Last weekend we went to the May Market in Tilburg. Because it was too late to drive back (we didn't leave the market until after 1:30) we decided to spend the night in a hotel. Today you can read our experience with a night at NH hotel Waalwijk.
It is not the first time we have stayed in an NH hotel. We have previously slept in an NH hotel in The Hague (you will read more about this soon). NH hotels can now be found in 30 countries with more than 360 hotels. You can choose from theme hotels, eco-friendly and family hotels. Wide choice, so that every traveler can fully enjoy a well-deserved night's sleep.
For people who make frequent use of an NH hotel, there is also a special reward program. This earns you points for every overnight stay. You can have these points converted into a discount, which you can use to order your breakfast, for example. There are different categories for the points, the more overnight stays the higher you get in the ranking with the highest ranking platinum.
As mentioned, we were in Tilburg last weekend (Pentecost) for the May market. That is a flea market that starts at 10 PM and continues until 5 PM the next day. The children absolutely wanted to experience this once, so we went to Tilburg. Because I didn't feel like driving home for an hour in the middle of the night, we booked a hotel. So that became the NH hotel Waalwijk, near the Efteling.
The entrance and lobby looked good and were tastefully decorated. There was also a sitting area with a snack machine before you walked into the hallway where the family rooms were. A table with mint cucumber water for the guests makes you feel immediately welcome.
We had booked a family room and were given a room on the ground floor with 1x double bed and a bunk bed. The bathroom was spacious and fitted with a bathtub. At first glance everything seemed good and clean. The view was on a lawn, but that was not a problem, after all, we had not booked for the view (the hotel is located right next to a highway, which is not a problem).
Closer inspection revealed biscuit crumbs on the bed. We decided not to say anything about it, can happen, although it is not neat and certainly not hygienic. The bathroom door looked like it had seen better days (had too much water at the bottom) and right on entering a large piece of wallpaper on the wall was missing. Very sloppy and certainly not what you expect from an NH hotel.
Fortunately, the beds were comfortable and we were able to rest well after a long day (or rather a short night). The bathroom was very spacious and the shower lovely. Because it is a family room, the toilet was lower than normal, so that was a bit of a shock… Unfortunately, the room turned out to be very noisy. Around 7:00 am the first children could be heard from other rooms. However, the kids and I were so tired that we were still able to sleep.
The next morning we were packing our things when I happened to look under the bed. And there were two large pieces of cake! We did not eat any cookies and, combined with the cookies on the bed, we immediately wondered whether the room had been properly cleaned. We pointed this out at the reception when checking out, where it was indicated that we should have reported this immediately, then we would have been given another room. That's nice, but doesn't solve the problem (not properly cleaned room) of course. Plus, I only discovered the cookies a few minutes before check-out.
Of course we complained to NH itself, because this is just outrageous. You pay a lot of money for a room and then you get a room that has not been cleaned properly and where something can be done about the appearance (wallpaper is broken and the door is past its prime). Of course I shouldn't expect a 5 star hotel, but something better than that I had in mind, especially since it wasn't the first time I slept in an NH hotel. Finally an email was sent that next time we would get a 25% discount on an overnight stay. That's nice, but from now on I will think carefully about whether I want to sleep at NH again, despite previous experiences.
In any case, from now on I will thoroughly inspect every hotel room before taking the room. Cookie crumbs on the floor indicate that there is something fundamentally wrong with the cleaning. And then I also wonder about hygiene. Was the bed actually changed or did I sleep that night in a bed that people had already slept in the night before? Not a pleasant idea.
My previous experiences with NH hotels led me to book this hotel. The comfort was not disappointing, but the hygiene / cleaning and maintenance of the room. The location is favorable (a few minutes away from the Efteling and a 15-minute drive from Tilburg) and ideally located next to the highway, so easily accessible. The hotel gets a 5.5 from me because of the aforementioned negatives. My expectations were higher unfortunately.
Have you ever slept in a hotel that was very disappointing afterwards?
