Work trip to Brussels, Belgium - 3rd to 5th October 2007

A couple of days in Brussels for a conference, and a good opportunity to drink some nice Belgian beer. On my first evening there, I had dinner close to Grand Place, which looked pretty impressive when the buildings were all lit up in the dark. The conference then ran for a day and a half, and was followed by a deeply unimpressive Eurostar journey home. Usually, the Eurostar works like a treat, but this one was late, horribly overcrowded, and with not much service to speak of once on board. Not good at all, and just when it is at its busiest, as Brussels empties out for the weekend with all the EU workers heading off.

I was staying in the Conrad Hotel this time, which was also where the conference was. This is a massive five star hotel on Brussels' equivalent of the Champs Elysess, with all the posh shops right nearby. But, despite some of the outward luxury, and the extreme comfortableness of the bed in my room, it really wasn't great value for money. When you pay almost 300 Euros for a room for the night, then still get ripped off at every possible turn after that, it does leave a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth.

8 Euros for a can of Coke from the minibar, 30 Euros (on top of the 300 Euro room - come on!) for a Continental breakfast, plus another 7 Euros if you want it on room service, 25 Euros for (not especially fast) broadband access for a day - that's almost as much as I pay for a month at home! The list went on and on - and that was before the huge rip off of the phone call charges from your room. It was 6 Euros for a half pint of beer at the bar (this in the country that specialises in beer, and where it is usually very cheap), and when a "mystery" 40 Euro bar charge that I knew nothing about appeared on my bill, I had to protest at the ridiculousness of it all.

Luckily, I think that practices like this are largely from a bygone age - people have much more choice over this stuff now, and will hopefully start to refuse to pay up for some of this overpriced nonsense. The ability to charge 25 Euros for a day of broadband access in particular, is fast disappearing - hopefully people will remember hotels that rip them off like this, and desert them in droves. Hotels like the Conrad are a relic of the 70s and 80s, where travel was a luxury thing, and people were not price sensitive to this kind of thing. It isn't like that now, and I hope the consumer has their revenge on the rip off merchants. I certainly won't be going back.