For our few nights in the Netherlands we decided to stay at the Hilton The Hague. I’ll be the first to admit that my loyalty is all over the place when it comes to hotels, and I’m also not the best at maximising my points opportunities when it comes to hotel stays. Many of the hotel options in Amsterdam seemed pricey, so I scouted around; I knew that a couple of my friends live in The Hague, and found a decently priced Family Suite (around HK$2,500/night) that would accommodate all four of us at the Hilton, so decided that it was the best option for our four-night stay. The Hilton The Hague is located in The Hague Central, across the street from Hoogstraat, a street with many shops, decent restaurants, and good pubs. The hotel’s exterior is a little on the drab side, though almost not in an unpleasant way, since there’s something cute about how rustic the brick exterior looks.
Hilton The Hague Exterior
As I mentioned, the hotel is near Hoogstraat, which comes alive during midday; it also leads on to Palace Noordeinde, where you can take a tram across the city (or to the train station, where you can catch a train to Amsterdam). Near the hotel is also a lake of sorts, and the path around it is a good contender for a pretty morning jog.
Hilton The Hague Surrounding Area
The lobby itself is quite quaint, with low ceilings – despite that, it was quite long, and spanned the horizontal length of the hotel. It cornered into an L-shape at one end, though that led to the hotel’s restaurant, Restaurant Pearl (more on that later).
Hilton The Hague Lobby
Since I’d already checked in through Hilton’s app, we went to the desk to grab some extra keys for our room. While I had the Hilton app and had a Digital Key on my iPhone, my parents didn’t have the app, and preferred to have a traditional key card at hand.
Speaking of Digital Key, I’d normally have to press it twice in order to unlock the elevator – it would return an error message on my first attempt. In fact, my first digital key didn’t work at all, so I had to ask the front desk to reset my key for me – despite that, I found the Digital Key function an overall asset to the Hilton experience, as it provided an extra option for navigating around the hotel, and I preferred opening the Hilton app to digging out my wallet. That being said, I do hope Hilton fixes their Digital Key run-in issues sometime soon, though.
The Hilton is somewhat circular, and our room was featured on a corner (though it wasn’t a “corner room”, in that the windows faced a single direction).
Hilton The Hague Floorplan
Our room was featured on the fourth floor, about a 30-second walk from the lifts.
Hilton The Hague Hallway
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Entrance
Hilton The Hague
Check-in: Saturday, August 3, 2019
Room Type: Family Suite
Room Number: 406
Stay duration: 4 nights
Check-out: Wednesday, August 7, 2019
The Hilton The Hague’s Family Suite was advertised as 42 sq. m, but it felt smaller, presumably due to the number of beds. While called a “suite”, it really felt more like a junior suite, as it was a single large room, as opposed to a few rooms connected together. In ways I prefer having a single larger space while traveling as a family, so it made perfect sense to me.
The room itself featured a seating area with a lounging chair and a sofa, a comfortable bed, and two less comfortable rollaway beds. The furniture generally felt quite modern, though the grandma-style lounge chair felt slightly out of place.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite
To the left of the room was a large desk area. The chair was ergonomic and the desk was large and L-shaped, an element of the room I really appreciated.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Desk Area
Behind the desk area was a pantry area with a Nespresso machine and a separate sink. This ended up being an area for our bags, though I imagine it would be really useful for families with younger kids (especially kids who were into Play-Doh or other toys that require hand-washing after), or those who prefer to have coffee in their room every morning.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Pantry
The bathroom was the highlight of the room, and featured double sinks, a toilet, and a separate tub and shower. I would’ve appreciated if there was a door by the toilet, since it was partitioned off in a way where you’d expect a door to be there; this would’ve made it more convenient for families, as someone could be using the sink while another was using the toilet, etc..
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Bathroom and Toilet
I would’ve preferred the shower to have better water pressure, though at least the temperature stayed consistent.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Shower
As consistent with my experience with other Hilton hotels, the hotel featured Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries, which were provided not only in the bathroom but also on the bed on our first night.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite Crabtree & Evelyn Toiletries
I found it interesting, though, that the hotel didn’t place the toiletry bottles in the shower area. I know that it’s up to every guest on how they use their toiletries, though I can’t imagine there are many guests who don’t use toiletries in the shower…
There wasn’t much in terms of views, as we were on the fourth floor (which was the second highest floor of the hotel). We had views of the top of a nearby building and the outskirts of the city at a distance, though that was it.
Hilton The Hague Family Suite View
Overall, I thought the room was well worth the price, even though it was more of a junior suite than a full suite. It met its purpose of catering to a family well, and I thought it was pretty practically designed. There were a few universal power ports, though most of them were located near the desk – the ones nearest to the beds were all EU-style.
There was a standard free WiFi package, and a premium WiFi package for €32/night for up to 6 devices. We didn’t think premium WiFi was worth it since I didn’t have too much work to do, so we stuck to the standard WiFi for all four nights, which measured 4.92 Mbps down and 4.89 Mbps up – not too bad, but not impressive by any means. I wish the hotel offered premium WiFi to all guests.
As a Silver member we didn’t get premium WiFi for free, though we did get two bottles of free premium water. Not the greatest of value additions, but I’m not complaining…
Hilton The Hague Free Water for Silver Members
In terms of other facilities, the hotel featured a gym, which was featured on the second floor adjacent to the spa. I didn’t get to check out the spa, though I did use the gym a couple of times. While bare, the gym featured the essentials such as dumbbells, treadmills, elliptical machines, and medicine balls.
Hilton The Hague Gym
Located on the ground floor adjacent to the lobby was Restaurant Pearl. I dropped by for breakfast one morning, so I could review it. Since it wasn’t included in our room rate, the breakfast cost €23 per person.
The restaurant itself is quite nice, and features modern decor and high ceilings.
Hilton The Hague Restaurant Pearl
Unfortunately I don’t have as kind words about the continental breakfast offered. While there were smoothies on offer, there was no table service for coffee/tea orders, and I didn’t find the food particularly high-quality, either. I’d skip breakfast at the Hilton The Hague if it wasn’t included in the room rate.
Hilton The Hague Restaurant Pearl Breakfast Spread
The hotel also offers rental bike services. While I’d be thrilled with that if travelling alone, unfortunately my mom isn’t a competent biker, so we didn’t end up having the opportunity to bike during our four-night stay. I believe the rental rate was somewhere around €8.50 an hour, which is reasonable enough, considering there are no other rental bike places in the vicinity.
Check-out from the hotel was efficient, though do note that they hold €50/night from your credit card during check-in as deposit; this was smoothly refunded to us during the check-out process, and we made our way onto our Blacklane transfer, where we were headed to Brussels. Our Blacklane transfer arrived on time, was smooth and efficient, and ended up being cheaper than booking a Thalys train ride.
If you don’t have a Blacklane account yet, you can use promo code WKE2EIHZB during the booking process to get a 10% discount on your first ride, which you can use after entering your credit card information – we get a future discount too, so we’d really appreciate your help!
Bottom Line: Hilton The Hague Family Suite
The Hilton The Hague was rustic, yet exuded charm. While the Family Suite wasn’t particularly modern or attractive, it was perfectly comfortable, ergonomically designed, and was well-priced. I wouldn’t hesitate to return, though probably would skip breakfast.
