Review: Sheraton Brussels Airport

Review: Sheraton Brussels Airport

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I was arriving at Brussels Airport in the afternoon and had to be back at Brussels Airport at 6:30AM the following morning for my Tomorrowland flight to Frankfurt and back. So I decided to spend the night at the Sheraton Brussels Airport, which couldn’t be more convenient. Per the hotel’s website, it’s “conveniently located just 39 steps from the airport entrance.” With precision like that, you know it’s close! 😉

I booked a AAA rate of 109EUR for the night, which seemed quite reasonable. Originally I was going to stay just one night, but I ended up staying two.

After exiting immigration I just walked the ~39 steps across the street and into the lobby of the Sheraton.

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Brussels Airport exterior

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Sheraton Brussels Airport exterior

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Sheraton Brussels Airport exterior

The lobby was fairly modern, and the reception desk was located inside the lobby and to the left.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport lobby

There I was assisted by a friendly associate who acknowledged my Platinum status. When I asked if he had any Platinum room upgrades available, he said “of course you get all your Platinum benefits.” I think that may have been lost in translation, so I asked again specifically about a suite upgrade. Once he understood the question he said he’d take a look, and within about a minute had me blocked in a junior suite. So while I guess the upgrade wasn’t proactive, I didn’t have to fight for it, which I consider to be a win.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport lobby

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Sheraton Brussels Airport lobby

With my key in hand I headed towards the elevators, which are glass and overlook the “atrium” of the hotel, which seems to be where the hotel’s meeting rooms are located.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport atrium

I was assigned room 3014, a junior suite at the far end of the (rather funky and fresh-feeling) hallway.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport hallway

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Sheraton Brussels Airport room entrance

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Sheraton Brussels Airport floorplan

The room featured a very long entryway which another door to the right. Presumably that led to another guest room, in the event that you wanted to turn it into a larger suite.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite entryway

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite entryway

I’ve stayed in a lot of suites lately that seem to have been misnamed — either “one bedroom suites” which were actually one room, or junior suites which were actually two rooms. This was, at last, a properly categorized room. It was one long, “L” shaped room. Near the entrance was a dining table, and then a desk, then a lounge chair with an ottoman, and then the bed.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite

Given how close the hotel is to the airport, it directly overlooked the departures hall of the terminal on one side, and the parking garage on the other side.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite view

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite view

There was also a minibar, though I couldn’t tell whether they had cut costs and just aren’t stocking them fully anymore, or if mine wasn’t properly stocked.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite minibar

The door to the bathroom was near the desk, and it was definitely a “standard room” bathroom. It featured a sink, toilet, and shower/tub combo.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite bathroom

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite sink

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite shower

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite toilet

Toiletries were the brand standard Sheraton ones.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport junior suite toiletries

The hotel has a club lounge, located on the fifth floor. It’s fairly small, though it was never crowded when I was there.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge

The lounge had an evening reception from 6:30PM till 11PM — that’s a long time for an evening reception.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge

There were several types of snack mix.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge snacks

Then there was a fridge with soft drinks and yogurt.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge drinks

Then salad and some appetizer I couldn’t quite figure out (though it didn’t look very appetizing).

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge evening snacks

And then there were even a couple of hot dishes, though they didn’t appeal to me.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge evening snacks

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge evening snacks

There was also a beer machine, which was a hit among the other patrons.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge beer machine

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Sheraton Brussels Airport club lounge evening spread

While there was an attendant in the lounge the first night, the second night there wasn’t, and it was an absolute mess, so I’m not sure what happened. Not only was all the food already eaten, but it looked like Hurricane Katrina had ripped through there.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport messy club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport messy club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport messy club lounge

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Sheraton Brussels Airport messy club lounge

One of the days the lounge even got entertaining. I was sitting there working on my laptop, and there were three people sitting up there talking. I wasn’t intending to eavesdrop, but then I heard talk of “the chief,” and how “Akbar” is nuts in regards to “their” A380 delivery. Small world! 😉

As a club guest you can have breakfast either in the club or the restaurant. When given the option I’ll always do restaurant breakfast. It was served from 7AM till 11AM in Gullivers Restaurant, located adjacent to the lobby.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant

The spread was fairly good — what you’d expect from a European hotel. There was cereal, danishes, muffins, croissants, yogurt, muesli, cheese, cold cuts, several hot dishes, etc.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

There was even a juicer.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

But hands down the best part of the buffet was the packaged waffles. Mmmm…

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet

And hands down the strangest part of the buffet was this sign, in my opinion…

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Sheraton Brussels Airport restaurant breakfast buffet signage

One other thing the hotel deserves big kudos for is that they had a coffee machine and croissants set up in the lobby early in the morning. As I wrote about yesterday, access to coffee early in the morning is something I really value with hotel stays. And fresh, tasty croissants are the icing on the cake.

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Sheraton Brussels Airport morning coffee machine

In terms of the hotel’s other features, there was a fairly nice gym. I do find it amusing that most Sheratons even have the same motivational stuff written on their gym walls. I guess that’s consistency for ya…

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Sheraton Brussels Airport gym

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Sheraton Brussels Airport gym

The only other thing I should note about the hotel is that I had some Wi-Fi issues. When the Wi-Fi worked it worked fine, but for whatever reason sometimes I couldn’t connect for about an hour, and then after a while it worked again. So not huge Wi-Fi issues, but it’s definitely not seamless either.

