Sarah
In January 2019 I stayed at the Westin Hamburg for the second time. I had been mesmerized by this hotel already during my first day shortly after the glorious opening in 2016 – and was delighted to come back. The Westin Hamburg is located directly inside the (in)famous Elbphilharmonie – a beautiful building that quickly became the most photographed landmark in Hamburg.
But of course this wouldn’t be one of my reviews if I would simply praise it. So let’s dig deep into Westin Hamburg – this thorough review will tell you everything you need to know. And then you can decide on your own if this is for you!
Table of Contents
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In Short (My Personal Ratings)
Location
Club Lounge
Fitness Center
Room
Room Amenities
Spa and Pool
The Location - Hafencity and Elbphilharmonie
The Westin Hamburg is located in Hamburg Hafencity (south of Speicherstadt) directly inside the Elbphilharmonie.
The Elbphilharmonie is a prestigious concert hall that was finally finished in November 2016. It was actually planned to be opened in 2010 – but there had been serious delays in building. (It also costed more than 11x times (!) of the initial calculated price!).
Anyway, the Elbphilharmonie now dominates the looks of Hamburg’s HafenCity and quickly became photographer’s darling in Hamburg. Well deserved in my opinion!
HafenCity is a very modern and distinct neighborhood in Hamburg with lots of high class offices and luxury flats. You can also find some of the finest bars and restaurants in neighboring Speicherstadt (just a few meters north of the Elbphilharmonie). The Elbphilharmonie is also well connected by public transportation, so this is a great area to stay in as a city visitor!
The Lobby of Westin Hamburg
The Lobby of the Westin Hamburg is located on the 8th floor of the Elbphilharmonie and can be accessed without a key cards by elevators.
It’s a broad room with nice seating areas and a view over the harbor. The hotel’s bar can be found directly behind the check-in counters.
The Room at Westin Hamburg
We were lucky to be upgraded to a Junior suite during this visit. Our suite was on the 11th flooe and offered splendid views over Hamburg Harbor.
During my first visit in 2016 I was given a standard room with a fantastic view over Speicherstadt. I guess, every room here has awesome views – not only the suites 🙂
The most remarkable element of the rooms are for sure the full scale windows. Basically one side of your room only consists of windows. Those windows have a unique curved shape and are pointed on with a pattern – giving the Elbphilharmonie its distinctive exterior look. I promise, the moment you turn off the lights, you don’t want to close your eyes anymore because the harbor looks so pretty at night! This has been my favorite view from ANY hotel room in the WORLD so far!
A nice things about the Junior Suite was also (aside from its size!) that there was both a shower and a bathtub. And yes, the bathtub comes with a view through those awesome windows too! You can bet I took a nice bath here in the evening (with a glass of wine I snatched from the Westin Club Lounge :D). The shower was huge too and came with a rainforest shower head.
I only have a small suggestion for improvement here and this is the light concept in the bathroom. Sadly, you can’t dim the light – so if you want to see Hamburg Harbor by night from the tub you either have to sit in the dark or live with the reflections from the bright bathroom lights. But I guess, I am being really picky about this 😉
The In-Room Amenities
As you may know, I am also picky about in-room amenties and always check out everything upon entering my room. And Westin Hamburg did not fall short of my expectations.
There was a kettle and a Nespresso maschine (big plus! I love coffee in bed in the morning). There was a selection of 8 capsules of coffee + instant coffee (why?). Unfortunately there was no fresh coffee milk in the fridge, they only had two sachets of powder creamer next to the tea selection (I am deducting 1/2 star for this, given the high standard of a junior suite in a 5* luxury hotel. Two bottles of free water are provided too.
The bathroom amenities are “White Tea Aloe” (Shampoo, Conditioner, Shower Gel and Body Lotion) and really smelled nicely. However, the conditioner left my hair quite frizzy – but my hair is really complicated so it might work for you. There is also a small bag with Bathing Salt + the usual stuff (comb, cotton pads, shower cap etc.). Of course, cozy bathrobes and the typical slippers are available in your room as well.
Westin is proud of their exceptional beds and has a unique concept about the “Westin Heavenly Beds”. You thus have a pillow menue in your room and can order your favorite type of pillows to your room at no extra cost.
A really nice detail was also the small (and super delicious) cake that was in our room – however this might be a junior suite thing!
The Westin Club Lounge
The Westin Club lounge is open all day to loyalty members with elite status (Platinum) or Club Room guests. It is located on the 19th floor of the hotel and has plenty of comfortable seating with lots of power plugs available.
