Natalye R.
Yelp
For review #1000, I figured it should be some place special. So Strandhaus it is.
I stumbled across the website while researching getaway ideas for an anniversary surprise for my husband. I wanted to do a staycation or something similar, because he didn't have the time off for going far away. Luckily, the Spreewald is less than an hour by train, so off to Lübben we went.
The Strandhaus isn't in the official city center, but it's not far, and the island it's situated on is actually much busier than the city square. Even so, it's a relaxing and quiet place (if you don't happen to stay on a celebratory weekend, which we did), and it's located close to everything.
From what I understand, the hotel opened in 2012. It's a four-star and it really shows. The rooms are huge, first of all, and designed very minimally but nicely, with a lot of awesome minor comforts, like big fluffy robes, slippers, apples in the hallway outside your room, a complimentary bottle of water, a working safe, etc. The bed is big and cozy as well, and you've also got a sofa with a TV, and a minifridge.
The staff is really friendly and accommodating, which made the experience enjoyable... someone even escorted us to our room when we arrived and pointed things out, like the window with the netting that is recommend to be left open (in place of the other ones) to let the air in and keep the mosquitos out.
There's a sauna in the hotel as well, so both nights we made use of that, and it was wonderful. Right next to it were cold showers, fresh towels, and flavored drinking water. There is also a big room with about 5 or 6 lounging chairs with towels and blankets, so you can hang out and read or nap post-sauna. Bonus: there's a grassy area outside (accessible only from the sauna area) with a view out on the Spree.
In the mornings, there's a pretty awesome breakfast buffet. The fellow expressed a wish that there were better cheeses aside from generic grocery store slices, but they also had tons of fruit, veggies, breads, and meats, various types of müsli and granola, yogurts and puddings, jams and spreads, etc. You can also eat food from the "hot bar," like scrambled eggs and sausages, or order eggs and omelets from the servers.
As for drinks, there were different kinds of waters and juices and even Sekt, and if you wanted coffee, each table had its own carafe. Each morning we spent about 2 hours hanging out and eating, talking, reading, etc. There is no real kind of rush and the service is great.
As for food in the actual restaurant, that's a little more miss. We ate there one night and it's rough going for vegans and not many more options for vegetarians. The potatoes and quark with Leinöl was brought out shortly after ordering, which leads me to believe it's not made that freshly. The portion sizes were also a little small, by which I mean 1.5 potatoes (these are the smaller fist-sized ones, not Russet potatoes) per plate. Meanwhile, the creme brûlée was probably the worst creme brûlée I've ever tasted (by which I mean it wasn't bad, but it was just not very creme brûlée-y). The fellow did get a Käsekuchen though, and said it was really good. So there's that. But my advice: eat the breakfast but get your other meals elsewhere.
That said, the food was the only point that wasn't a highlight, save for the terrible music... unfortunately, we stayed on a weekend that was an annual celebration when people ride boats through the canals at night... which means that on one side of the hotel there was a guy playing New Age flute music until midnight or so, and directly outside our hotel room was another guy DJing New Wave and German Metal until 1am. While the hotel couldn't have done anything to prevent this, I wish they would have told us this was happening before we arrived, so we could have planned for a different weekend, or at least brought earplugs.
All things considered, we really did love our stay here, and I would absolutely love to come in the winter/off-season, when the city is hopefully a bit less busy. While it's a nice hotel any way you slice it, it really is a relaxing getaway option for when you want to hang out, be lazy, catch up on your reading, snuggle, and sauna it up.
