Hotels near Siemensbahnbrücke, Berlin

While Hotel Villa Kastania, Berlin, is generally a good hotel, I can't recommend it, due to the rude behavior of one of the reception clerks. This behavior spoiled the atmosphere and ruined my mood for my short stay (1 night). This guy (young, with a French beard) was not very courteous and serviceable from the moment I got there. After realizing the hotel has no lobby where you can sit and work with a laptop, I asked to do so in the dining hall (my room wasn't ready yet). He approved, but said I should be sitting next to a Coffee table rather than next to a regular one, as ”the hotel is fully booked and people are coming for breakfast”. Since you cannot really work next to a low Coffee table I asked to sit on a regular one, explaining that people never all come to have breakfast at the same time. He did not like it (and expressed it and his tone) but I did, and guess what - the dining room was almost completely empty the entire morning! But the really severe behavior on his part happened a bit later on. I went out to have Coffee outside, telling the nice and polite waiter of the (empty) dining hall that I'm storing my laptop aside but leaving my charger and mouse on the table, since I'll be back to work there shortly. He approved. When I returned, the reception clerk started talking in a really rude, impolite and improper way to me, almost shouting at me, about how I shouldn't leave my things ”In the restaurant”. I explained that I left it because I was going for a short while, but he continued accusing me of acting the wrong way, as if as a first time guest I have an idea of the hotel's code about leaving things here on there. Even when I told him that I informed the waiter about this he did not calm down. He only calmed down from his raging behavior when I snapped back at him, telling him that he has no right speaking to paying customers like that, that he can't expect a client to know his made up arbitrary rules and that even if someone does something wrong - there's a nice and polite way to point that out, especially when your job his to serve him. A paying client should not be treated like a young kid getting reprimanded by a hotel clerk, who clearly doesn't like his job, doesn't know the meaning of service and has no patience for clients. I NEVER ran in to this kind of behaviour in any hotel I stayed in. Only after talking back to him in this fierce way he started to behave more politely towards me, but he never apologized. During check-out, when he asked if everything was OK and I responded: ”Yes, besides your behavior yesterday” he did not apologize. Therefore, I do not recommend staying at Hotel Villa Kastania, Berlin. A place that employs someone like this, who clearly doesn't know how to treat customers - is not a good pick.

The location and the hotel itself is great. Next time I will stay here. There were two points I would like to underline : first there was a small problem in the first room I got - as soon as I pointed it out, I got a new room immediately. A ver constructive way to deal with problems. I appreciate it. Second, the attitude of staff, they are helpful and explain you everything you ask them.

This hotel has had a revamp and is now called the Art Hotel, Park Plaza. There is another Park Plaza nearby…..we ended up there first! So don’t get confused!! Once you find this hotel….we arrived on the day of a national strike… it’s fab. Ignore the journey planner…. This hotel is a less than 10 min walk from the western end of the U1 line. The room we had was on 5th floor on a quite busy street, but it was so quiet we didn’t realise it until we looked out of the window the following morning. The bed and pillows were so comfortable, a great night sleep was had by us both. Shower was a big rainfall type with a smaller head shower head option if you wanted. Complimentary Elemis shower gel, hand wash, as well as body lotion. Breakfast was worth every penny as part of your B&B option. Otherwise it’s €18 for a full option or €5 for coffee and a croissant in the bar. Breakfast was fresh, pastries, cheese, meats, toast, mushrooms, sausage, bacon, pancakes, cereals, yoghurts; you could make your own fresh juice from fresh veggies & fruits. Coffee was excellent (I was told)…. I took my own teabags as I am very fussy, and made great tea. There is a spectacular hot water urn……that is very ornate and was awesome. Staff were multilingual and very helpful. Nothing was too much trouble and they were very insightful about the local area, and the available public transport options. I would highly recommend this hotel which has pop art throughout. We are planning to head back to visit Berlin again and we will most certainly stay here again.

