Ostend Hotel in Oostende

A pleasant enough place, great location and good facilities for groups but the decor of the rooms is straight from the 1980s. Each floor is colour coded in a garish palette such as flaming orange, Baby-Vomit Green or Barbie Pink etc.. and the lighting in our room could be set only to "interrogation" level, (where two spotlights shine at you as you lay in bed) or 1980s nostalgia mode, where you admire an uncovered ancient fluorescent light, beneath the mirror - 240V bayonet fittings easily accessible to the tiny fingers of any small and curious children that you don't value much. Car parking spaces are secured against unauthorised access by a chunking great padlock and a heath-robinson hinged steel contraption. Both of the possible EV charging spaces I had requested (and been assured in return) as reserved for my use were instead blocked by conventional non EV cars. The receptionist refused to contact either of the named drivers mentioned on the parking slips displayed in the windscreens, and instead suggested I drive into the central parking facility and charge there instead! - I wish that it was possible to educate such people about EV charge points having large non charging activity penalties, or why EV charge point parking spaces should not be issued to non EV cars - but I do not think the Hotel staff have any real interest or understanding of the consequences for guests in front of them being somehow forced to waste a large part of the following day to compensate for the staff members' choices. My simple advice if you are considering staying here - and particularly if you drive an EV - is that you should choose a different Hotel.

This Hotel has room decors and fittings that look like something from the 1980s. Only one very slow single lift for guest access to five floors which are all distinctly colour themed so you can instantly see this is your floor. Ours was all painted Barbie-Pink. Both the provided EV charge points I had been assured would be reserved and available for our use, were instead blocked by ICE cars put there by the receptionist. Staff don't seem to understand the knock-on effects for EV driving guests, of the Hotel not keeping its promises, by policing what type of car they allocate to those two spaces, or why an EV driver cannot just plug into a higher powered charger elsewhere in the town and leave the car there overnight. The concepts of inactivity penalties, up-front payment of a hundred euros, different charge speeds and non acceptance of RFID cards from different vendors, were a complete mystery to the receptionist - as was the anger of a guest who DOES understand all of those things. As a direct consequence, I lost sleep spending hours re-planning the following day's journey, dropping two destinations from the itinery and cancelling other tickets - and then also had to leave earlier than planned to compensate for the shrugging simpleton of a receptionist who charged me 20 euros for the privilege of enduring his own complacency. If you own an EV and need to charge? - stay somewhere else. If you have no aesthetic taste, no love of USB charge points, no desire for a TV wider than a chair or any sense of modernity - then this is the place for you.