Clarion Hotel Vienna South

“NO MORE DAILY MAID SERVICE in order to... "Save the Planet"!”

WARNING: This COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW contains more than 256 characters, beyond which many of my younger students from FIU fainted... IF you can read more than 256 characters without fainting, keep reading and chances are that you will learn quite a few things... SINCE 1963, when I was 20 and theref… more

WARNING: This COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW contains more than 256 characters, beyond which many of my younger students from FIU fainted... IF you can read more than 256 characters without fainting, keep reading and chances are that you will learn quite a few things... SINCE 1963, when I was 20 and therefore old enough to start traveling alone without my parents, I have seen HUGE CHANGES in the Travel Industry. And, like my mother used to say: "Things keep changing all the time but it's always to get worse!" IN 1963, all hotels rented their rooms for 24 hours, from 12 noon to 12 noon. NOW, they only rent them AFTER 3 pm (and, in 2020, I saw a hotel in Tampa where you could not get in before 5 pm!) and they kick you out the next day at 10 or 11 am... NOW YOU PAY for 24 hours BUT you only get 18 or 19... IN 1963, ALL HOTELS had an OUTSTANDING RESERVATION policy called "6 pm COURTESY HOLD" WITHOUT any CREDIT CARD, which was needed only to guarantee the reservation for late arrival because, at 6 pm, your courtesy reservation automatically disappeared. I learned this the hard way in Scotland in 1990, when I arrived at 7 pm to hear that mine had disappeared and that my hotel was full. So I had quite a hard time finding another hotel, less good and more expensive than my usual one! Thankfully, I had rented a car, which made it easier. NINE YEARS AGO, in 2017, I was still reserving all my hotels that way, since my flights from Miami arrived in Europe or to the South Cone (Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile) early in the morning the next day. That year, I had 36 reservations in different hotels (mostly ACCOR and CHOICE HOTELS) between January and December, all on a "6 PM COURTESY HOLD", WITHOUT a credit card, between Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, London, Vienna, Sao Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and the USA. BUT after 2017 all hotels started requesting a CREDIT CARD, even if you arrived at 12 noon. HOWEVER, they all offered an HONEST CANCELLATION POLICY: DAY OF ARRIVAL BY 6 or 7 pm, which is still the case for B&B or for MOTEL ONE Groups, BUT they are are virtually the only ones doing it in 2026, together with CHOICE HOTELS (Comfort, Quality and Clarion Hotels) in France (NOT in the USA!), where you may cancel your reservation until the DAY OF ARRIVAL BY 4 pm, vs. 7 pm for B&B Group! BECAUSE NOW, MORE AND MORE HOTELS are practicing a new fashion that started timidly about eight years ago, but which has spread all over the world like a forest fire after 2020: You NO LONGER have until the DAY OF ARRIVAL if you must cancel your reservation, but you MUST CANCEL IT ONE, TWO OR EVEN THREE DAYS BEFORE ARRIVAL! And what happens if your flight is cancelled, which has happened to me more than 20 times in the past 30 years, as a Two Million Miler, Platinum for Life on AA? YOU JUST LOSE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY! Whether for weather reasons (it happened to me a dozen times at JFK, IAD and DFW), mechanical reasons (in LAX and MIA), Iceland volcano ashes (it happened to me in Paris in 2010), a Chilean volcano ashes (it happened to me in Montevideo in 2011), pilots strikes, flight attendant strikes, Paris CDG firemen strikes (it happened to me once, which made me miss my UA connection in London to Washington DC!), you name it! FLIGHTS ARE CANCELLED EVERY DAY, EVERYWHERE, AND NEVER, EVER, ONE DAY BEFORE, BUT ALWAYS AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE! And what happens with your hotel reservation in that case? You JUST LOSE YOUR MONEY! FINALLY, last but not least: in 1963 all hotels offered DAILY MAID SERVICE that changed your towels every single day. BUT in 1990, I noticed that the Strand Palace in London (for I was then a Professor, with a little bit more money than in the 1960s) started putting signs asking you to keep your towels for 2 or 3 days for "environmental reasons". AND NOW, not only you have to keep your towels, but you also have to keep everything, INCLUDING YOUR FULL TRASH CANS during 4 or 5 days because there is NO MORE MAID SERVICE in order to save money! Pardon me, I meant in order to "Save the Planet"... How can the lack of hygiene save the planet? You tell me, because I never learned such a thing during my 12 years at the Paris Sorbonne (where I earned 2 Masters + 2 MA Thesis + 2 DEA + 1 Doctorate), nor during my 46 years of priesthood, teaching French Literature in that same Paris and at the Florida International University in Miami after I retired from France! THAT BEING SAID, I LOVE THIS CLARION HOTEL for several reasons: FIRST, it is only a few minutes by a direct bus from MEIDLING train station, which is ONLY 30 minutes from the airport by a DIRECT TRAIN, at the second stop, after the main train station called HAUPTBAHNHOF (HBF for the family...) Two stops from the airport and only 30 minutes, I’ve never seen that, except in London, for the very expensive Express train, or now in Paris to Orly with line 14 since 2025. And I forgot Frankfurt (outstanding service by tram and train) and Atlanta with MARTA train; all of those places take you to the airport in 30 minutes or less. Once at Meidling, you take the elevator down (for Vienna is NOT Paris, where you must go up and down the stairs with your luggage!) and look for signs showing BUS 15A. Another elevator up, then you turn left, walk about ten or fifteen meters and take BUS 15A. Then get off at the fourth stop called CLEMENS-HOLZMEISTER-STRAßE and the CLARION is right a few meters behind the bus stop. After you leave your luggage in your room, you can go back to the Meidling train station with the same bus 15A, right across the street, and take a train to "Floridsdorf", which will take you to “PRATERSTERN” in about 20 minutes, from where you can walk or take several tramways to the old city. A WEEKLY PASS, for a REAL FULL 7 DAYS, from the date of purchase (and not which will go kaput the following Sunday, even if you bought it on Friday, as in most cities like Paris, London, etc.!) cost me 31.10 € in March 2026 including a 2.20 € airport supplement. Then, before you go back to the airport, you must pay another 2.20 €, which will put the WHOLE WEEK at 33.30 €, for 7 full days a/o March 2026. WARNING: The supplement for the return can be bought in advance, BUT is ONLY GOOD FOR 2 HOURS. So make sure you will use it within those two hours at the date and time stamped on it. SECOND, this CLARION offers high rise rooms like my 2111 with a panoramic view over Vienna cathedral and the modern town with just a handful of high-rise buildings at a distance. Rooms are only half as big as the one I had at the CLARION LAS VEGAS a dozen years ago (now disappeared in this ephemeral world where nothing lasts!) BUT FOR EUROPE THEY ARE HUGE, four times bigger than what they call Single rooms in London budget hotels, where I paid the price of the LAX Sheraton to sleep in a room which was somewhere between the size of the typical UK phone booth and my smallest closet in Miami Beach! My room 2111 at this CLARION VIENNA had a small frig (BUT NO micro-wave as in the US Clarions!), plus a teapot to heat your tea water and a small espresso machine with 4 capsules per day. At 2.40 € the cheapest espresso (at the Praterstern Mc Donald in March 2026), that's a very good deal! It also had a round table in front of an angle couch, which is very convenient to relax and watch TV, especially because there is NO big club chair and NO executive chair for the desk, as you will find in all CLARION hotels in the US. BUT don’t forget that this is Europe and be happy with it! In Paris, I paid over $120 to sleep in a small closet, only twice as big as London´s single rooms with NO frig or even a teapot! And, naturally, there is also a big shower, unlike some tiny showers I've seen in budget hotels in Paris, where many Americans (including some of my FIU students!) could not enter, together with a flushing toilet, which many consider to be the greatest invention of mankind... THIRD, there is a big shopping center right next to the hotel, with a direct entrance through Clarion's cafeteria; therefore you don't even have to go out in the cold to reach it. In that big shopping center, you will find everything, from restaurants, shops and groceries to a cinema. My favorite grocery is right a few steps from Clarion's coffee shop and it is called BILLA, where you will find everything you need EXCEPT Sundays. If you need something to eat on Sunday, you must go to the PRATERSTERN BILLA, which is bigger and always open. I did it and it took me only 90 minutes round trip, including RT busses, trains and shopping time. FINALLY, if there is no longer a daily maid service (unless you request it, which I never do), there is an army of friendly employees ready to help you if you need anything. I asked for a small heater and got it right away. And when I called for espresso capsules, I had a whole box of 10 a few minutes later. ALL IN ALL, this CLARION VIENNA is an OUTSTANDING VALUE for Europe; I would say one of the bests, compared to what I have seen all over Europe, since I landed in Paris in 1963 to study at the Sorbonne. BUT where will they take my beloved Travel Industry? Since I am not far from the Last Stop, where everybody has to get off and move to a better world, I will not see it but, the way it goes, chances are that it will be quite ugly to see!

