On March 1 Starwood introduced several new benefits for Gold and Platinum members, including complimentary continental breakfast for Platinum members. The complimentary breakfast was added as an option in place of the other welcome amenities, meaning you have to forgo the 500 point welcome bonus in order to receive it.
I was rather skeptical of the new benefit since the last time I stayed at a Le Meridien property and had continental breakfast included in the rate it consisted of toast and orange juice.
Anyway, I stayed at Le Meridien Munich last night and chose breakfast as the welcome amenity. That night a voucher was sent up to my room which read as follows:
At the entrance to the restaurant I presented the voucher, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that we had access to the full buffet, which was fantastic.
It consisted of just about anything you could want, from several hot options to all kinds of freshly baked breads and pretzels to fresh fruit and muesli. I was actually prepared to pay the difference in cost for the full buffet, though that didn’t even seem to be needed.
Kudos to Starwood. So far, so good!
And this is quite a nice hotel too. I’ll have a full review of the hotel in the coming weeks.
This is something my wife and I were just talking about -- that a "continental" breakfast in the U.S. gets its name presumably because that's what's served on the European "continent" (as opposed to "English breakfast") -- but that a continental breakfast in the U.S. is usually nothing like what you get there. Several times now I've had great "continental" breakfasts in Europe with lots of fruits, cheese, meats, pastries, bread, cereal and more. The...
This is something my wife and I were just talking about -- that a "continental" breakfast in the U.S. gets its name presumably because that's what's served on the European "continent" (as opposed to "English breakfast") -- but that a continental breakfast in the U.S. is usually nothing like what you get there. Several times now I've had great "continental" breakfasts in Europe with lots of fruits, cheese, meats, pastries, bread, cereal and more. The only thing missing seems to be eggs, which would make the breakfast "not continental". Sadly, I've never seen such a full spread qualify as a "continental" breakfast in the U.S.
The card is pretty funny, they most have thrown a US version into google translate and not even bothered to read it.
that's better than the 2 slices of bread and a plate of fruit i got for my Westin Portland, OR breakfast option!
@ Robert -- I wrote a full review of my stay here:
https://onemileatatime.com/review-le-meridien-san-francisco/
On the whole it's a decent hotel and if you get a good deal I wouldn't hesitate staying there. But it's far from being one of my favorite hotels.
Ben, other than the breakfast ordeal, how was Le Meridian SF? I have a stay there in May.
The breakfast looks good. However, at least at a German property, I would expect that they get their German right...
PRETZEL! Fantastic!
much better than the Westin Jersey City where platinum breakfast is set on a makeshift costco foldout table in the lobby
No breakfast would be complete without the pretzel. I love it!
Glad to see such a great spread as the "complimentary continental breakfast." It is very interesting to see the differences in this amenity between the properties, and I look forward to seeing if there is some sort of equalization of this benefit between the properties in the future.
Safe travels!