Antonella C.
Yelp
For the NYE holiday, I went to Berlin with my companion. He made the arrangements after having looked at a few different places on venere.com and felt pretty secure about the place and the reviews. The hotel is located not far from the main train station and also minutes away from the downtown shopping district. In fact, we enjoyed the Christmas market still I taking place as it extended to the main street on these days.
The staff is friendly enough and seems to be quite organized at the front desk. We got to our room and compared to our room at the BW in Paris, it is a bit larger, however, as you look at the photos of the bed (the matrimonial one) note the split in the middle. Yep, they are two twins put together, but not to worry, you won't fall through ;-) as well, we asked about the wi-fi (so we could download maps to places, ect.) and we were informed that we get 30 free minutes per day, after that, you have to pay. We wouldn't have minded except that 30 minute connection is quite weak and slow. My companion opted to buy the extra time at 14Euros per day. However, there are also computers in the lobby (around the corner from the main desk) that are very useful and usually free without a wait to use. Our room was comfortable enough and well appointed. Now, like the BW bathroom, this one too has a shower where you end up getting half the bathroom wet....three is a "door" (why, I am unsure since it's a tub/sower and so the door doesn't do much--not even keep the water from falling out of the tub :-/ as well, don't expect ANY extra soap/shampoo to be given as we discovered. In other words, though we were 2 people, we only had 1 of the soap/shampoo/ hand cream. If the staff notice ANY left in the bottles, they do not leave a second little bottle for the next day.
Aside these things, it was a perfectly acceptable place to stay give our needs for the short time we stayed. Oh, the other INTERESTING note was the breakfast pricing: if you let the staff at the desk know you would be having breakfast with them, the charge would be 12Euros, if you didn't and went without such notice, the charge for the breakfast is 18Euros....?
Would I stay here again? In a pinch, perhaps, but after having been there and seen the others nearby (for example, the Hotel Indigo next door) I would try one of the others first.
Overall, I would give this hotel a 2.5...but because of how the Yelp scoring works, I don't feel the 2 is warranted, especially since the restaurant they have is very good....