I visited the city of Nuremberg on my long trip to Germany over Christmas. Nuremberg is an historic town in the region of Bavaria, and it doesn’t have many luxury hotels that are part of the big American chains (Hyatt, Hilton, etc). However, I’m big on hotel status matches, and I wrote about how I matched my Hilton Diamond status (from my Hilton Amex Aspire card) to Radisson Gold status. In this review of the Park Plaza Nuremberg, I’ll be sure to discuss how I tested out my newfound elite status.
In This Article...
Overall review of the Park Plaza Nuremberg: Modern, clean hotel for a reasonable price
Pros: Location; sauna and laundry
Cons: So-so room; no upgrade for Gold status with Radisson
Booking at the Park Plaza Nuremberg – Points or Cash?
We paid about $230 for a 2-night stay, including all taxes and fees. The Park Plaza Nuremberg is a Radisson property and I could have paid 88,000 Radisson points for the same stay (44,000 points per night). However, I didn’t have any Radisson points — because my Gold status comes entirely from elite status matches — and Radisson isn’t one of those chains into which you can transfer Amex or Chase points. Also, 88,000 points for a stay worth only $230 implies a value of 0.26 cents per Radisson point. This is ridiculously low, by just about any standard.
I could have chosen to book this property through Hotels.com and receive my 10th night (of any hotel on the site) free. But, the price was about $5 higher per night than booking directly on Radisson’s website, and I don’t do much business with Hotels.com. I also wanted to book direct with Radisson to make sure my Gold elite status granted me benefits. Usually, when you book through a third party, you can’t count on receiving any elite status benefits with the property. (This is exactly WHY I don’t do much business with Hotels.com, actually.) So, I booked direct and earned 6,143 total Radisson points.
What does 6,000-plus Radisson points get you? Well, I could book a 5,000 “points plus cash” nightly rate at Radisson Category 1-3 hotels. However, Radisson’s site doesn’t make it exactly easy to search through and find the best redemption values. I couldn’t find a single property in Category 1-3 that 1) I was interested in booking, and 2) Had a “points+cash” rate available. This might be because I only chose to look in more expensive locations, but it’s a data point nonetheless.
Bottom line, I probably won’t have a lot of use for the 6,000 points I earned.
Location
The Park Plaza Nuremberg is very centrally located. You can literally see the hotel from the main train station, which was very convenient since we had taken a 90-minute Bahn train from Munich straight to this station. The hotel is also right next to the Handwerkerhof Market. Set in Old Town, there are 15th-century buildings in this market, which was founded to showcase truly handmade crafts in Nuremberg.
About a 12-minute walk away is the Nuremberg Christmas market, the largest in Germany (and that’s saying something):
Nuremberg isn’t a huge city, so it’s largely walkable everywhere. While you’re there, I absolutely loved taking this rock-cut cellar tour, which takes you underground to where beer used to be brewed and stored. Learn all about Nuremberg’s signature red beer and how their underground cellars affected World War II.
In short, the Park Plaza Nuremberg’s location is a huge plus.
Check-in and Elite Status Recognition
We checked in right on time, and I was hoping to get upgraded due to my Radisson Gold status, which I earned through a hotel elite status match. (It took me about 5 minutes of effort to match my Hilton Diamond status; it’s easy for you to take advantage of status matches too.)
No dice. Although the check-in process was easy and my room was ready on time, I didn’t get an upgrade. Not even when I asked, and despite the fact that the hotel wasn’t anywhere near full. The Gold benefits include upgrades “when available,” and there were almost certainly some junior suites available, but I tried asking a few different ways and didn’t get anything.
However, they did leave me a really nice welcome gift on the bed when I went to my room, along with a welcome note due to my Gold status:
Our Room at the Park Plaza Nuremberg
The Park Plaza Nuremberg is a 4.5-star property, so I expected luxury. I got a standard, albeit clean and modern, room.
The bed and linens were very comfortable, and the room had enough outlets.
The TV was large and mounted against the wall, which made the room seem more spacious.
Our room’s decor was modern and simple, and you could do actual work at the desk – sometimes an issue in hotel rooms.
The bathroom was pretty standard: Shower, no tub, single sink, separate water closet.
We enjoyed the towel warmers in the water closet:
Also a plus? The nice bathrobes and slippers.
I wasn’t familiar with the Elemis bath products before, but I really enjoyed them. They had a very masculine scent, a little unusual in hotel bath products, but I liked them.
Blackout drapes come standard with any modern 3.5+ star hotel, but I appreciated them nonetheless. This view was nothing special though.
My favorite thing about the room was probably the bed and the welcome gift, of which I’ll show you a close-up here. Germany really loves its gingerbread, and rightly so.
Amenities and Experience
This hotel was super quiet, which I love. Staff were professional and everything was efficient.
I didn’t visit the restaurant other than to check out the breakfast offering. But the breakfast cost about 30Euro per person. I took a quick peek and saw cereal, pastries, and a few cold cuts – not worth it to me. Instead, we walked around the main train station, called the Einhaufsbanhof, right by the hotel. We spent about 10 Euro total on various excellent snacks offered by the vendors in the train station, then continued on to the Christmas market. We were very happy with this choice.
A big highlight of my review of the Park Plaza Nuremberg is the amenities. The hotel offered a large sauna and laundry facilities that guests could use, free of charge. The front desk even provided mini detergents for you. I didn’t take a picture of the laundry room because it’s a basic, you know, laundry room… But you can take my word for it, right? I LOVED that we were able to wash our clothes in the middle of our trip for free.
And the sauna was really nice too:
Outside of the sauna, they provide water, fruit, and plenty of towels. There are also a couple cool showers nearby.
This sauna was large enough for a solid 10 people to enjoy comfortably. I snapped a quick picture when no one was around, but you should be aware, it’s co-ed and fully naked. This is standard in Europe, but unusual in the U.S.
When you’re taking a break from the hot dry sauna, you can relax in the chairs:
We had a really pleasant time going in and out of the sauna and relaxing and reading on the lounge chairs while waiting for our laundry to finish.
Bottom Line
Would I stay here again? Yes! I thought the price I paid was a great value for this stay. I don’t agree with the hotel’s 4.5-star status, I’d give it a low 4-star rating at best, but it was still a lovely, modern hotel. The location, welcome gift, and overall amenities were highlights here. I’d stay here again if the price remained reasonable.
I hope you enjoyed my review of the Park Plaza Nuremberg. I definitely learned more about the Radisson rewards program along the way. While I can’t say it’s my new favorite hotel rewards program – that’s an honor held by Hilton – I hope you learned a bit more about it too.
Stay tuned for my review of the last hotel I stayed at on my Germany trip, the Andaz Munich. Next up after that, I’ll walk you through how I managed to book this luxury European trip, worth almost $20,000, for about $1,400.
Reach out if you have any questions in the meantime!
