Holiday Inn Bern - Westside, an IHG Hotel

We had a relaxing stay at Bern Holiday Inn Westside. The room was comfortable and had a good amount of space. The hotel included free access to Bern Aqua which was super. ||The bathroom in the room was good. The staff were efficient and friendly. We did not eat food at the hotel as the shopping mall had lots of restaurants.

This hotel is conveniently located to all the local transportation (train, bus, tram). The lobby has direct access to their mall with places to eat/explore. ||The staff were friendly. The gentleman who checked us in was kind but appeared to have misunderstood me a couple of times (me speaking English). The next morning he apologized. I told him he didn't need to apologize. Everything was fine. ||We had a fantastic view out our room window. ||The other staff members were very friendly and we utilized their storage after check-out.

Rooms are fine, would have liked a fridge. Service is good, no issues there. Close to a train station, a bus stop, and a tram stop, as well as free tickets for them, for the duration of your stay. Attached to a mall, which is both good and bad - good because it's a nice mall with a lot to see, but bad because it makes parking during any normal hours a nightmare. Rely on the public transport instead of a car if you can, it's very good!

We stayed in Holiday Bern the year was open. Everything is the same, except the prices.||Positive:|- Clean. |- Comfortable beds|- Great great breakfast|- Access to Bernaqua|- On-Site parking||Not so positive:|- Small Room (for 3)|- Noisy room (air conditioner was shut down but the noise was not)|- Prices.||Keep in mind that is far away from the city, but with easy public transportation.

Overall the location of the hotel is convenient which is situated right beside the station. The cleanliness of the room is remarkable. The only downside is the variety of the breakfast choice as I stayed here for 4n and been eating with the same choice of food everyday.

The staff in this hotel are amazing. There are always so pleasant and wanting to help in anyway. This is my second stay in five months and very happy to see that my first experience was not a one off.

The whole staff here are all so nice & welcoming. From the front desk, the restaurant especially with the breakfast crew are fantastic. Location is really good within just few mins walk from the train station/tram which will get you to the city in about 15-20 mins. Staying here gets you free 3 hours access to the aquacentre which is all connected in the westside shopping centre, when coming to Bern I recommend staying here. Thank you again to the whole crew

This is a really nice hotel on the western end of Bern with easy public transit access to the city center using the free included transit passes. The rooms are very quiet and comfortable, but could use a few modern tech improvement (no usb ports for charging phones). The view of the farms from the higher floors is very pretty. The employees are friendly and helpful and the mall next door is very convenient. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here again.

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.