It’s open from 5am to midnight, with free food being served in the morning until 11am and in the afternoon/evening from 4pm to 10pm. Especially compared to other hotel lounges that I have already stayed at, Westin Club Lounge Hamburg has a wide and varied selection of free food available.
Soft drinks can be found there for free all day too and alcoholic beverages from 7pm-11pm (wine, beer, sparkling wine).
The Westin Club Lounge is definitely one of the best hotel lounges I visited so far and is perfect if you have to work from your hotel and don’t want to stay in the room the whole time.
The Food at Westin Hamburg
This time I haven’t been to either the restaurant for dinner or the full breakfast buffet. Instead, I went to the Westin Club lounge both in the evening and the morning as this was for free.
As already described above, the Westin Club Lounge had a nice range of food and drinks in the afternoon/evening: There were three kinds of salads in small glasses, bread and butter, chicken sate, spring rolls, foccacia with tomato, salmon sandwiches, petit fours, cake, smoothies, creme brulee and fresh fruits! The also had two white wines, two red wines (an excellent Merlot from Rothschild among them!), Prosecco, beer and soft drinks.
The breakfast buffet at Westin Club Lounge was also much better than most hotel club lounges: There was a variation of bread and bread rolls, croissants, “Franzbrötchen” (a typical sweet pastry from Hamburg), cheese, salmon, cold cuts, cereals, fresh fruit, yoghurt, honey, jam, Nutella and smooties. A waiter will bring you coffee specialties and tea too.
The Pool / Spa / Fitness Studio of Westin Hamburg
The review of the Westin Hamburg wouldn’t be complete without information about the Pool/Spa and the Fitness area!
The fitness area can be found at the 6th floor and is open for 24 hours. You will find new and modern treadmills and cross-trainers here as well as weights and some exercise machines. There are also plenty of yoga mats, steps and other equipment, so you can do whatever is your favorite workout. Towels and fresh water is provided as well.
I really liked the fitness studio and there was only one minor thing that could have been improved: the TV of the treadmills wasn’t working (or I couldn’t figure out how to get it to play anything). Side note: if you don’t have fitness equipment with you, Westin steals your lame excuse by offering to rent Workout Gear to you! 😉
A real gem for fitness fans is the pool: While it is rather narrow, it has a total length of 20m! That’s much more than most hotel pools and thus perfect for going for a swim in the morning! The pool is open till 10pm and is next to the fitness area and the sauna.
The spa area has two saunas (70/90°C), two steam rooms, eight foot baths and one relaxing (quiet area). There is a second relaxing room – the “tea room” where you can get free tea and chill while watching a chimney fire on TV. Both relaxing rooms come with an outdoor terrace facing Hamburg harbor. Westin initially planned to have gender separated sauna area (you can see that at the layout) but then opted against it. Don’t be confused by it – I double-checked with the counter that I wasn’t accidentally chilling in the 90°C men sauna 😀
The only improvement that I could find here was that there was no shower gel, shampoo or conditioner in the showers next to the sauna. As I didn’t expect this, I had to shower again back in the room. But apart from this, Westin Hamburg definitely gets full points for this as well!
The Bar at Westin Hamburg
The bar is located directly behind the hotel lobby and offers fantastic views over Hafen City and Speicherstadt.
It is not overly big and can be accessed from the public (viewing a concert at the Elbphilharmonie), thus the bar can get full at peak times. Ask the hotel concierge for a reservation if you fancy for a table by the window!
This time I only briefly visited to take a few shots, but I stayed longer during my first visit to Westin Hamburg and thus now, that the cocktail quality here is definitely up to the standard you would expect in such a hotel!
Wrap up - My personal verdict on Westin Hamburg
As I told you right from the beginning, I totally love Westin Hamburg at the Elbphilharmonie.
The view through the great windows is simply to die for at night and I love sitting there and watching the ships pass by. Even if your room is facing the industrial harbor (as ours was), this is just stunning! This is also one of the few hotels where I would definitely recommend paying extra for a room with lounge access (if you aren’t an elite loyalty member) as the food and drinks is easily worth the extra buck.
Hafen City and Speicherstadt are also among the prettiest neighborhoods I have found in whole Hamburg and certainly where you want to spend your evening for dinner and cocktails (for partying, head to St. Pauli!). Last but not least, the Elbphilharmonie is excellently connected with public transportation – always a plus!
I hope this review about Westin Hamburg helps you to decide if this place is for you! Let me know in the comments if you have been to Hamburg already and where you stayed!
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