Four Points by Sheraton Zurich (Sihlcity) – a nice hotel in an odd location

01. Introduction: I guess Edelweiss Air isn’t so expensive after all
02. Lufthansa A340-300 economy class San Diego to Frankfurt
03. Lufthansa A319 economy class Frankfurt to Zurich
04. Four Points by Sheraton Sihlcity – Zurich
05. Three tips to make your first trip to Zurich better than mine was
06. Radisson Blu Zurich Airport
07. Edelweiss Air A340-300 economy class Zurich to San Diego

Guess what? I’m rather proud of the fact that it’s been a very long time since I’ve made a bad hotel choice (well, besides the Hilton Garden Inn at PHX several months ago, but that doesn’t really count). The thing that’s so impressive about that is the fact that hotel reviews aren’t really my thing, and I only write them to help paint a complete picture of what my trips are usually like. Of course it makes me feel good to be able to help others make hotel decisions for their own travels, but the truth is that I am generally clueless when it comes to choosing overnight accommodations and it’s generally crapshoot wherever I go. A crapshoot that I’ve actually been having good luck with, I might add.

Using the powerful filtering features of hotels.com to whittle down the myriad of choices that I’m faced with for each trip helps a lot, and is very likely the reason why I’ve never ended up in the bad side of town anywhere I go. But trying to figure out Zurich was different. There’s just something about the city of Zurich that I couldn’t quite understand from the vantage point of Google Maps, and I found myself feeling as paralyzed as a deer in the middle of the road who was about to get annihilated by a truck coming straight at it at 70mph.

I generally prefer to stay in the heart of the city so that I’m free to walk around and see all the sites without having to use public transportation all the time. Unfortunately, Zurich is spread out in a way that I couldn’t really determine where the center was, which made it really difficult to make a decision on where exactly I wanted to stay. Finally, in a weak moment of defeat and disgust, I chose the SPG property that had the best deal going on at the time: the Four Points Sheraton at Sihlcity. How bad could it really be with a cool name like that?

Four Points Sheraton Zurich (Sihlcity) location — Location map of the Four Points Sheraton Zurich (Sihlcity). It doesn’t look very far away from the center part of town does it? Well, it is. Make sure your Uber app is working correctly before you come here, because you’re going to need it!

Unfortunately, I discovered within minutes of arrival that the location of this hotel isn’t ideal for someone who is looking to stay where everything is within walking distance. It’s in a perfectly nice neighborhood, with lots of beautiful architecture and walking paths, but kind of far away from where all the action is. I had to take an Uber or a taxi to get anywhere, which was inconvenient to say the least. That being said, what is the property itself like? Let me show you the pictures…

Four points Sheraton Zürich entrance — This is it? It looks more like the entrance to an industrial factory to me (the kind where Kim Kardashian bobbleheads might be made).

Four points Sheraton Zürich main entrance — Whew! Thank God this was really the entrance to the hotel, because I was in no mood for anything Kardashian-related after a long flight from the US.

Four points Sheraton Zürich guest room hallway — My apologies for skipping the pics of the main lobby, but there were five super-eager employees hovering around being over anxious to greet me (it was kind of uncomfortable actually) and it would’ve felt weird to whip out my camera and start taking pics. So…here’s the second floor guest room hallway!

Room 247 four points Sheraton Zürich — Room 247 is mine for the next two nights (assuming I didn’t see any dead bodies – or Kim Kardashian bobbleheads – when opening the door).

Four points Sheraton Zürich suite — No dead bodies or bobbleheads! As you can see, I reserved a suite for this two night stay. It certainly looked nice upon opening the door, but right away something felt a little…off.

Four points Sheraton Zürich suite furniture — Even the sofa was rectangular and pointy! It was right about this point that I had to double check and see if I brought any Band-Aids with me, because I knew that there was going to be an accident and these pointy corners were gonna make me bleed at some point during my stay.

Four points Sheraton Zürich dining table — For a solo traveler such as myself, dining tables like this are totally unnecessary since I’ll be doing all my eating and snacking in front of the TV.

Four points Sheraton free fruit — Is this their way of telling me that I’m not getting enough fiber in my diet? It was good though, and I ended up eating all of it.

Four points Sheraton Zürich room — Standing in the middle of the room and looking towards the door. Up on the left you will see…

Four points Sheraton Zürich bathroom — …bathroom number one! Yup, there were two bathrooms in this suite, and I’ll get to the pics of the other one in just a moment.

Four points Sheraton Zürich desk — An excellent place to write blog posts.

Nespresso machine Four points Sheraton Zürich — Also located in the main room was this Nespresso machine. How in the world do you coffee drinkers figure this stuff out? It looks way too complicated for me and I’m sure I’d burn the place down trying to get it to make something delicious.

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bedroom — Oh, and yes, there is a bed in here too! The bedroom was a bit small but quite nice actually.

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bedroom and bathroom — Standing in the middle of the bedroom looking towards the master bathroom (with very sore stubbed toes).

Four points Sheraton Zürich walk in closet — This is the walk in closet between the bedroom and the bathroom, which featured a huge selfie mirror on the back wall. I promise you that “*god* I look good!” were not the exact words going through my head at this moment.

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bathroom — Now this is my kind a bathroom! It’s definitely more on the manly side of the design spectrum, which is precisely why I think I liked it so much.

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bathroom vanity — A sink for each day of my stay!

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bathroom bidet — I still remember the feeling of utter confusion (and worry) during my first trip to Europe and seeing this for the very first time.

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bathroom shower — I love this bathroom!

Four points Sheraton Zurich suite bathroom tub — There’s also a full-size tub in here for anyone feeling in need a good long soak after a long flight from abroad.

As I mentioned earlier, the location of the Four Points Sheraton Sihlcity is a bit far away from the central part of town, but not too far out in the boonies. It actually located adjacent to a giant shopping mall and movie theater, which did seem a bit out of place to me considering that the general area seemed more residential than anything else.

The biggest advantage of being away from the central part of Zurich was the fact that it was generally very quiet and I enjoyed the walking path along the Sihl River located right behind the main building.

Four points Sheraton Zurich walking around — Make sure you take advantage of the beautiful river walk located behind this hotel!

Feeding ducks in Zurich — I even made some friends out here, and they seemed anxious to start following my adventures here on sanspotter.com (only because I fed them of course).

Would I stay here again? Most likely not, primarily because of the distance from everything that I wanted to see in Zurich (which was focused around the main train station). The suite I had was very nice, and I really appreciated how quiet it was, but it felt inconvenient to have to figure out how to get places every day by Uber or bus or train when all I wanted to do was walk.

I still can’t figure out why this hotel (and the attached shopping mall) was built in this part of the city. The quiet residential vibe of the immediate area is nice, but probably isn’t the ideal location for first-time visitors to Zurich or those wanting to be in the heart of the action. In that case, staying near the main train station would be the best bet. That’s what I’ll be doing the next time I visit…

Other stuff you might like:

The Royal Cancun All Suites Resort – totally worth it.

Hilton Austin Bergstrom Airport (yeah, the one shaped like a spacecraft)

Radisson Blu Zurich Airport – neon blue carpet never looked so good!

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