some sort of handout. Should you have even most basic of requests or issues, then be prepared for a level of resistance normally reserved for raiders attempting to engage in a hostile takeover of a company.

    The building itself is actually not the worst, though quite outdated and run down. Smoke travels freely from one guestroom to the next and so on. Overall, having stayed at probably at least a thousand properties over the decades, I would say it is among the 3 worst I’ve seen (and those other 2 were non-chain last minute reservations.)

Comments are closed.

BoardingArea