Holiday Inn Bern - Westside by IHG

This is a really good hotel. What stood out most was the very warm and friendly service from the front of house and restaurant staff and above all the truly excellent meal I had pictured below - and with no disrespect to HIs I was very pleasantly surprised - the fish was exceptionally fresh and perfectly cooked - and rarely in my experience is risotto cooked properly - and this was spot on and delicious - a very simple and beautifully executed dish at a very reasonable price - I was very happy - great work in the kitchen. I haven’t even tried the pool yet - which is the main reason I booked this place - looking forward to that 😎

Fantastic Hotel, I stayed here with family. Rooms are super clean. View from rooms is fantastic..(prefer room on higher floors) Location is super convenient. Train and Tram station right at the main gate of hotel. It takes 15 min to the city centre by Train / tram. Hotel is inside a mall so Grocery store (Migros) and lots of other restaurants available very conveniently. Staff and hospitality is very nice. Very Polite team especially would like to mention about the entire team at the restaurant during breakfast time in morning. Regular and very nice housekeeping. Would definitely recommend this place for a stay at Bern..

One of the nicest IHG properties I've stayed at. It's located directly across the street from the Bern Brünnen Westside transit stop and is attached to the Westside Mall. At check in we were given a complimentary transit code to use in the 100/101 transit area, which gets you around most of the city. Additionally as a Gold and up IHG member you get access to the fitness center/sauna/pool for free. However, the website/Google photos are slightly deceptive with this... the fitness center/pool/sauna are located on the opposite side of the mall from the hotel, they are not inside the hotel. It's just a public wellness center (that's very, very nice), but can be very busy. Overall it's a great hotel in a nice, confident location!

Awesome hotel with very helpful staff, an amazing breakfast and at a great location. Bern ticket for zones 100/101 included(might be only for IHG members, not sure) so you can easliy jump on public transport to get around Bern. Visitors also get reduced prices for Bernaqua entry fees.

personnel orgueilleux. Ils réclament de l'argent pour chaque souffle. The lady in the reception on the 29th of November, at 11 am, asked for money for the parking. How in the world a 4 stars hotel asks for money for the parking? I stayed in a 3 stars hotel in Schonberg in Bern where the parking was free the week before! The problem is, in western society, the concept of hospitality is exotic to them. We welcome you when you have money, when you pay more... Adding to that the deteriorating state of the furniture in the room! the chairs are old and incredibly used! Adding also to that, a 4 stars hotel does not put a fridge in the room! Why? to pay more in their restaurant....

Great staff. Friendly and helpful. The hotel was in great condition. The comfort of the bed was very nice. It is good value for your money.

I have stayed at the Holiday Inn Bern - Westside many times between 2015 and 2020. Lately less due to less travel. But then and again now, it has been the best Holiday Inn hotel I stayed in in Europe. The combination of upgrades, the truly excellent service of the reception and staff, the amazing breakfast with a large variety, the location next to the Westside Mall, free access to Bernaqua for diamond members, easy parking, very clean and hygienic rooms and public parts of the hotel - all contribute to this. I felt like a most valued and appreciated guest - truly exceptional.

Overall the stay was wonderful. The breakfast was fabulous and service 100%. The only small complaint would be the cover sheet for the bed, duvet is perfect for cold weather and not for 25-30 degree celsius

Comfortable hotel located away from the city center. Just 15 minutes by S5 train and you are there. The hotel is a 1 minute walk as you leave the station. There is a mall with movie theater and exercise complex (pool usage included with room fee) attached. Rooms are comfortable with a little space in them. Typical European private bathroom with standup shower. Bed is very easy to fall asleep in. No USB ports in room so depend on outlets to power (adapter required for US plugs). Eight floors accessible by 2 elevators. Ate at the restaurant. Decent menu options with good service. There is also a bar onsite.

