A wonderful experience

The hotel exceeded at every turn. Very nice, but plain, room, super and tasty breakfast buffet with something for everyone. Location is excellent. Just a couple of minutes from the heart of downtown and a minute or two from the train station. I am returning again this fall and will stay at the Montana again. One thing that would make it and the other hotels a bit nicer would be to have one or two English speaking non-news stations on cable TV and some English newspapers.

Great Hotel & Location Minutes from Railway Station

Clean and comfortable good size rooms.

Excellent buffet breakfast daily at 0630. Good dinner choices and bar. Friendly staff.

5 minute walk to the railway station entrance.

Easy access to trams on far side of station.

Easy walk along river bank and along main shopping / banking street to the lake.

Tourist office within station concourse.

Good rail office, ticket windows and train info available.

Convenience store and take away food available in station and nearby.

Nice on the inside, creepy on the outside

Very clean and comfortable hotel. Breakfast is good. Friendly staff. Not far from the train station - only a 5 minute walk. No hair dryer in the bathroom though.

Nice hotel!!!!

I stayed one night in June.The hotel is very good (as often in Switzerland), clean room with a hot tub and very good breakfast. Outstanding location ,it is next to the central station,10min or so from Airport!Hotel itself is not big,so Stuffs were friendly and helpful.also I could walk to all attractions in central Curich.

A good hotel

We went to the hotel based on a deal that we found under Zurichtourism.

The hotel is very good (as often in Switzerland), friendly staff and very good breakfast. Outstanding location vs the railway station. The only minus is the neighborhood where you face some drug addicts, alcoholics ... A great choice if you can get it at a reasonable rate.

Good stop in Zurich

We stayed one night in Zurich on our way back, and looked for a hotel near the trainstation.The Montana was very close indeed, easy to find only a few minutes walking. The reception was extremely friendly everything very clean and nicely decorated. The room was a bit small but had everything needed.We didn't have any problem with noise from the street downstairs. The breakfast was large, self-service and lots of choices.we definitely recommend this hotel.

Convenient to train station, but

The Hotel Montana falls in the mid to low 3-star range in my opinion.

The room is of average European size for similar accomodations, but could do with a face-lift. In terms of decor think late 70's style -- dark wood paneling, formica built-in desk. The beds were firm and comfortable.

One plus is the hotel's proximity to the Zurich railway station. If you walk out the station exit situated on the side of the station directly opposite from the exit to the fabulously expensive Hofbahnstrasse and turn left (down the platform next to the tracks) you will see two pubs 75 meters ahead. Turn right, cross the street, and go to the next street running parallel to the tracks (scarcely 20 meters). Turn left and you will see the Hotel Montana about 150 meters ahead. If you are traveling to Zurich by train, the Hotel Montana is easily accessible and a lot less expensive than the hotels on the opposite side of the tracks.

Zurich is a walkable city so far as tourists are concerned. Although you're going to have to cut past or through the train station to get to most shopping, museums, restaurants, etc., and thereby add maybe 300 meters, the Hotel Montana is well-situated.

The hotel's proximity to the railway station and tracks is also a minus. Until the trains stop running after midnight there is some train noise.

A negative: no air conditioning, but if you are traveling in Europe and using this standard of hotel, you know that virtually no hotel in this price range has A/C.

One resulting problem in hot weather, however, is street noise. There was considerable during our August 2003 stay there. Enough to interfere with sleep; including the occasional group headed back from the bars and a 3 AM rap serenade from a European cruiser. Yes, American "culture" is ubiquitous.

Noise from other rooms? Can't say that we were in a position to judge given the fact that our windows were wide open the whole visit.

The neighborhood is OK and apparently safe, but my 50ish wife felt a bit uncomfortable walking by a nearby XXX bookstore and sex shop. Her discomfort was heightened by witnessing a young 20's girl being approached by a rather scruffy looking 30's guy at about 8:30 one evening. He backed off when she ignored him and we quickened our pace to get closer to her. It was the sort of thing you would see in any major or minor urban center, but a rural female traveling alone would probably find it annoying if not disconcerting. It depends on your background and life experiences. I've seen far worse and more obnoxious encounters in super-safe Tokyo. The buildings in the area are generally apartment blocks. The pub on the corner at the end of the street was relatively inexpensive and efficient.

The young people manning the desk of the Hotel Montana were extremely friendly and accomodating. Their English was adequate to every purpose.

They seemed genuinely pleased to help guests. They were enthusiastic about making sure we knew about the Kunsthaus ... a local world-class art museum that in and of itself is cause for a trip across the Atlantic. Top marks to the staff. They were excellent.

We arrived by automobile, not train. Because of the typical European one-way traffic schemes and some construction and because the railway tracks and river prevent approaching the hotel from most directions, it proved difficult to drive to the hotel. Zurich is more than a bit of a nightmare in terms of driving due to the one-ways. Once at the hotel, however, secure parking was provided at a reasonable cost. If memory serves, about $22. US. per day, but don't quote me.

The included breakfast was good. The usual range of Swiss buffet choices: cereals, three juice choices, milk, coffee or tea, a choice of good breads, several cheeses, cold cut meats, scrambled eggs and bacon, croissants. More than enough to make a filling initial meal. A nice thing was that breakfast hours were somewhat longer than at other hotels; again, if memory serves, 6:30 to 10:30.

Would we stay there again? Maybe. We would certainly think twice in the sort of record-breaking hot weather we experienced. (If it is any comfort we heard from fellow travelers that the only hotels in Zurich with A/C are 5-star establishments with commensurate room rates.) If we were going back to Zurich for a couple of days in more normal weather or especially sometime other than July and August, we very well might.

Especially if we were traveling by train.

Bad... dont book it over the net

The Hotel is dreary and was easily the worst chapter in my otherwise beautiful swiss vaccation. I was there for the last 4 days of a total of fifteen days and stuck on only because I had paid fully in advance believing my travel agent. The Reception staff was an unenthusiatic bunch. It was 28 Degrees and they could not give me a fan as they said all the fans were taken! Did anybody force them to have less fans then the number of rooms. The first floor room given to me overlooked a huge Garbage Bin; and the reception staff advised me to keep my widows open in case I wanted to beat the heat. The area around is shady and it is scary to wlk in the night to the hotel. The decor itself was so gloomy... the only good part was the lift. Dr. M. Mazumder