Theater Hotel - Antwerp, Belgium 

The Theater Hotel was the main conference hotel for a congress which I attended in Antwerp in September 2007. We made and paid in full for our booking in April. On arriving at the hotel after 10pm in the evening, worn out after a full day's travel from Hong Kong to Brussels via Helsinki and on to Antwerp (obviously not the hotel's fault), we were advised that there was not a room available, despite it having been paid for 5 months earlier, which was explained on the basis that over-booking and re-sale of rooms is common in the hotel industry. The hotel managers, present nearby at the hotel's bar, were not interested in our plight, and left a young and very obliging reception clerk to deal with us, which she did to the best of her ability. An unsatisfactory "alternative" room was arranged, in a building well removed from central Antwerp, and nowhere near the congress venues and transport, so we made our own arrangements for the rest of our stay. The only positive coming out of our experience was discovering the Hyllit Hotel in central Antwerp, to which we relocated and in which we found first class accommodation from every point of view. Given that, we did not take up later offers from the Theater Hotel through our travel agent of an upgraded room for the balance of our stay.