I'm not a travel expert, but I did stay at the Holiday Inn Westside in Bern during a November family-of-3 vacation and we thought it was a comfortable hotel with a great value for the price. Our favorite aspects were the included free 3 hours at the adjacent Bernaqua indoor water park (within the Westside shopping mall, actually a wonderful way to relax after a long day of sightseeing), the train station directly across the street (with only an 8 minute ride into Old Bern), the deep bathtub (this may only be available in the executive rooms, not certain), the in-room Nespresso machine and packets of delicious Caotina, free high-speed internet, and the electric blackout shades on the window. Everything inside was new, clean, and modern, with the property having been built in 2008 and remodeled in 2017. FYI, this hotel & entertainment hub is about 1.5 hrs train ride from Lausanne or Basil or Zurich. As a home base for a family vacation spending a couple of days exploring Bern, this 8-story, 144-room hotel more than met our needs. Our 11 year old LOVED the water park (he thinks we need to go back to Switzerland just to visit Bernaqua http://www.westside.ch/en-GB/bernaqua again) and it was so convenient to have the indoor mall restaurants & grocery store available when we got in late on the first night. The train station and free shuttle service for the mall had cars leaving for downtown Bern just about every 2 minutes, so it was no problem at all to quickly get into the heart of Bern for all the site-seeing we wanted to do. Let me get the caveats out of the way: - We got a particularly great rate on a 7th floor King Executive Deluxe room with a view via my employer's corporate rate available for personal travel. Even if you don't regularly travel for work, it's worth checking your organization's travel portal to see if you can access something similar. Holiday Inn is part of the IHG network, so you may be able to work a credit card and/or other travel point system to get a good rate, too. - We didn't eat in the on-site Brasserie Bits&Bites restaurant https://www.brasseriebitsandbites.ch/english/bern or spend many hours in the hotel itself. We mainly used the space for sleeping & bathing (both of which were very comfortable). - We had the Swiss Pass for all our transportation needs during our trip, so we didn't use the free Bern Ticket travel pass https://www.bern.com/en/detail/bern-ticket-free-on-public-transport offered by the hotel. - Our room faced south toward the Bern Brünnen Westside train station and subsequent farmland, and I sleep with earplugs always, so we had no problem with noise. I've read reviews from others complaining about street noise in rooms on the north (A1 highway) side. Our only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the electricity for the room turns off each time you leave the room (yay for being green and conserving energy). This makes difficult the charging of your electronic devices or reserve batteries while you're out (which you may need to do in preparation for your next day of travel). We probably could have inquired with the front desk about a solution for this (perhaps there's a dedicated outlet that doesn't shut off?), but it wasn't a big enough deal for us to complain. The hotel is situated near an agricultural area and we sometimes noticed the odor of fertilizer when we were outdoors, but there was nothing noticable inside our room. I'm known for having a bit of a hounddog's olfactory system, so your experience may vary. If you are unfamiliar with how to use a Nespresso machine with discs (as I was before staying in this hotel), here's a helpful reference: https://www.nespresso.com/pro/uk/en/pages/zenius-new#assistance (click on "Directions of Use") Interesting history of the Westside development and its design, plus maps & more info, at the following links: https://www.archdaily.com/101991/westside-bruennen-daniel-libeskind http://www.westside.ch/en-GB/home.aspx

Good bed, but a bad shower My wife and I were recently on a Tour of Austria and Switzerland and spent the night at the Holiday Inn Bern-Westside. The room was comfortable, except that I couldn't figure out the thermostat. We arrived and it was cool, but my attempts to warm it up awakened us in the night with it being too hot. Although I had tried pushing the correct buttons, the display never seemed to respond correctly. It got to 26 in the room overnight. The bed was comfortable. A couple of items that have caught me off guard because they are different in the States. First, most beds over in Switzerland appear to only come with a thick, heavy, too-warm comforter; my wife and I are used to: a fitted sheet on the mattress, a flat sheet and then a comforter. This allows you some flexibility between "freeze or fry" with or without the comforter. Second, the shower. We've run into several hotels that have a different style shower than we are used to in the States. The shower makers seem to think that people want no shower curtain, and still can keep the water off the floor with only half a wall of glass. It never worked for me. I ended up spilling lots of water from the shower out on the floor. I couldn't put a bath mat out if I wanted it to stay dry. I guess that's why they all used tile floors instead of carpet. Now the breakfast, that was quite good. One of the experiences that has been good for us on our tour had been being introduced to new food dishes we simply do not have back in the States. This was no exception. There were too choices to mention, but I enjoyed all the ones I had at this Holiday Inn. If you are traveling through Bern and need a place to stay, this Holiday Inn would be a good choice for the reasons I mentioned. Check them out for yourself. (TIP - Ask for help with the thermostat - or you could be uncomfortable)

Had the chance to stay here 3 times and I truly enjoyed it. The service is outstanding. The rooms are spacious comparing to other European hotels. Super comfortable bed and a great restaurant with an incredibly delicious breakfast. There's a mall attached to it with more options for food including a Thai restaurant that is also pretty good. Beautiful deck area to enjoy a coffee on a sunny day. I recommend this hotel.