Sheraton Brussels Airport bottom line

The Sheraton Brussels Airport was convenient and reasonably priced. The hotel was modern, I got an upgrade without a fight, and the breakfast buffet was fairly good. The club lounge was good in terms of the hours where they had service, though in terms of quality it was a bit disappointing.

All things considered I’d definitely return if I had a quick overnight. Of course I’d prefer to stay in the city if I had more time, but in this case I was perfectly happy taking the train into the city during daylight hours, rather than staying in the city and taking the train to the airport in the wee hours of the morning.

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  1. RAPC Guest

    I've stayed here a couple of times and they don't normally pre-block the Platinum upgrades, instead they do them as you found, at check-in. I have stayed when it is busy and also when it is quiet and have had a suite upgrade proactively offered each time.

  2. Steven L. Gold

    "it’s not like I’m usually just flying there without seeing the plane at least somewhat."

    Freudian slip? ;)

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Steven L. -- Whoops, indeed. Hah!

  3. Ang Guest

    Thanks, and thanks again for your work. It's awesome and very much appreciated.

  4. Farringdon Guest

    Surprised at all the enthusiasm for Stella on tap. It's a bland, mass produced beer. Perfectly drinkable but not very exciting.

  5. Siggi Guest

    I've noticed that you almost never spend star points on any airport hotels. Do you hoard your starpoints for "special" stays or do you just use the cash rate because the category is a bad value?

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Siggi -- I value Starpoints immensely, and will be the first to admit I'm a Starpoint hoarder. If I'm not getting well over two cents per point of value then I don't redeem Starpoints, and in this case the return wasn't anywhere close to that.

  6. Jfadss New Member

    I had a terrible stay here in April

    Screwed up reservation-tried to charge a higher rate than what was printed on my reservation printout

    Check out a nightmare

    Manager was no help in response to my carefully worded email outlining my problems

    Terrible sheraton

  7. Fredrik Guest

    What a coincidence. I am going to stay at this very hotel tomorrow so this review is welcome even if I'm unlikely to stay in a junior suite or visit the lounge.

  8. LIndaK Member

    @ Lucky, Was the use of the minibar free of charge? For that matter, do a lot of hotels in Europe include free minibar access? I stayed in a business hotel in Paris that not only included free minibar privileges, but they were great about re-stocking every day. Not a fancy place at all, just one of the Concorde chain hotels. I collected quite a few mini bottles of Taittinger for the rest of my...

    @ Lucky, Was the use of the minibar free of charge? For that matter, do a lot of hotels in Europe include free minibar access? I stayed in a business hotel in Paris that not only included free minibar privileges, but they were great about re-stocking every day. Not a fancy place at all, just one of the Concorde chain hotels. I collected quite a few mini bottles of Taittinger for the rest of my stay in France, to drink in other hotels that did not have minibars. :) The Baileys in London did the same, but no Taittinger there!

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ LIndaK -- Nope, unfortunately not free. Though do love me some free minibars as well. :D

  9. Ang Guest

    It must be really difficult taking all these pictures. After a long trip that is usually the last thing you want to do so kudos on that. I wonder what your reaction is after you've taken all the pictures. This may sound peculiar, but to me it is a legitimate question given that you don't travel with a purpose at your destination; usually the actual trip is the purpose. Is it more of a "alright...

    It must be really difficult taking all these pictures. After a long trip that is usually the last thing you want to do so kudos on that. I wonder what your reaction is after you've taken all the pictures. This may sound peculiar, but to me it is a legitimate question given that you don't travel with a purpose at your destination; usually the actual trip is the purpose. Is it more of a "alright time to relax" or "now what do I do?" kind of feeling??

    As a reader of the blog I thank you for all your work!!

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Ang -- When I get to the destination I usually have lots of work to get caught up on, so don't have too much time to think about things. I also do what I can to sightsee, so it's not like I'm usually just flying there without seeing the plane at least somewhat.

  10. Chris L Guest

    Stella Artois on tap?

  11. Neil S. Guest

    Is that a bunch of peanut butter-covered spoons on the plate at the buffet? Nasty.

  12. elteetrav Gold

    For the sake of the folks who were talking about Akbar, I hope that there were a lot of Qatar employees staying at the Sheraton that night.

  13. Lantean Diamond

    i must be slow today... i can't find the explanation why you stayed two nights? where is it hidden?
    or is it because the breakfast was so good???
    i don't get it...

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Lantean @ Nick -- Whoops! Was gonna check out day one, but then ended up falling asleep after the Brussels Airlines Tomorrowland flight, which meant I didn't have much of a choice. At that point just stayed at that hotel and took train into the city.

  14. Nick OMAAT

    "Originally I was going to stay just one night, but I ended up staying two, as I’ll explain below."

    I think I've read this over three times so far but still can't find the explanation ;-). Did the breakfast buffet thieves get to you?

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RAPC Guest

I've stayed here a couple of times and they don't normally pre-block the Platinum upgrades, instead they do them as you found, at check-in. I have stayed when it is busy and also when it is quiet and have had a suite upgrade proactively offered each time.

0
lucky OMAAT

@ Siggi -- I value Starpoints immensely, and will be the first to admit I'm a Starpoint hoarder. If I'm not getting well over two cents per point of value then I don't redeem Starpoints, and in this case the return wasn't anywhere close to that.

0
lucky OMAAT

@ Steven L. -- Whoops, indeed. Hah!

0
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