I'm originally from Flanders but have been an expat for the past years and picked this hotel more or less by coincidence as my wife and I needed to be close by in Ghent. A very pleasant surprise indeed: friendly staff, incredibly clean rooms and a not over the top but very good selection for breakfast with real yoghurt, fresh fruit, a selection of breads. When traveling on business in the country where I work (India) I usually pay about 3-4 times as much for a lesser room. Even in Belgium I feel this offers an exceptionally good price/quality ratio and I can unreservedly recommend it to people who don't need to be in the city center proper but value a quiet, very clean and comfy room.

Easy decision as it is easy to get to from the city close by.
Very helpful staff and all of course fluent in English as I don't speak Flemish.
Rooms surprisingly large, very clean, selection of soft and hard pillows and free access to internet for email etc.
Price was €99.00 that included an excellent breakfast.
All together a good experience.

Unless you speak Dutch, a trip to this part of Belgium is a bit daunting, but at least almost everyone speaks very good English!

The hotel and staff are pleasant but as it doubles as a meeting venue it can get very busy indeed. Rooms are big and clean and the bed was very comfy. Little niggles would be that there are no biscuits or even UHT milk - just whitener. Also, the 9 Euro parking charge was a bit cheeky on top of the already fairly steep cost for a hotel like this.

These in combination are the only reason I've marked it down a bit, as like I say there were no major complaints. Worth looking around to see if you can get more value for money, though considering my basic return flight from Edinburgh was an extortionate £450, maybe just a very dear place to go...

We stayed at this hotel last week (2nd Dec). Had a slight problem finding the hotel entrance once we'd got through the car park barrier as it wasn't obvious where the entrance to the hotel was especially in the dark and rain. But the receptionist was friendly, welcoming and efficient and allocated our party of four rooms close together. The bedrooms were enormous, more like a suite with all the usual HI facilities, choice of pillows and coffee/tea facilities. We felt the standard of this HI Express hotel was more like the more expensive Holiday Inn. It also had a restaurant which the HI Express doesn't seem to have in the UK. The restaurant food was excellent and not too expensive for a hotel. A nice touch as a priority club member was the free drinks in the restaurant and bar. Breakfast was very good, leisurely experience with plenty of choice and tables were cleared quickly. In the UK breakfast can be a "bun fight" where the food is not replenished, tables aren't cleared and you are made to feel rushed to leave. We chose this hotel to be close to Brugge and Brussels although the day we went to Brussels, there was a public transport strike - no buses or metro. We parked at the Atonium and luckily got a tram into the centre. We went to the Christmas market and the light show in Grand Place - both were fantastic and well worth a visit. One annoyance was the 9 euros parking charge per night and the extra "tourist tax" charge, considering the hotel is more than 4 miles outside the centre of Ghent, it is a bit of a cheek, although I suspect these charges are probably common throughout Belgium. That said, we can't fault this hotel, everyone spoke good english, were extremely friendly, helpful and efficient and made our stay thoroughly enjoyable, thank you. We highly recommend this hotel and will be back.