A Place - Meir 41

We couldn’t get into Smartflats Meir and ended up booking a hotel room. We’d reserved it through Hotels.com about a week before the trip, but never received check-in details. At 5 pm, after nearly an hour standing in the street with our luggage and kids, we repeatedly called the helpline. Nobody picked up, just the waiting music, so we left. We kept trying to call, then told Hotels.com we couldn’t reach Smartflats or access the apartment and wanted a refund. After a few days, Hotels.com said they couldn’t contact Smartflats either and couldn’t refund us. We’d already had a bad Smartflats experience in Brussels a few days earlier, with misleading photos, dirty and torn furniture, a seventh-floor walk-up, and a broken elevator. We thought Antwerp might be different people and a different experience, but I was wrong.

We ended up booking another room so we’d have somewhere to stay with our two small children. At 3:30 pm, half an hour before the 4 pm check-in, we still had no entry codes. When I called, they first said they had no record of my booking. Once I gave them the apartment number from the email, they found my name and texted the codes. After our journey, we got to the building hoping to rest, but the keypad didn’t work at all. They said they had to wait for technicians to say when they could come. I explained we were outside in pouring rain with our luggage and children. We waited an hour and called several times, but they kept saying nothing could be done until the technicians responded, and they had no idea how long that might take. They couldn’t open the door or send anyone to let us in while we waited. Extremely disappointing.

This was awful for families, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. They advertise cribs for €25 per night, and when I tried to confirm before arrival, they said they’d noted it on the reservation. But when we got there and called because there was no crib, they said they don’t rent cribs at any location. My wife was awake half the night with our one-year-old, who is used to sleeping in a crib and wasn’t managing well in the bed. I slept on an uncomfortable couch. They misled us in writing. We’re booked at another location in Brussels five days after this stay and are trying to cancel, since our daughter may have nowhere to sleep there either. They’ve been unhelpful and seem unwilling to release us from that reservation so we can find somewhere suitable. There’s also a dishwasher with no racks, so it can’t be used. It’s up five flights with no elevator, and the suitcase lift doesn’t work. There are no fans despite the lack of air conditioning, so when it’s hot you’re left sweating with the windows open and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and bugs. If anyone knows Belgium laws or companies that handle false advertising, please reply. In the US we have groups like the Better Business Bureau, and I’m looking to pursue something similar here.

Our room was at the very top of the building, and the elevator wasn’t working. The dumb waiter was out too, and some hall lights didn’t work. The listing said fifth floor, but climbing those stairs felt like reaching the ninth floor, easily, and it was beyond exhausting. We also had to take out our own garbage, something I’ve never had to do before and thought should have been covered by the service fees.