By the time this incident happened, I have already completed a 4 days stay in the hotel and was willing to increase my stay. For that purpose, I went to Mrs. Hausweld and asked to please consult the availability and the price of the rooms for extra nights. In response, I was told that the final price, including the city tax for 3 additional nights would be 350 euros with breakfast included. Consequently, I was willing to go along with that reservation and requested to pay by card. Afterward, then Mrs. Hausweld offered me the POS terminal to go along with the payment, and the amount ascended to 419 euros. Due to that unexpected difference, I kindly asked for an explanation and was told that 419 euros were the final price, and if I was not happy with it I would need to leave the hotel immediately. As a result, I kindly refused to pay that amount and asked her to please consult the price for two nights instead of three. In response to that, the front desk manager told me that no more rooms were available for me and that I needed to check out now and leave the hotel. Following that conversation, I went on Booking.com and reserved a room for the same days, without breakfast, and surprisingly rooms were still available. Next, I went to the front desk and asked to please pay for my booking Mrs. Hausweld looked at me in an unfriendly manner and told me she could not find any reservation. After 5 minutes of searching, she could finally open my booking. Then, although I already provided a credit card in my booking, she asked me to show it to her because she was not believing that it was not mine. I answered that the card was in effect mine and offered her to have a look, but it did not have any numbers on it. So she got ahead to request me to write down my credit card details, including the CVV code, on a piece of paper as ”a security”. Afterward, I was asked again by her if I would like breakfast or not, despite I selected the no breakfast option on booking.com. A moment later I was offered the POS terminal to pay by card, which stated an amount 30 euros higher that the price I booked the room for on this site. Due to the reoccurrence of the same, previous situation again, I refused to pay and respectfully asked her why the price was higher again. Mrs. Hauweld answered in a very disrespectful manner that I asked her to have breakfast included and that I was confusing her again. After that situation, I kindly asked them to speak with her supervisor. She answered, that she had no supervisor and was the only person working in the hotel for the whole weekend. That experience left me in complete disbelief of her professionality and her being in that important role in the hotel. However, despite that bad experience with that particular staff member, I would like to note that the other front desk managers were very friendly and helpful at all times.

Although the location and price for this hotel is great, the rooms themselves were disappointing. When entering the room for our first night I was immediately concerned about the room, with some wall fittings falling off, what seemed to be a lack of smoke alarm, one small bedside lamp and a tv relatively small and far from the bed along with only one alternative chair. Despite these shortcomings the room is quite spacious and beds relatively fine, with somewhat good soundproofing on the windows to stop the noise of the busy streets. Although these negatives would have been outweighed by the positives, we also had no room cleaning our entire 6 night stay which was highly disappointing. We would be awakened by the cleaners relatively early in the morning however usually we slept through this first attempt to clean. Most hotels would assume someone is asleep and come back and clean after they have gone about their day however this did not occur for our entire trip duration. To make matters worse we had no toilet roll replacements and had to source our own. In addition, on our 5th night they did Infact enter our room, they did Not take our overflowing bin, towels from the specified pick up area, change our sheets or make our beds or clean any portion of the room as expected of them. All they did was give us toilet roll. Very disappointing considering the ideal location for the hotel and the price.(although much cheaper than anywhere else in the area so some disappointment to be expected)

I went to this hotel for a mid-week vacation with my lovely daughter. With an UBER it was about 10 Euro to get to the hotel. Check-in was smooth, the older man behind the desk wasnt overly friendly but rather efficient and that was fine. We paid the tourist-tax and got one room-key for our room. We paid online about 80 Euro a night and we got a room with three beds at the back. The room was clean and simple. A desk with a big-screen TV, a shower-room with a toilet and a wash-basin. The shower was ok but we didnt like the shower-curtains. Also the water would be warm for about five minutes but it didnt bother us. Everyday cleaning with new linen and towels. In the morning you can have breakfast but you have to pay for it. We didnt use it. The hotel is set conveniently in the middle of Berlin near Kurfurstenstrasse and Dam. Near the U-Bahn and busses.

