After our first, challenging, two nights in Heidelberg’s Plaza Premium, we moved on to Frankfurt next day for what would turn out to be a wonderful one-night stay at the Steigenberger Icon Frankfurter Hof.
I knew the hotel from my time living in Frankfurt many years ago, though never dreamed of actually staying in it (it looked far too fancy for my class of travel back in the day) and imagined everyone staying there to be rightly pompous. Cue 14 years later, and here we are!
For the true luxury experience, we arrived by u-bahn to the nearby station, wandering along the streets, based entirely off my memory, with my suitcase sharply bringing down the elegance of the situation due to a missing wheel that had fallen off in Heidelberg forcing me to half-drag the suitcase along the pavement. Anyway, we arrived to what we believed was the entrance (it wasn’t), the very grand front of the building.
We actually arrived into a lobby lounge – where the main reception is instead to the side of the building – so I then proceeded to carry my suitcase from there on, to spare us both the embarrassment.
Check-in formalities were handled promptly, and we were also informed that we’d received the ever-welcome double upgrade from our superior room to a Grand Deluxe Room. With that, and not wanting to make use of any porter service lest my baggage issues became known, we set off by ourselves.
The room was absolutely stunning, to put it mildly. It initially reminded me of our stay last year in Powerscourt, such was the level of space and quality of furnishings.
To the right in our own ‘hallway’ was the very opulent bathroom, with double sinks, branded toiletries (Acqua di Parma) , a separate toilet room, a separate shower stall with some very eclectic lighting options available, as well as, very unusually, fully digital temperature and shower controls.
Then, facing the double sinks, was a bathtub with built-in flatscreen TV – which caused us to abandon ship on the Christmas markets later in the evening in order to make sure there was time for everyone to have a well-deserved soak.
As part of our room rate, we also received a room credit for dining or food & beverage; unfortunately, we never got round to using this in a restaurant as we just didn’t have time, but we did however manage to use it by way of consuming a bottle of wine from the minibar and several snacks. There was no question over whether the minibar was eligible for credit use the next morning at check-out, it was automatically handled for us.
Back to the room meanwhile, and the hallway opened out into a ‘living room’ of sorts, with a chaise longue and work desk positioned by the window, along with the minibar fridge very thoughtfully integrated into the wall.
Opposite the minibar fridge, we also had a coffee machine on the opposing wall counter, with a selection of coffee pods to use.
Lastly, the bed, where I had no difficulty getting to sleep later that evening; once of course, those little ‘accessory' pillows were turfed onto the ground.
Overall, our room – while there was no real ‘view’ as such from the room – was the epitome of elegance and luxury, and if we hadn’t committed ourselves to going and exploring Frankfurt, there’s a pretty good chance we’d have ordered room service and never left.
Breakfast was also included in our rate, and we were sure to hurry down the grand staircase the next morning in search of what delight’s awaited us.
Breakfast had a great selection of more or less anything, from hot food, cold meats, salmon, fruits, juices, breads – and to my great satisfaction, even though it was a little early in the morning, prosecco, perfect for the morning mimosa (or two, as the case may have been) to get started.
We were nearly heartbroken to be leaving after just a short one-night stay, but certainly wouldn’t hesitate to book in at the Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof if we found ourselves in Frankfurt again in the future and only wish we'd had maybe two, or even three nights' to stay.
