Of the two hotels, I rated the Hotel Birg-Cyrus more than this hotel - and I also paid significantly less at the Hotel Birg-Cyrus.
At the Hotel Congress I paid 58 Euros for an en-suite single room with breakfast, compared to an average rate of 43 Euros per night at the Birg-Cyrus (admittedly, without breakfast).
The room was good and was clean and spacious. There were 2 beds in the room, satellite TV, a telephone and adequate wardrobe space. The en-suite bathroom was clean and was well supplied with toileteries and with fresh towels each day. There was considerable traffic noise all night in my room which overlooked the very busy Wiedner Gurtel dual carriageway.
The breakfast was also very good - a choice of omelette, fried bacon, various cereals, yoghurts, bread, cold meat cuts, cheeses, coffee, tea and fruit juice. The waitresses were friendly when serving the coffee, while the rest of the breakfast was all-you-can-eat buffet style.
But this is the reason I won't rate this hotel higher than 2 / 5:
After turning the TV on in my room, the volume was on mute. A notice said that I should obtain a remote control from reception. After spending the afternoon sightseeing, I asked for a remote control after arriving back at reception. The sulky man on the night shift gave me one (held together with sticky tape) - but told me it was unlikely to work. I tried it...and he was right, it didn't work! I trudged down to reception and asked if he had a spare. He shook his head and muttered "no" in a tone that I took to be abrupt. "Surely you have a spare, from a room that isn't being occupied?". "There aren't any more", he replied, again abruptly. "But this one doesn't work and there is no volume button on my TV set - I can't hear anything. What use is that?". "It's not my problem", he replied, "nothing I can do". After I told him that I'd paid a lot of money for the room and the least I expected was a functioning remote control, he reluctantly rummaged through a drawer in his desk and gave me a spare. It didn't work either. But by this point I was past caring! I can live without a remote control, but I will not accept inpolite service!!
In fairness, all my encounters with the other staff were friendly and the hotel was generally ok - but I feel that I would be doing a dis-service to other hotels of a similar standard that I have rated as 3 / 5 if I allowed this one to be rated as highly as them. So 2 it is!
If I ever return to Vienna, there is no doubt that I would book at the Hotel Birg-Cyrus instead of this hotel!