The hotel is clean, modern and well-staffed. What was missing for us was warmth and the expected level of hospitality. During our 5-day stay, nobody ever said hello, goodbye or communicated in any manner unless we asked a direct question. When I checked out, the only thing the receptionist said was to remind me I had borrowed an electrical adaptor and to return it. I travel frequently and expect hotels to be warm and welcoming. Also, when I checked in I was given no hotel information other than the E25 breakfast hours. I'm sure it's wonderful, but I since only have coffee, there is no reason to pay 25 euros. Because we didn't go to breakfast and the receptionist didn't tell us, we missed many features of the hotel we might have enjoyed. To further our disappointing stay, there was no printed hotel info in our room other than a book about the featured artist. I hate QR codes, but when I scanned the hotel's, it gave sp**** information. The hotel lobby isn't welcoming and I didn't go to the bar until my last night so was unaware of all the things Art'otel would have liked me to know. The magazine was interesting and beautiful. Why isn't there a copy in guest rooms? The local information and maps were available in the breakfast area, but we didn't go there and weren't offered them by hotel staff. One of the reasons I chose the hotel was the pictures of beautiful bathrooms with tubs. Sadly, the website fails to mention that tubs are only available in expensive suites. Our visit, while nice, was overpriced. We paid for hospitality and a good room, but only the room was up to the expected standards. Very disappointing.

Located in central of Berlin, this is probably the tallest hotel in town. They have a really nice view over the city. Very convenient with metro and all the restaurants and shops around. Rooms are clean but if you live high up, it’s hard to get mobile signal. Wifi doesn’t work so well when a lot of people are using it. One of the biggest issue if you live higher than 20th floor, the elevator won’t stop at your floor for so long. Not sure how the elevators work, you may have to wait 10 mins for getting down to lobby at busy hours (etc lunch/ dinner hour) Check in was easy and quick, and staff is friendly also.

I stayed only two nights at a&o Berlin Mitte with Contiki, the stay was comfortable. The four-share rooms were very small and a bit tricky to fit our four suitcases. We also had a run-in with staff at the front desk. For a four-share room, we only got two keys. When a member of our group asked for a spare key, she was denied then given a temporary card and was rudely told to bring it right back - but how could she get back into the room to bring it back??? Others in our tour had the same experience. Besides that, the breakfast was great.

Pet- and tourist-unfriendly place. My latest experience very much resembled extortion. I was charged 100 euro for dog’s fur on the bedsheets and 150 euro for dog’s fur on the floor (the hotel representative had to put quite an effort into scraping some with her shoe) and an approx 0,5 mm brown-ish spot on the carpet which they claimed to be “blood” (considering that there was an approx 5 cm black stain on the carpet as of my checkin which hotel apparently didn’t see as something of an issue to me as a guest). I used to like this hotel (despite being placed on several occasions in rooms with obvious sewage issues), until I stayed there with my dog. I presented my dog at the reception at the checkin (that is the receptionist saw the dog). Paid 15 eur per day pet fee and proceeded to the room. No additional rules, policies or verbal requests were presented to me. My dog damaged a pouffe which I informed the hotel about at the checkout and happily paid whatever was asked of me (200 eur). In addition to that I was demanded to pay 100 eur for some fur on bedsheets and 150 eur for some fur on the floor as mentioned above. No oficial price list was presented. No explanation why 15 eur a day pet fee wasn’t covering washing blankets and vacuuming floor was provided, all my questions or logical arguments were ignored. The team of hotel representatives generously offered me a 50 eur discount on cleaning (which I didn’t ask for) only confirming that the amounts weren’t based on any actual price list, because if the hotel really suffered a loss of 250 eur why would they “gift” me 50 eur. I considered it to be an extortion and suggested to call the police. When I came back after 15 min the hotel still hadn’t called the police. As I had an urgent matter and had to leave, I paid the hotel whatever its staff demanded. I think what actually happened is the hotel staff had accidentally or recklessly placed us in a no-pet room (as there was a carpet, unlike in some other rooms. I was placed into that room after finding out the one I was initially given smelt of sewage - repeatedly happened before). And instead of charging their staff, they’ve charged me, so that they can do (if they actually do) for some deep cleaning after an animal to make it suitable again for people with allergies. Staff’s rudeness and ill attitude with me as a client weren’t in line with the hospitality filed’s even moderate standards. Most customers might find this hotel pleasant - which it is, until it is no longer.