Babylon Hotel The Hague (Den Haag)

Babylon Hotel The Hague

115 Euro

3.5

Rating

3.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

Great location
Very nice dinner, good restaurant staff
Free minibar in Superior Room

Flyctory.com Cons

Room feels run down (even though partially renovated)
Elevator setting can be very bothering
High parking fees

During August 2020, my wife and I took a trip to Rotterdam and The Hague / Den Haag. Due to some good marketing on travel websites, we opted to stay at the Babylon Hotel The Hague, which has a quite central location. The hotel is driven by the Eden Hotel Group, which is also running the Hard Rock Hotel in Amsterdam, for example.

Babylon Hotel The Hague – Location

The Babylon Hotel is located in the New Babylon tower, which is a combination of a small shopping mall, a congress center and an office building. The Central Station (with Europe’s largest parking garage for cycles) is next door – so this place is definitely a great option for rail riders. There are also tram stations nearby, so that you are ideally connected. The metro connects The Hague with Rotterdam.

As city center is near as well, there are a lot of services in walking distance, not only the ones offered by the train station. The shopping mall holds an Albert Heijn supermarket, which was very handy.

Babylon Hotel The Hague – Rooms

We had a Superior Room for two nights. Including breakfast (both days) and dinner at one day, the total price was 231.40 Euro. The room was quite spacious, but felt comparably basic for a four star hotel. The seating opportunities and the workdesk was nice, though. The minibar was filled – at the Superior Room category, all drinks and snacks were included.

The bathroom with bathtub and integrated shower was quite nice and relaxing. I liked that the bathroom had plenty of space to place your toiletries. The room offered basic amenities.

I unfortunately did not like the condition of the room. It is hard to spot from the picture, but the board behind the bed had a significant gap to the wall on one side – so you should better not let anything slip down there. The carpet had some bad spots as well – overall, you saw that this room had quite a bunch of visitors before.

Babylon Hotel The Hague – Breakfast / Food

The hotel runs a nice restaurant area, which was, however, quite crowded during breakfast peak times. Especially the elevator logistics was a bit tricky when sleeping at one of the lower floors. Breakfast was served at the table on an etagere with eggs made to order. One day, we ordered scrambled eggs for two and received a double portion in one bowl – very difficult if you just have one plate to eat on. In addition, the etageres have not been cleaned, but only refilled for the next guest – what I felt to be inappropriate. Apart from that, breakfast was quite nice.

We stayed in the hotel from Friday to Sunday and had dinner on Saturday evening. Unfortunately, there were some reservation issues so that the hotel booked us on the wrong date – but they could solve it at check-in. Dinner was a two course selection from the menu – we went for a three-course dinner and paid the desert. The menu was compact, but offered some variety. My wife had a salad, some fish and a sorbet, while I went for a fish soup, a burger and creme brulee. The dinner quality was really pleasing with very friendly service – the ordinary meal prices were also fine compared to the Dutch price level (which is a bit higher than Germany, for example).

Babylon Hotel The Hague – Service

Check-in and check-out was reasonable. Check-in felt a bit more friendly, but overall, it was okay – apart from that check-out did not manage to sent us the invoice by mail. The in-room WiFi was pretty solid and the hotel tried to make advantage of its tower-alike architecture and installed a one-way route at each level – unfortunately, neither the majority of hotel guests nor the staff stuck to that system. Surprisingly (also as this was not the case in other Dutch hotels), the Babylon offered a daily house keeping of the room, which was quite good.

Guests may use the parking garage at the New Babylon shopping and commercial center, in which the hotel is located. The walk from the parking garage to the hotel was rather tricky, majorly as the signposting is poor. I had to call the hotel twice to finally find the hotel entrance (which was, honestly, also a bit of clumsy from myself). Guests receive a preferred rate of 25 Euro per night instead of 30. The hotel is also advertising parking at the Malieveld garage, which is likely about ten minutes walk away and has weekend parking fees of ten Euro per day (weekday daily fare: 26 Euro). The latter garage is closed between midnight and 6:00 hrs.

Babylon Hotel The Hague – My View

Not good, not bad – staying in the Babylon Hotel The Hague felt like a typical “reasonable” stay to us. The location is great, the service in the restaurant was good – but overall, it just did not feel like a four star stay. Parking fees in the Netherlands are generally ridiculous – and parking in a garage of a congress center right next to a central station just does not lead to a better experience. I would likely rather opt for another location if staying in The Hague again – but especially if you travel by train, the Babylon is not a bad one.