Great hotel, looks new, modern and well kept. Staff was helpful and spoke english. Lobby had a…read morelively bar, and a restaurant, which, unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to eat at. Unlike other Novotels I have been to, this one had some drinks and snacks available to purchase at the lobby. Right off the bat, they give you a BaselCard, which allows you to use the city public transportation (busses and trams) and half price on many touristic attractions across the city, during your stay. Public transportation in Basel is top notch, and you can get pretty much any where, including bordering french and german towns, using it. We were a family of four and stayed in a executive room on the 4th floor. Very spacious and comfortable. Had a queen bed and a sofa bed. Big screen TV with an immense amount of channels in german, english, french, italian... Room has a minifridge with complimentary water, and a Nespresso machine with 6 free capsules that are replenished daily. Plenty of outlets, including near the bed. Nice bathroom, fairly large. Loved that there was a shower separated from the tub. Also the toilet was in a separated space. Interestingly, the wall between the tub and room was some kind of "tanned wall", that appears as normal see through glass until you press a button and it becomes opaque. Worth mentioning that the hotel is a 15 min walk from the SBB railway station, but there are at least 3 nearby tram station. There is also a small grocery store 5 min from here. Overall, great hotel, would stay here again if I ever have the opportunity to comeback to this beautiful city.

This Novotel is a nice, modern American-style hotel conveniently located near the train station…read more Comfortable beds, spacious bathroom, and overall roomy space so you don't feel squished to death with your bags. They have a nice breakfast setup downstairs with tons of fruit, meats, breads, coffee, tea, cereals, etc. Staff is friendly although we did have to follow up with them several times to solve an issue in our room.

This hotel is stunning! The staff is really professional. It is a wonderful place to have a coffee…read moreor tea break. The menu is pricy but it is a highly rated international hotel, so that makes sense. I went early in the morning and enjoyed tea and coffee with my family. The setting is incredible and it was quiet and peaceful.

What a fantastic experience this grand hotel was - from check-in to check-out. We were here for a…read morespecial wedding anniversary and they treated us more like loving family than guests. To say the service was 5-stars would not be giving the whole picture. It was relaxed, charming elegance with many small kindnesses adding up to a very warm happy experience. And the food was other level. We were fortunate to dine at Cheval Blanc and it lived up to its lofty reputation. A definite "wow" experience. But the hotel cuisine at lunch and even breakfast was also top-level. There are windows into the kitchen in the hotel and you can watch the chefs (including renowned chef Knofl) hard at work performing their craft. All of this does not come inexpensively. This is a 5-star hotel and Cheval Blanc is a 3 star Michelin restaurant. So you will have to spend some money for the experience. But there are many expensive experiences that do not live up to expectations. This one does and, in fact, exceeds them. Note: this hotel is part of the Amex Grand Hotels program which provides a room upgrade if available and a 100 Swiss franc spending credit in the hotel.

Nice hotel. Excellent location next the train station. Friendly staff, great beds, pillows and…read morecomforters. Will stay here again.

Decent size rooms with wonderful mattresses. The hotel is steps from the SBB train station and…read moremost of the city trams. Staff has been pleasant and helpful. I would recommend staying.

Great location! Fresh, clean, modern boutique hotel with 4 restaurants in a great shopping and…read moredining neighborhood ready for postcard quality pictures around every corner. Staff are attentive without being intrusive multi-lingual and helpful when asked. The rooms are tastefully appointed with lots of nice touches like complimentary slippers, green water and toiletries, and an espresso cup machine and both sparkling and spring water bottles chilling in the mini fridge when you arrive.

Friendly people, big room, clean, have us a cocktail, great location. Everything was perfect!read more

This hotel is the perfect balance of location, price, ambiance, and staff attentiveness…read more Location: It's very near the train station and therefore near numerous bus lines. The train station has a TI so it's a great stop to ask questions and get directions on which bus to take. Price: It was sub-$200, big and clean room, breakfast included. Oh, oh, the mini bar is FREE!!! What more can I say? Ambiance: This is the boutique hotel category. Very charmingly decorated throughout. The breakfast room is simply beautiful. Staff: We arrived early and knew it's too early to access our room. The front desk tagged our luggage, checked us in, gave us the Basel cards, and when we returned at end of day, picked up our keys, and our luggage are magically in our room. They don't do the cheesy American thing where they waited till you are in the room, so the staff will wait for a tip. Love that about Europe! About the Basel card, this is a freebie that all hotels offer their guests. (Not sure if it's a limited time thing) Free public transportation, including the bus to the airport(!), and 50% off many museums! I highly recommend this hotel to anyone visiting Basel.

Did a search for a hotel near the Basel train station and this hotel came up so, we decided to try…read moreit, and I am SO GLAD we did. Awesome eco-friendly hotel ( tip - all the organic snacks and beverages in the mini fridge are complimentary :). They offered us hot tea upon check-in, which was great on a cold Dec day. The room was great with a window you can open for air. The included breakfast was more than adequate. There is also a private sauna you can book, but I didn't try it. What makes this hotel top notch, however, is the staff - very polite, helpful and professional. They also helped us with our train tickets and held our luggage before check-in so we could explore the area without the added burden. Highly recommend!!! 5/5

Loved this hotel! It is in a historic building with a brewery. The room was very nice and the bed…read moreextremely comfortable. The staff were very accommodating even providing us sandwiches when we had to get out early and miss breakfast! Big thank you to Saskia Strasser for all her help whenever we needed assistance! She was the best! Also it is right by the number 3 tram for easy access to Basel. They provide you with a pass for free fares too!

