Review: Marriott Heidelberg, Germany

For the next stop on the trip with my parents, we spent two nights at the 248-room Marriott Heidelberg. We were all excited about visiting Heidelberg — I had never been before, while my parents hadn’t been in many years.

For those not familiar, Heidelberg is a charming and historic city not far from Frankfurt, with a beautiful old town, and an idyllic setting on the Neckar River. We had an amazing time here, and are happy we visited.

All that being said, this was definitely the least exciting of the hotels we stayed at on this trip. When I first wrote about plans for this trip, several readers (helpfully) advised against staying at the Marriott Heidelberg. I had tried to rearrange our trip to cut out this hotel and stay somewhere else, but just couldn’t shuffle things around to make it all work in an economical way, so we followed through on this stay.

Honestly, in the end we actually had a positive experience, and that’s probably thanks to going into this with low expectations. While the hotel is a bit outdated, is located outside the city center, and is also used by tour groups, there are redeeming qualities, like a club lounge with great views, a tasty breakfast, friendly service, and overall good value.

There are better hotels in Heidelberg, but with the right expectations I’d gladly stay here again. Let’s get into the review…

Booking the Marriott Heidelberg

I booked our rooms at the Marriott Heidelberg with cash. The rate was €159 per night per room, but the hotel had a promotion offering 50% off a second room, as part of a family rate, so for one room I paid just ~€80 per night. For a busy weekend in August, I thought that was a perfectly reasonable rate, especially given the hotel rate inflation we currently see around the globe.

As a point of comparison, if redeeming points, the hotel would have cost 34,000 Bonvoy points per night. I value Bonvoy points at 0.7 cents each, meaning an award stay would have cost the equivalent of ~$238. So I paid cash, because I’d rather redeem points for potentially higher value redemptions.

Marriott Heidelberg location & parking

On the plus side, the Marriott Heidelberg is located right on the Neckar River, so it has a pretty setting. However, the location isn’t central for what visitors are typically looking to do. The hotel is about 1.5-2 miles from the old town and other popular tourist sites.

If I were traveling alone, I’d almost welcome that distance, since I enjoy a stroll like that, and it should take around 30-40 minutes. However, since I was traveling with my parents, we instead drove into town with the car we rented.

There are several parking garages in the old town. I wouldn’t say that finding parking there was impossible, but it also took a bit of effort, and each parking garage only had a few empty spots at a time.

For what it’s worth, the hotel has a parking garage, and charges €25 per day for parking. While there’s a gate in the parking garage, it was open throughout our stay, so parking is using an honor system. You just tell the front desk agent that you used the garage, and they’ll charge your room.

If you’re coming from Frankfurt, you can expect that the drive will take around 45-75 minutes, depending on whether you’re going to the city or airport. A train will take a similar amount of time.

Marriott Heidelberg lobby & check-in

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a friendly bellman, and pointed toward reception. The hotel’s lobby has plenty of seating areas, and feels quite outdated.

I found it cute how the lobby had some jars of candy, as well as complimentary coffee in the morning.

The lobby also got very busy over some hours, as this hotel is used for tour groups. So sometimes the lobby would look like the below…

Anyway, reception was located inside the lobby and to the right. We were quickly helped, and the front desk associates were very friendly. They thanked me for being a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium member. While elite benefits technically only apply for one room, they upgraded all three of our rooms to club rooms, which was generous.

It’s interesting how inconsistent hotels are on that front. While hotels don’t have to provide elite benefits for more than one room, I’m pleasantly surprised by how often it happens.

With keys in hand, we headed up to the fourth floor, where our three rooms were located (all next to one another).

Marriott Heidelberg executive room

It seems that the Marriott Heidelberg has started a renovation, and so far only the fourth (top) floor has been renovated. For example, below is what the hallway looked like on the third floor…

Meanwhile below is what the hallway looked like on the fourth floor. I find it to be a bit of an odd renovation, because the design already doesn’t look very modern, it just looks less outdated than the rest of the hotel.

I was assigned room 434, a king executive room.

The room was comfortable and functionally designed. The room had an entryway with the bathroom to the left and a closet to the right.

The room then had a king size bed, a long table with a desk (that had a rolling chair) and a TV, and then a cute nook by the window with a coffee table.

This nook had a lovely view of the Neckar River.

Back near the entrance was a coffee machine and kettle, plus a mini-fridge without anything in it.

The bathroom was quite basic, and had a sink, a toilet, and a shower and tub combo.

Toiletries were in reusable wall-mounted containers, and were from thisworks.

Wi-Fi in the room was fast and free, and housekeeping was provided daily.

