Hotel de Orangerie - Bruges, Belgium     

I booked 2 rooms for 4 nights based on tripadvisors #2 recommendation in Brugge. Upon making reservations we were told how fortunate we were as these were only 2 rooms available "due to conference" at $320.00 (U.S.) night w/o breakfast! Plus parking +/- 30 Euro/day. Specifically chose this hotel for location and queen bed (not 2 beds pushed together-we got 2 beds pushed together) Day 2 told them we were leaving as 1 room was converted garage; no window; bathroom on the street for all to see and hear. They said they'd charge us 1/2 of the 4 night stay even if we left. We stayed; got moved; but this left a very bad taste.They credited one night for garage room; hotel was 1/2 empty; bathroom tiles cracked; old paint / peeling paper; service people walking on metal roof in middle of the night; no showers only tub w/ hand held spritzer; front desk witch; good bathroom products; breakfast ultimately included w/ our departure threat. Owner secretly works the front desk acts as if he's hired hand. Martins Hotels is parent organization; please stay elsewhere. They had Michelin rating in 2007 and fortunately not in 2008. They did get tripadvisor award - how did this happen?

I don't seek to be too hard on this hotel. Some things were excellent. Location in the centre of Bruges is perfect. The two main public rooms (lounge-bar and breakfast room) are as charming and elegant as the hotel web site would have you believe. The bedroom amenities were fine, and the staff helpful. But.... The accommodation in the website was described thus '... rooms have a view over the medieval Bruges’ rooftops, the wintergarden or the quiet street at the front of the hotel....' Ours was one of the latter. Except that rather than having a view of the street, our large bedroom window actually abutted the pavement and unless we wanted to be intimately observed by every passer-by, we had no option but to keep the blind down permanently. This reduced the light inside so as to make reading difficult . Turn the light on and the blind became instantly translucent, again rendering the inside of our room visible to all and sundry. The only solution was to keep the heavy curtains drawn most of the time. One morning, at 8.00am sharp three or four workmen outside were installing trees in pots eight inches from the head of our bed. All this for ?200 a night. Not including breakfast. Which brings me to my other gripe. Breakfast. At ?20 a pop, the best breakfast in Brussels, as trumpeted in the website? Not ina million years. Pleasant, fairly comprehensive, certainly. But in essence, just a cold buffet with your choice of eggs. No sausage, hash browns, grilled tomato, kidneys, porage, smoked haddock or any of the other things which make for a truly memorable breakfast. Champagne was available, but nobody we saw availed himself of it. A rather precious gimmick, and an excuse for keeping the breakfast price at that level. I am not quite saying I wouldn't go back to this hotel, but I would make very sure beforehand which room I had been allocated, and it had better not be on the pavement again!