David S.
Yelp
Am I in A Clockwork Orange? Is this The Rocky Horror Picture Show? No. This is my hotel.
Le Meridien Vienna is a great hotel overall, about what you might expect or slightly better from a Le Meridien property, the location gives it a big boost.
I'm sorry, its a nice hotel, but the lobby and the room decorations are weird. I embrace weird usually, but this was not what I was expecting at a nice hotel. I confirmed the weirdness with an American couple that was also staying there. In the lobby there are very bright lights, mannequins (that change positions throughout the day!), plastic red leather couches and very strange art all around. The rooms had mannequin hands holding apples and there were little window cases in the desks with colored peppers (yes, peppers). I thought I might be in some kind of modern art museum, but alas no, it was my hotel.
Now on to the serious part of the review......The hotel is conveniently located in central Vienna close to many of the tourist spots and a big plus to being nearly on top of the subway (lines 1 2 and 4 at the Karlplatz station).
Getting there: one can take a number of different routes to the hotel, the obvious being a taxi (approximately €45-50), the bargain basement (but clearly not the quickest) is the subway which comes into the basement of the Airport and for a bargain basement price of €2.20 you can buy a ticket and take the S7 train to town, connect to any one of the lines that will take you to Karlplatz. The alternative in between these two extremes is the "higher speed" (about 1/2 the time of the S7) CAT train (I think it is about €16 but don't quote me) that will get you to Landstrasse station and from there you can hop the subway or taxi.
The minibar, is included which is a nice touch, but it isn't a "normal" minibar - you get one water, one regular coke, one coke light, one apple juice, one orange juice and one beer. Additional drinks need to be "phoned in" and will hit your bill. You cannot easily "trade" for drinks that you might want. It would be a nice option that the hotel stocks the minibar like a normal one and you can have say, 6 drinks out if for free -- of course, this defeats the labor saving current system where nobody needs to check it and there aren't billing issues when you leave. It does get restocked every day that you are there so it is a daily service, not just once for your entire stay. Since it is essentially baked into your room rate, I would recommend that you take advantage of it.
The breakfast is much better than average at a (much?) higher price than average. If it isn't in your room rate, it will set you back a "mere" €32 (or about $41 USD at current exchange rates), making it one of the more expensive breakfasts that you will find in a hotel. It is a comprehensive selection of foods and on average, of higher quality - but at this pricing it should be!
I had an upgraded room and it had one of the nicer bathrooms I've been in, despite the other weirdness. No problems sleeping even though my window was facing the street. Free Wifi.