I'm not a travel expert, but I did stay at the Holiday Inn Westside in Bern during a November…read morefamily-of-3 vacation and we thought it was a comfortable hotel with a great value for the price. Our favorite aspects were the included free 3 hours at the adjacent Bernaqua indoor water park (within the Westside shopping mall, actually a wonderful way to relax after a long day of sightseeing), the train station directly across the street (with only an 8 minute ride into Old Bern), the deep bathtub (this may only be available in the executive rooms, not certain), the in-room Nespresso machine and packets of delicious Caotina, free high-speed internet, and the electric blackout shades on the window. Everything inside was new, clean, and modern, with the property having been built in 2008 and remodeled in 2017.
FYI, this hotel & entertainment hub is about 1.5 hrs train ride from Lausanne or Basil or Zurich.
As a home base for a family vacation spending a couple of days exploring Bern, this 8-story, 144-room hotel more than met our needs. Our 11 year old LOVED the water park (he thinks we need to go back to Switzerland just to visit Bernaqua http://www.westside.ch/en-GB/bernaqua again) and it was so convenient to have the indoor mall restaurants & grocery store available when we got in late on the first night. The train station and free shuttle service for the mall had cars leaving for downtown Bern just about every 2 minutes, so it was no problem at all to quickly get into the heart of Bern for all the site-seeing we wanted to do.
Let me get the caveats out of the way:
- We got a particularly great rate on a 7th floor King Executive Deluxe room with a view via my employer's corporate rate available for personal travel. Even if you don't regularly travel for work, it's worth checking your organization's travel portal to see if you can access something similar. Holiday Inn is part of the IHG network, so you may be able to work a credit card and/or other travel point system to get a good rate, too.
- We didn't eat in the on-site Brasserie Bits&Bites restaurant https://www.brasseriebitsandbites.ch/english/bern or spend many hours in the hotel itself. We mainly used the space for sleeping & bathing (both of which were very comfortable).
- We had the Swiss Pass for all our transportation needs during our trip, so we didn't use the free Bern Ticket travel pass https://www.bern.com/en/detail/bern-ticket-free-on-public-transport offered by the hotel.
- Our room faced south toward the Bern Brünnen Westside train station and subsequent farmland, and I sleep with earplugs always, so we had no problem with noise. I've read reviews from others complaining about street noise in rooms on the north (A1 highway) side.
Our only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the electricity for the room turns off each time you leave the room (yay for being green and conserving energy). This makes difficult the charging of your electronic devices or reserve batteries while you're out (which you may need to do in preparation for your next day of travel). We probably could have inquired with the front desk about a solution for this (perhaps there's a dedicated outlet that doesn't shut off?), but it wasn't a big enough deal for us to complain.
The hotel is situated near an agricultural area and we sometimes noticed the odor of fertilizer when we were outdoors, but there was nothing noticable inside our room. I'm known for having a bit of a hounddog's olfactory system, so your experience may vary.
If you are unfamiliar with how to use a Nespresso machine with discs (as I was before staying in this hotel), here's a helpful reference:
https://www.nespresso.com/pro/uk/en/pages/zenius-new#assistance (click on "Directions of Use")
Interesting history of the Westside development and its design, plus maps & more info, at the following links:
https://www.archdaily.com/101991/westside-bruennen-daniel-libeskind
http://www.westside.ch/en-GB/home.aspx