Marriott Heidelberg executive lounge

The Marriott Heidelberg executive lounge is located on the third floor. As a club guest:

• You can enjoy complimentary breakfast in the restaurant from 6:30AM until 11AM
• The lounge is open daily from 6:30AM (7AM on weekends) until 10:30PM
• The lounge has the evening happy hour from 5:30PM until 8PM, and dessert from 7:30PM until 9:30PM

On the inside, the lounge had maybe a dozen tables, including dining tables seating two to four people each, plus high-top seating.

However, what I really loved about the lounge was the large outdoor terrace, with gorgeous views.

Honestly, what a treat this was! Given my mom’s limited mobility (though she was a trooper this trip — I couldn’t believe how much she pushed herself), we’d usually go into town once each day for a longer period, and in the evenings we’d sit here for a few hours enjoying the views and beautiful weather, and having a couple of glasses of wine.

As far as the lounge’s food and drink selection goes, throughout the day guests could help themselves to coffee, tea, soft drinks, and water. There were also jars with half a dozen different snacks, ranging from candy to nuts.

The evening happy hour spread was modest, and changed slightly every evening.

The alcohol selection was limited, and included one red wine, one white wine, and one beer, with no liquor. Given how the region is known for wine and beer, it would be nice if the selection were a bit more extensive, but hey, I wasn’t about to complain, given the deal we got.

The food selection included veggies, chips, several types of bread, a few small bites (onion pie, fruit bread with cream cheese, etc.), cheese, soup, and two other hot dishes.

Then the dessert selection rotated, and one evening included cheesecake.

Honestly, our favorite aspect of the lounge was the views and outdoor seating. The attendant working in the lounge was also friendly, which can make a big difference.

Marriott Heidelberg Grill 16 breakfast

Grill 16 is the Marriott Heidelberg’s restaurant, and it serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Given Heidelberg’s amazing food, we never had lunch or dinner here, but we did enjoy breakfast each morning. Breakfast is served from 6:30AM until 11AM, and consists of a buffet.

The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating. It was pretty empty when we had breakfast early, but later in the morning got so full that they had to seat people at tables in the lobby.

I thought the buffet was excellent, both in terms of quality and variety. Breakfast options included all kinds of fresh bread, pastries, and pretzels, veggies, cold cuts, cheese, fresh fruit, yogurt, waffles, pancakes, hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs, and all kinds of sausage, bacon, breakfast potatoes, etc.

On top of that, you could have made to order eggs, so I had a veggie omelet one morning, which was quite good.

As far as drinks go, there were bottles of water, juice, smoothies, espresso machines, and tea.

The staff were also happy to serve coffee, and personally I preferred the filter coffee to the self-serve machine coffee.

Marriott Heidelberg pool, gym, and spa

The Marriott Heidelberg has a pool, gym, and spa, also on the ground floor, near reception.

The gym is quite decent, and has a variety of cardio equipment in one room, a selection of weights in another room, and then a third room for yoga.

The hotel also has a pool, though that’s not something I used during our stay.

Next to the pool is a locker room, as well as a sauna.

The Marriott Heidelberg also has a makeshift spa, as it’s basically just a reception desk and a couple of small spa rooms in the gym.

I found the pricing to be quite reasonable, and if we had more time, I would’ve booked us some appointments.

Impressions of Heidelberg

This was my first time visiting Heidelberg, so what did I think? Let me start by saying that we visited over a weekend in August, so I’m sure the city was about as busy as it gets. We would’ve ideally visited over a weekday, but that didn’t work out in terms of our itinerary.

Even with the crowds, we all found Heidelberg to be charming, and loved our time here. The city’s setting on the river is gorgeous, as you can see…

And the old town of Heidelberg is also picturesque, with so many beautiful historic buildings, cafes, and restaurants.

I’d absolutely recommend a visit to Heidelberg, and it’s a great, easy trip from Frankfurt. Do I need to immediately return there? No. But I’m happy to have seen it, and I’d gladly return some number of years down the road.

Bottom line

The Marriott Heidelberg is a large hotel that’s a bit outdated, not in the center of town, and largely caters to tour groups. However, we enjoyed our stay, thanks to having the right expectations. The hotel’s club level rooms are renovated, the hotel has an executive lounge with a beautiful terrace, and the staff at the hotel were all friendly. Given what we paid, I’d consider that to be good value.

Next time I visit Heidelberg I’d like to check out Heidelberg Suites, which is a well regarded boutique hotel closer to the old town. For our dates it wasn’t available, and if it had been available, I imagine it would have been a lot more expensive. For our purposes the Marriott did the trick, though.

What do you make of the Marriott Heidelberg?