As the Astoria Hotel is only 50 meters away from the Diamond District we have created a very special Antwerp Diamond Hotel Package for our guests that’s been a sparkling success!
The 0.03 CT size is a brilliant cut that many ladies love to have set in their wedding ring while they are here in Antwerp.
A brilliant cut is a diamond with numerous facets that capture the light exceptionally. The shape resembles that of a cone and enables the maximum amount of light to reflect internally and create the amazing glittering effect.
The carat weight measures the mass of a diamond. One carat is defined as 200 milligrams. 1 Carat = 100 points (or 100 x 0.01 CT). The price per carat increases with carat weight, since larger diamonds are both rarer and more desirable for use as gemstones.
The Diamond Package is bookable on the Astoria Hotel website from just €89 per night (minimum 2 nights), including buffet breakfast and a 0.03 CT brilliant cut diamond!
The ladies at Astoria Hotel are very happy with their diamond and the men are also happy because they don’t need to buy her a diamond anymore in the City of Diamonds, in Astoria Hotel Antwerp you get one for free!
Over the years we received many good reviews and a few bad ones. The good ones encourage us to continue what we are doing; the bad or “less good” ones teach us where and what we can improve.
But this review is worth posting on our blog! During 16 years we never received a comment without words but instead with a hand drawn little man with both hands up and an even bigger smile! It’s so cute! The review card has put a smile on all the staff faces and reminds us why we have chosen to do this job!
It is very important to know what our guests think, and even more important that each guest has a good feeling about Astoria Hotel when checking-out. Extra comments about maintenance requests or tips how to improve etc are the key to our success. Everywhere, sometimes something can go wrong (even at home) but by taking immediate action to solve the problem and to prevent from happening again is a must to keep all guests happy. We love our job and truly hope to get as many reviews and feedback forms as possible to learn from our mistakes and to smile when all was ok.
I would like to thank all our guests that stayed with us over the past years and helped us to make Astoria Hotel Antwerp what it is today. Thanks to you we found the key to that success! Keep booking Astoria Hotel and keep writing comments or just enter my office behind the reception to talk to me face to face. Let us know what you think! After all you are at home here and at home you have the right to speak!
Kind regards,
Marie – France De Zutter
General Manager
PS: I’m happy that the little man wasn’t drawn on the right side of the paper!
Astoria has been giving FREE NIGHTS on Facebook for a year now. On the 1st of the month (or at the beginning of each month) a child was asked to pick a lucky number between 1 and “the total amount of fans” and we gave the prize to the corresponding Facebook fan. So far we have welcomed 4 out of 12 lucky winners to enjoy their fantastic Antwerp hotel break. As the prizes were valid for 1 year the other 8 still have time to book their FREE NIGHT.
It has been a big success and we love to make people happy so have decided to continue competitions in 2012 with a small difference that the people who want to win need to participate and answer a funny question! The first question of 2012 is easy for us to find out and funny to guess for an outsider. This way we will have more fun with our Facebook fans.
Facebook Competition
How many eggs did Astoria Hotel serve for breakfast in 2011?
Enter on the Astoria Hotel Antwerp’s official Facebook page
We have checked our deliveries over 2011 and calculated how many boxes with eggs were ordered over the year. The result is even for us amazing! We didn’t have a clue how many fresh eggs were passing our buffet breakfast!
As soon as we’ve posted the question (with a lovely yellow egg picture) on our Facebook page the funny answers started to come in. We must say that 1 person is pretty close already! But people still have time to guess until 5 PM Friday January 6th and then we will let the world know how many eggs a small hotel managed to eat! The person with the closest answer will win a FREE NIGHT!
We want to mention also that our colleagues at Premier Apartments (part of our hotel group) found the excellent word to support us on Facebook! EGG-CELLENT!
It was really fun to surprise our guests on 6 December 2012 with chocolates from Santa Claus and his (her) helper!
Traditionally this is for children but yesterday we realised that even adults are delighted to see Saint Nick and Black Peter – and they also love chocolates! Santa Claus asked everybody if they had been good over the past year before getting chocolates. Any guests who pretended they had been naughty had first to sing a song for Santa Claus before getting chocolates too! It was fantastic to see and hear the “naughty” guests singing a Santa kid’s song while blushing and other guests making fun out of those who had not been good.
