Ambassador Swiss Quality Hotel - Zurich, Switzerland 

A gem of a hotel
Posted: Sun, Jun 29 2008
We added a day in Zurich and booked the Ambassador at the last minute. We loved this hotel. The staff was so friendly and gave us a welcome drink coupon for the Opera Bar hooked onto the hotel. Our room was a nice size with adjustable beds. The bedding was very nice. The bathroom was a good size and had one of those new "wash and blow dry" toilets to try if you wanted to. There were cofee and tea making facilities and a TV that was also the internet. The location was pretty central. We didn't get breakfast included in the price but there were several cafes in the neighborhood to chose from.

Nice hotel in very nice location
Posted: Sun, May 04 2008
I stayed at The Ambassador with my husband for 3 nights to celebrate our wedding anniversary back in April 2007 and was extremely disappointed at the time: tiny room, very narrow double bed with a bouncy mattress, lack of communication with the staff (they kept replacing two sets of towels with one and we had to complain every single day, often several times, toiletries weren’t replaced, several calls to get second bathrobe, never received a second pair of slippers etc). I subsequently posted a review here and was pleasantly surprised that the manager of the hotel got in touch with me within two days. He apologised and said that, being two people, we should never have been put in the room we were in as that was meant for a single person. My husband had been staying there the week before on business and had been allocated that room, and evidently the staff hadn’t bothered to put us in a larger room when I arrived. In fact, it seems there was a definite breakdown in communication at the time as my husband advised them twice that I was arriving, but they were extremely surprised when I arrived. Instead of putting us in a larger room they simply advised us that they would have to charge us more for the time I was staying there. The manager was very apologetic and offered us a free weekend including breakfast at the hotel. This time we experienced the treatment we would have expected in the first place: ARRIVAL On arrival we got a voucher for a glass of champagne, which was a nice touch. ROOM The room was clean, albeit not huge, and the bed was a proper big bed with two large mattresses, each with their own settings (with an electric control), so you could put up your feet or back etc. The bathroom we had was very small but clean and had everything we needed, including toiletries that were replenished. The hotel has an oldy-woldy feel to it and is a bit dark for my liking, but it is clean and has all the amenities. There is a bottle of water for free, though once that runs out you can easily just drink tap water – the tap water in Zurich is absolutely fine. The television had several international channels, though we didn’t watch much so I can’t remember which. LOCATION The location is good, right by the Opera and the lake (although I don't think any of the rooms look out over the lake directly, but we did see the lake from our room) and within 10 mins walking distance of the famous shopping street Bahnhofstrasse and 15 mins walk from the old town. Plenty of public transport, including an S-Bahn station a 5 mins walk away with a direct train to the airport. RESTAURANT Breakfast was a buffet and very nice with a selection of breads, genuine Swiss Bircherm?esli, fruit, fantastic Swiss cheeses, cereals, eggs and even champagne. We also had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Not cheap but it was delicious, and the restaurant staff very friendly. One negative point however: this is the first hotel of this category (and even lower categories) that we have come across where the guest is expected to take the laundry to reception, rather than it being collected. Not a huge deal, but not something you’d expect in this type of hotel.