Numa Berlin Drift

Numa was shocking bad and discriminating experience! I’m a travel professional myself and I stay half of my time in hotels around the World; some months more than half of the time! ||||Numa Drift and Numa Stays as company promotes themselves as place which respects diversity and which is openminded; in their premises they tell that they love houseparties. But the reality is totally opposite; they don’t hesitate to kick out gay people out from their premises during the big gay events in their neighbourhood from slightest mistake on their ‘house-rules’.||||They kick out people during the Folsom Festival without letting them to find a resolution and they also refused to refund for the cancelled days. Their representative threatened by police if the guest were not out after 5 minute packing time. With bad English and not good German they were yelled “out out, Numa is not this kind of place, police come”. We didn’t know if it was because they saw us as gay?||||We were in total shock about how disrespectfully and degrading they handle any situation with their customers. With all of my baggages sitting outside in the park I was just thinking that this can’t be really happening. ||||They didn’t give any warnings about possible issue, nor did they allow any possible resolution to correct any mistakes. They have now confirmed that any unregistered visitor in their premises will lead into immediate cancellation of the stay without compensation!!! Imaging having your business partner there for any meeting! It would be a catastrophy to your reputation! ||||We have never ever treated so badly and disrespectfully than what happened by Numa.||Naturally I can’t recommend this hotel for anyone when attending Schöneberg areas events or meeting friends.

Staying at this hotel was a truly awful experience. This is not hospitality - it’s human storage. Everything seems fine until something goes wrong - and then you’re completely on your own.||The first night, I was locked outside the hotel for half an hour around midnight because the entry code didn’t work. The support team struggled to fix the issue and basically turned me into their technician - asking me to send videos and troubleshoot for them. I eventually got in only because another guest happened to enter, not because the staff managed to solve the problem.||The second time, I was locked outside my room for 30 minutes with no response at all from their WhatsApp “support.” I was already looking for another hotel at that point.||There’s no real service here - and when something goes wrong (and it will), they take no responsibility and offer no compensation for the inconvenience and stress they cause.

Once a great choice to stay in the heart of Berlin Schoeneberg, but the good days are over and that for many reasons.||Product:|It clearly needs a renovation. Tiles in the shower and (open) bathroom were loose. The shower fills with dirty water and the cover for the drain slowly swims away once water hits. I had a balcony room this time but the chairs were dirty and again partly broken. It is a non-smoking hotel but with ashtrays on the balcony that were not cleaned before arrival.||Service:|The cleaning staff is friendly but does not speak English or German. My Vietnamese and Mandarin/Cantonese is too rusty in order to communicate. While Numa ´s approach is digital, the online chats are answered by AI Agent chat bots, multiple answers that do not fit the question and it takes time to get through to a live agent (who then is always helpful). ||Strange:|A couple on a different floor was removed from their room, and as I was told based on Numa ´s terms and conditions but without any pre-warning or possible discussion for a resolution, only the above mentioned AI Agent was available. Don ´t get me wrong, it is important to enforce house rules and terms and conditions, we all have them in our businesses. But sending a security guard only, speaking bad German and nearly no English should not be the prime choice for a hospitality company. At least this „happening“ became the talk of the night in the bars around.||Conclusion:|I have the privilege to spend my career in hospitality and have learned from the best. As a GM for many hotels I have seen (I believe at least) nearly everything and I also enforced my house rules. But always with a discussion and very qualified staff to deal with particular situations. I also suggest that when you want to go digital, to first think processes and quality of response better through. Especially for a company that had a data breach twice now for me, resulting in phishing links from various countries. I have canceled my next 3 stays at Numa (yes I was a fan) and have advised the travel manager in my business to not further authorize stays at Numa. Very sad, but if anyone but some random AI reads or at least analyzes the shortcomings, it could be a good starting point to re-think the meaning of hospitality and quality.

Very easy to find and check in, great room: lovely views, so clean, tea&coffee supplies, great shower, a/c, everything we needed. Comfortable bed, lighting was good and loads of space. Very close to the underground, easy to cycle to centre of city. Highly recommend.

The breakfast was so pathetic I tried to get a refund after 2 days. I was told no refunds after checking. The Wi-Fi is wonky. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes not so fine. The hotel is totally automated, which means there is no one on site. If you have a problem, can you call a phone number and good luck on that one. The rooms are clean and spacious. If you need extra supplies during your stay, you can get them downstairs in the supply room free of charge. Your room has a refrigerator with a freezer in it. The free mini bar has two sodas and two beers in. There are laundry facilities on the premises, which again are totally automated. You use an application on your phone to do your laundry and dry. I was glad they had on site laundry. The rooms are only cleaned once a week, unless you want to pay extra to have them come in more often. In the supply room down on the first floor, you can go get additional towels if you need them. The location is awesome.

