Tilia Apartments

Very clean and tidy, but it was extremely hot in the room during the day. I couldn’t see a heater in there, and there’s no air conditioning. In summer you have to keep the windows open, which means putting up with a lot of noise from the busy railway running beside the rooms around the clock. This felt more like an apartment complex with a coffee maker and self-check-in machine than a hotel, or even a motel. Bring your credit card PIN. Without it, you may have to cancel and book somewhere else. There’s no human help or personal touch.

We stayed two weeks, and everything was good apart from the internet. At Tilia Uster the Wi-Fi drops every 15-20 minutes, so you have to go through the annoying login process again and again. It asks for your room number, last name and departure date in a special template, as though you’re accessing an FBI or CIA network. That might be acceptable if the connection were stable. If you need reliable internet, try somewhere else. Otherwise, the hotel is quite good.

The service was great when they helped get my MIL checked in and settled. Rooms are nice enough, though nothing fancy. Think Premier Inn quality.

Parking and charging turned out to be a confusing, frustrating part of our stay at Hotel Tilia, July 28-30, 2025. Parking costs CHF 9 per night, but we got very little information about it. The EV chargers aren’t marked as charging only, yet they add high idle fees on top of the electricity and parking charges. The screen showed no prices before charging started, and there were no instructions for paying by browser and credit card. Check-in was entirely self-service and poorly designed. The touchscreen barely worked, the pre check-in email arrived too late, and no staff were around to help. When we called the emergency number about parking, we got wrong directions from someone who seemed unfamiliar with the layout. It took several calls and unnecessary frustration to find and enter the garage. We emailed a complaint during the stay but got no response then. Only weeks after sending a second email did we receive a brief, evasive reply. Problems raised during a stay should be addressed while guests are still there. This could have been avoided by sending the check-in email on time, explaining parking and idle fees clearly, or simply not charging idle fees. Now that I understand the parking and charging setup, I might return, but I’d definitely avoid the chargers. For anyone going: watch out for charger idle fees. Parking is around the back, and the garage is down a ramp. The parking door opens with the room card. There was no parking signage at the time. The badge reader is on the left side of a garage pillar, also without signage.