Ambassador Hotel Vienna  

Pros: The location is perfect, the two rooms i saw were spacious, the man in charge of the dining room was as helpful and charming, efficient and polite as anyone could wish (not true of all the staff there!)
Cons: No-one warned me there were huge building works going on. i was put in a room with scaffolding outside both my bedroom and my bathroom windows so there were men outside both toilet and bathroom as well as outside the bedroom from 07.00 (7.00am) so one felt watched all the time, it was impossible to open the curtains when dressing and undressing, etc. there were also men working on the roof all day every day and drilling with drills that sounded like the dentists' drills multiplied by a thousand, as well as banging, smoking, filling one's room (i'd asked for a non-smoking room) with the smell of cigars, etc. it was impossible to sleep, work in the room, dress and undress without feeling watched and after hefty complaints on my part to the hotel management they moved me (after two frightful days and nights) to a superb room for the last night. i told them i expected a discount for the utter hell and lack of sleep during two of the three nights i was there but they only gave me a 20% discount which i think outrageous as it should have been at least 50% off. i also think, as i told the manager, that they should warn clients, when they book, that there are totally disruptive building works (e.g. one froze to death in the bar and dining room during the daytime because the works involved having heaps of windows open and it was extremely wet, cold and windy weather). the internet only has german instructions so if you don't speak german it is difficult to negotiate and there was no help forthcoming from the reception staff.