It’s amazing how an adult can turn into a child’s mind in seconds! I will never forget the lady who confesses to Santa that she’s never going to bed on time and also a man who pretended to be always good but mentioned that his wife was thinking different about his attitude! Both guests had to sing a song of course and they did sing with pleasure.
The chocolates were created as € coins and “paper” money. A few guests tried to pay this morning their hotel invoice with the chocolate money which created again a smile on everybody’s face!
Secret: Myriam and I did not enter through the chimney because Astoria Hotel has no chimney. We entered through the car park as usual.
With special thanks to my mother who spend weeks to make the costumes! Mamy, I love you!
As this is not at all a competitor of Astoria Hotel we are convinced we can make some publicity for this hotel near the Fiji Islands in the Pacific. The Poseidon Undersea Resort with 24 rooms is now ready to receive guests. The rooms are like capsules of 10 by 5 meters and in every room you can enjoy the beautiful blue ocean with plenty of fish! I would like to know if TV’s in the rooms are still necessary and if the Pay TV system is worth to invest for…
If you want to see the fish closer to your window there is one button to click and feed them just in front of you. I would love to have a romantic week with my husband and this perfect view with a good bottle of wine. Preferable with a very early check-in and a very late check out J
On their website they comment the following: “Get your passport ready as you are to embark on a world-class voyage to a location that nobody knew existed… until now” Nice! Our passports are ready, that’s not a problem, the $30,000 per week is just a small issue. What is bothering me is that breakfast is not included and for the alcoholic drinks there is also an extra charge! That is now the reason why we decided to stay home at New Year! We wish all the people around the world (under and above the sea level) a good end of 2011 and a very merry Christmas!
Rafael is a friendly Brazilian man of 28 years old who got paralysed on both legs when he was 18 years old due to an accident in the heavy traffic of Sao Paulo.
After 2 years of rehabilitation in the hospital and many surgeries, playing football was no longer an option (he loved to play). He started to swim and made a career in Brazil and won many medals! But over the last few years he stayed again in the hospital for more surgery and since then Rafael lost his courage.
I knew his story before but never met the man until 2 weeks ago during my vacation in Brazil. To my surprise I saw a depressed lonely man with a room full of medals that almost nobody has seen before. I was very touched and realised that just knowing somebody’s sad story is not enough to really feel the situation. Oh my God! I used to complain so much about stupid things and now I got a well deserved slap in my face! Honestly, when taking the above picture at the beach when my husband (Rafael’s brother) carried Rafael to the sea for a swim I couldn’t keep my tears. I was touched, sad, happy and angry at the same time. Who the hell am I to complain about walking in the Belgian rain when somebody just wants his legs back???
During our stay in Brazil we met also Mr Grilo, a journalist in Sao Paulo, who travels around the world a lot for sports events and who now spoke with Rafael about the 2016 Summer Paralympics which will take place in Rio de Janeiro. Rafael will get ready to get at least 1 more medal!
Without computer it’s not easy these days to make publicity and I strongly had the feeling Rafael needs a hand to lift him up again caring him away from dark thoughts and look forward again to a bright swimming future. Without hesitating we left our iPad so Rafael could start communicating with the outside world starting with a Facebook profile with nice “swim and medals” pictures. In less than a week he got many friends and family who support him on his way to the next medal. Soon he will have also a Facebook page where he can post the latest news about his health and swimming future. (With Google Translate it is easy to understand or even to write him a note to support
I truly hope that everybody who reads this will become friend and/or fan of Rafael Aleixo Delegredo on Facebook and I wish that we all remember we are so lucky when we need to walk in the rain again!
Christmas Market in Antwerp starts on Saturday 10 December 2011!
Our cozy Christmas Markets are an old holiday tradition where locals and visitors meet for buying traditional decorations and lots of goodies at open-air stalls in the heart of the city. Nice winter dishes and musical performances will keep you warm during these cold days. This magical event is absolutely fantastic! You can sip hot mulled wine or try one of Antwerp’s famous jenevers next to a cozy open fire.
Dozens of wooden chalets are waiting for you until 10 PM and of course those where Antwerp jenevers are being sold stay open much longer until some people don’t find their way back home alone!
Nice tip: On the Market Place you will find during the Christmas period a real ice rink. Young and old are turning graceful pirouettes while others are watching and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate.