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“Not sure...”

Just arrived today , room clean and tidy BUT No SAFE, No Fridge and no bin liner in waste paper bin. Its more like a travel lodge than a starred hotel. Here on an organised tour so no choice , i would not come here if i paid for it myself , also in bad location .

“Average experience - Great breakfast, but service is lacking”

We arrived late at night and were hoping for a smooth transition to sleep. The initial check-in was quick and uneventful, which we appreciated after a long day of travel. However, the experience went downhill shortly after getting to the room. We discovered that the bedding for the sofa bed was mis… more

We arrived late at night and were hoping for a smooth transition to sleep. The initial check-in was quick and uneventful, which we appreciated after a long day of travel. However, the experience went downhill shortly after getting to the room. We discovered that the bedding for the sofa bed was missing. I tried calling reception, but it took three attempts before anyone answered. When they finally did, I was told they would call me back in 5 minutes. That call never came. I eventually had to walk down to the lobby myself, only to find the staff weren't even busy with other customers. They did finally provide the bedding, but we had to set it up ourselves. The service issues continued into the next day. Nobody came to clean our room or replace our towels, which is a basic expectation for a hotel of this caliber. Generally, the atmosphere among the staff was quite disheartening. Aside from one receptionist, the entire team seemed tired and broken—not a single smile or "hello" to be found. The saving grace of this stay was definitely the breakfast. Everything was fresh, and there was a really good variety to choose from. Interestingly, the breakfast staff were actually very nice and provided a much-needed contrast to the front-desk team. I expected much more for the price.

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