This art hotel is charming, with good sized rooms and great service. One item that stood out was…read moreour check-out experience. Normally, breakfast comes with the room. However, we had to leave for the airport 5:30am, so instead of just forfeiting breakfast, they offered (without us asking) to instead do a lunch bag for us and made the effort to have someone have it ready at 5:25am, before their front desk opened (like many European hotels, their lobby isn't 24 hours). Also, we chose a ham and cheese sandwich. However, they didn't give us a ham and cheese. What they gave us each was: a ham and cheese sandwich filling a large baguette, an extra cheese sandwich baguette, 2 apples each, 2 nectarines each and a bottle of water. So they threw in quite a bit more than they had to. Did I mention they also provided us with two all-day tram passes for each day as part of the room? Also, free WiFi that was actually quite good in reliability and speed (which is not always the case in European hotel wifi). So, overall, a good experience. It is however necessary to prepare tourists -- particularly Americans -- for a few items: 1. There aren't elevators in one of the two buildings that make up the hotel (it's a historic building), and the stairs are spiral and a bit off-kilter. They do have a bellhop who will transport it up, but after quite a while in Europe we had a lot of bags, and we felt a bit bad about it, particularly as we heard the rather in-shape guy wheezing his way up for two trips. If you stay and have luggage, ask specifically for the building with the elevators. 2. They have a heater in the room, but not air conditioning. As Switzerland is not tropical, this probably isn't usually a problem. Our visit coincided with a bit of a heat wave. However, we did learn it can get a bit toasty during the height of summer even in Basel, so if staying in July or August this might be a consideration. When asked, they did bring up a floor fan to help keep us cool, however. Overall, I recommend this hotel as it is also near the heart of the city, and convenient to most of the shopping and sights.

Wonderful hotel. So clean and nice. Kamila at the front desk was amazing for so many reasons. She…read morehelped us figure out parking location and where to go eat, plus setting up our family room. Would definitely stay again without question. Kamila you are amazing.

From the owner: The Passage, a four-star hotel in downtown Basel, opens its doors in the first quarter of 2014…read more Come discover this modern, elegant, welcoming world. It is the hotel's location that gives it its name, for it stands upon Basel's ancient fortifications, the boundary between the old town and the new city. The Passage creates a bridge between epochs, combining a unique interpretation of refined living in a designer environment.

Location location location! Easy to walk to restaurants, nightlife and sightseeing locations. In…read moreaddition, public transportation is right out the front lobby. The hotel common areas and rooms, nicely decorated and updated. The hotel staff were all very nice in general. Amenities all good, gym, water stations and restaurants. My friend and I stayed 3 nights and 4 days in mid September. First night we arrived in the evening, check-in was flawless, staff was very friendly and informative. Our room was fairly big, nicely decorated, hardwood floors and it felt clean. The bed comfortable and the air conditioning worked well. There was a coffee machine, mini refrigerator and safe. Bathroom were nice but tiny. The Gym was good, plenty of towels, a water bottle filling station, disinfectant spray and paper towels. I saw a lot of early morning swimmers walk through the hallway from the glass window I was biking from. We had the breakfast buffet every morning before setting off to sightseeing. The breakfast selection was perfect, cold meats, cheeses, hot dishes along with a large selection of breads, pastries, plenty of coffee machines and juices, couldn't ask for better. I would definitely stay here again.

This is perhaps the worst hotel I have stayed at in modern history. They checked us in late without…read morean apology or a comp. They were unable to help with reservations or advice on someplace to eat nearby. they gave us incorrect so we can make reservations for ourselves. The Wi-Fi barely works. We kept having to go down and have them help us. well, the room was clean, so I'll give them that.

On our way to a Viking cruise out of Basel, we decided to go in a couple days early to adjust to…read morethe time change, and to wander around the city. We chose Hotel Spalentor primarily for its location. I did not include the breakfast buffet, because we planned to just walk around and find something. Well, the first morning we were a little more tired than expected, so we did in fact do the breakfast. It's basically in the attic of the hotel, but they've done it up very nice and quaint. The buffet was pretty basic, although it did include some very good cheese selections. Service was great, as was the coffee, made fresh cup by cup. Only complaint there is that the cups are very small....so I think we each ended up having 3 cups. The hotel itself was great. The location is perfect for walking around Basel, and we actually walked across the Rhine river one night for dinner, and it only took us about 20 minutes....and what a beautiful walk! Everything was clean, comfortable and the staff were great. Everyone spoke enough English, that we had no problem communicating. The only negative I could see, might be parking if you have a rental car. We didn't, so I wasn't an issue for us. But there didn't seem to be a lot of parking there....but then that also looked to be the case for the whole city. Great city to visit, and if we ever go back for a longer stay, we would definitely consider Hotel Spalentor again.

Our family stayed two days prior to a river cruise. The rates were good, and we got a 10%…read morediscount by booking directly with them. The staff was wonderful! The rooms are large, and they have a breakfast daily. We would stay there again without hesitation.