We started our own tradition and the Astoria Hotel will again welcome you with a gass of hot Gluhwein as from 9 December 2011. Each time you enter our lobby with cold hands we offer you a glass of hot Gluwein. The smell in the lobby of oranges, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar gives you a real warm welcome in our hotel!
Usually we don’t like it when the summer ends. But while writing this I start dreaming of the typical Christmas smell of trees, Gluwein and open fires. December can’t be here fast enough!
After receiving an e-mail from Euromillions for encouraging me to play as there was € 10.000.000 to win we decided to share following on our Facebook page.
What would you do if tonight you win € 10.000.000 with Euromillions??? We will publish all answers in our lobby to share with guests and also on our blog! (Indecent language will not be published) Let us know! At least we can smile even the weather is real bad in Belgium!
After many answers like “Quiet a few new handbags”, “I would have a big party! Lol!” and “I’ll travel over Paris, Milan, New York and Sydney just to party…” we decided to purchase a ticket of € 2.
It started as a fantasy and became a big success! About a month ago on the 9th of September 2011 we asked Facebook friends from Astoria Hotel Antwerp to choose the lucky numbers for that night.
After a few hours we had 7 different friends that chose 5 numbers and 2 stars. We purchase the ticket and posted the picture of that ticket on Facebook as proof that we were not joking.
Since then we play every week on Friday and sometimes also on Tuesday with an increase of Facebook friends who like Astoria Hotel Antwerp!
More and more friends joined us to give their lucky number for the following game. Each post was hopeful to win and share! Wishes to open bottles of champagne etc made it real fun to follow Astoria’s posts. One friend even wishes we would fill up his empty safe :
Last Tuesday, 11 October 2011, we got lucky! We purchased 2 tickets of €2 because we had 14 friends with lucky number requests. Both tickets won and €20 is added to our favourite play list.
Today we will purchase 1 ticket for playing 10 times. If we get lucky we can fill up 14 safes before the end of the year! Good luck to Greg, Alun, Robin, Krisztina, Kati, Deborah, France, Adrienn, Lucas, Robert, Dimal, Agnès, Myriam and Dimitri! We will not post our lucky numbers on this blog… to see them you need to like Astoria Hotel Antwerp on Facebook!
The ship is one of the newest cruise ships from the German Line Aida Blu. Fifteen decks high, a weight of 71.300 tonnes and 1096 cabins she easily takes 2500 passengers around the world. Passengers have for sure no time to get bored; there are 6 restaurants on board, thousands of square meters of deck space and plenty of facilities for sports, spa and wellness.
The cruise tourism in Antwerp is increasing each year and we are very happy to welcome the Aida Blu weekly in Antwerp until the end of the cruise season. Her next visits are Wednesday 28/09/11 and Wednesday 05/10/11.
Another cruise ship “Bremen” from Hapag Lloyd is also arriving next week on Friday 30 September 2011.
The biggest cruise ship in Antwerp so far was the “Oasis of the Seas” and is 360 meters long. But the “Aida Blu” is very cute too with her 250 meters “only”.
If you want to visit Antwerp and see these cute “little” ships make sure you visit the bank during day time. They usually arrive before 8 AM and leave at 6 PM because all passengers want to have diner quiet on the terrace of their cabin, far away from us crying because we are left behind.
It must be nice to put Astoria Hotel on water and travel around the world… If we win Euromillions we might consider doing that!
so cute!!!
This weekend (Saturday 03/09 and Sunday 04/09) we have the fair “ROMMELANT” in Antwerp Expo.
The Dutch word “Rommel” means (I’ll try to explain) things that you don’t use anymore, that it would be better to remove from your house to make space (perhaps for new items).
A lot of small furniture (from grandmother’s time), old records, decoration, old computer stuff, old bikes, books and even second hand clothes will do to open a stand on Rommelant which attract more than 10.000 visitors each time.
The fair, one of the biggest and oldest flea markets in Belgium, has always been a great success. Many tourists from Holland love this flea market and book a weekend in Antwerp to attend the fair combined with our Sunday market which the Netherlanders love too.
Everyone who has antique items or any old stuff to sell can book to rent a stand and sell as much as possible.
Some men even make jokes about this and pretend to sell their “old” wife on Rommelant to make place at home for a new young one! This is maybe funny for men but not for us women! Maybe WE should look out for a place to exchange ugly old men for young healthy and sexy bodies to bring joy in our lives?
If you want to have a look this weekend, hurry up to book Astoria Hotel! We have only a few rooms left!