I'd tried to make a reservation via their website and was asked to provide credit card details. However, in the final step, the booking was not confirmed by Numa. My credit card was charged nevertheless. Contacted Numa via WhatsApp as suggested. For obvious reasons no booking was found, so I provided a screenshot from the transaction with all necessary details. I was assured that it would be most likely that the money would be transferred back within a couple of days. This, however, did not happen, and I contacted Numa twice in this matter. Although the chat was friendly, the bottom line was that they were stating that they were unable to assist in this matter. It appeared they were unable to direct my request to someone else. After 3 of these chats, I decided to send an e-mail, again providing all details of the transaction. In the response, a member of the "Numa Guest Experience Team" promised to forward my request to their financial department and to get back to me with a solution. This was the last time I heard from them. I finally asked my bank to assist in transferring the money back, which they were able to do. In terms of the booking experience and the customer support, this was the worst experience I ever had. I cannot comment on the quality of their rooms, but the fact that I provided a free loan for a couple of weeks in return for nothing will probably deter me from trying to make another booking in a Numa hotel.

Continued from Part 1 of the Review||Silly Guest Expectations - This issue is whether it is realistic for a well equipped kitchenette studio to also have a table and two chairs so cooked food can be consumed in reasonable comfort. The kitchenette studio had only one chair, which if placed in front of a shelf under the TV provided one eating space but nowhere for the other guest to eat, other than seated on the toilet or bed, or standing at the stove top or bathroom vanity. There was clearly a space for a small table and two chairs but after more endless texts with the ChatBots and a “live agent”, “Jana” intervened and insisted a table and two chairs in a kitchenette was impossible, but, as always, apologized profusely for any inconvenience.||So where does that leave the star score? It was an exhausting experience staying at a Numa property. Some very good aspects of the property are marred by Numa's inability to grasp the inadequacy of their operation, being so far removed and hidden behind the ChatBots. Traditional hotel staff are on site daily and know and see all shortcomings but this remote management model results in a lot of service failures.||For now the overall experience does not warrant much more than a 3 star rating. Sadly, it’s become the paying public, not management, that takes on the task of identifying and reporting operational deficiencies so investors can optimize profitability by replacing humans with ChatBots. ||Beware!

Part 1 - see also continuation review - Part 2 Some tips for future guests and some of the perils of a Numa stay. How 5 stars slips to 3 at best: First the good points: Super convenient location, steps from frequent bus and subway stops and Lidl supermarket. New stylish rooms and large comfy bed. Plenty of nearby restaurants and bars. All worth a 5 star rating but there are downsides: Numa can only be reached for assistance (No human contact exists) using WhatsApp text messages, which send you into tiresome, endless and nonsense replies from a ChatBot. Eventually the Bot will offer contact from a “live agent”, which could just be a more sophisticated Bot or a call centre texting back pre-scripted replies. If that doesn’t deal with the issue it gets escalated to the mysterious “Jana” who is constantly apologetic but often firm in stating that your request is impossible. Jana also features in Replies to Google Maps Reviews so might also be another Bot. Guidance for guests posted around the property lacks necessary detail to avoid texting the ChatBot. Example 1 - the lockers. There is no sign stating that the guest’s PIN does not open the lockers or that if there is a tiny red flashing light on the door (Pictures A & B) it is already locked and in use. There are only 14 lockers used by departing as well as arriving guests so chances of getting one are very low. Guests arriving on early flights or departing on later ones should either book a traditional hotel, where reception looks after bags, or go to a commercial bag storage business and not go to Numa until texted that the room is ready. Example 2 - the stove top in kitchenette units has no operating instructions. It took endless texts with the ChatBots to get nowhere but as cleaning staff were on site one was able to come to the room and eventually get it working. Example 3 - guests arriving from the bus or subway will reach a door with a PIN pad. That door needs a sign and an arrow directing guests further along the street to the sliding door so they don’t waste time with that first PIN pad. Safety - physical and cyber. Physical - There is a significant personal safety risk in each room with a wooden looking bed frame that extends well beyond the mattress and into the walking space around the bed. The corners of the bed frame are very sharp so even a glancing contact can result in a deep flesh wound, much bleeding and slow healing - Picture C (Removed). IMPORTANT - tuck the smaller pillows under the mattress at each protruding corner so they hang down to prevent accidental contact - Picture D. The proper solution is for Numa to install soft rubber protectors on each exposed corner. Cyber. Prior to arrival I experienced two attempts to compromise my personal data security as a result of the Numa room reservation. A WhatsApp message from “the administrator of Berlin Drift” exactly 2 weeks prior to the stay stated that a security check was unable to complete a credit card verification and that my reservation would be cancelled if I failed to click a link. It included precise details of my reservation, which suggests that either hackers have access to everybody’s booking and personal data or some other type of fraud is being perpetrated against Numa guests. I forwarded it by email to Numa and promptly received a somewhat disinterested acknowledgement. The second incident was 2 days prior to check-in. An email in German saying if I failed to confirm my reservation by clicking a link it would be cancelled. I again forwarded it to Numa and received another somewhat disinterested reply and telling me to deal with it. Cyber - Privacy - To complete a reservation or install the Numa App you have to accept their Privacy Policy. It is less about privacy and more about granting Numa a licence to share your personal information with a vast list of entities, some of which are clearly data brokers or tracking agents. They list 58 such entities, which might explain how such precise personal data is used to attempt fraudulent activity against guests. See Part 2 on Trp Advsr