"The good.
We appreciated the minibar with a couple of free beers and bottle of water. Unlike other reviewers we didn’t expect this to be topped up, but then we wee only there for two nights and opted to not have the room serviced for our stay.
Comfortable bed and duvet, pillows ok. Good blackout curtains and a pleasant enough view of the back of the hotel. Excellent shower. I particularly liked the shelves next to my side of the bed (partner had just a small bedside table) with a couple of electric sockets and a usb port to charge your phone. Decent bedside reading light. Handy for the u-bahn and the Westfield centre.
The not so good.
Understaffed reception. Took a while to check in and out, and particularly when collecting our luggage. Often reception staff were on the phone. If it were me, I would have asked the caller to hang on a second, then acknowledge the guests waiting in person with ‘I’ll be with you in a moment’, but instead, we were all ignored u til the lengthy phone call was finished.
Dark dark dark. Decor involves a nautical theme all ropes and crates. Rooms are cabins. My first thought on arrival (after, ‘oh dear, there’s a long queue for checkin’) was ‘help, I’m around 40 years too old for this hotel’.
When we got to our room, I realised I’m not too old, just the wrong gender. It’s a blokes hotel. Trying to resemble a ship, there’s a shelving u it disguised as a rope ladder, and a luggage trunk hiding the fridge and trying its best to be a desk (but you would t want to).
Continuing with the nautical theme, there was a tattoo type drawing of a stripper in the loo. There’s a magazine by the loo. In my experience, women don’t generally read whilst sitting on the loo, we do what we need to do and we’re gone.
The bathroom mirror is not suitable for applying makeup (or shaving I suppose). There’s a magnifying mirror inset into the main mirror but if you’re not tall enough it’s no use to you. The bathroom bin is designed like a bucket with a rope attached but no lid. Rather unhygienic if you’re female and needing to dispose of sanitary products.
No kettle or tea or coffee supplies. Small safe which is not big enough for an iPad.
There is a trendy bag to borrow available in the room. In the trunk furniture feature, there are several high fashion arty magazines plus a hardback catalogue with arty shots of nude women modelling said bag. You know, sitting in a cocktail bar with the bag over the shoulder, but totally starkers, like you do. I’m really no prude, if it was on a beach, then ok, but like most people, I don’t open the door to the pizza delivery man whilst naked. As if to confirm this book is just for the Male Gaze, a couple of photos show the models snuggling up to each other. There are no nude men. Where are the nude men??
The very bad.
Staff member knocked on door rather early, I opened the door, he apologised and was standing outside the next door room, as if he’d just got the room wrong. Ok. But then at 8am and he again knocked and let himself into room whilst we were still in bed. This was on morning of checkout. There is absolutely NO reason to let yourself into a room on the morning of checkout unless it’s gone past the checkout time. Isn’t it normal to check if guests have actually checked out? So anyway, instead of leaving our luggage and going out for breakfast, we checked out and left our luggage at reception, as we didn’t feel safe knowing someone was anxious to clean up and maybe then dumping the luggage without us knowing where, exactly. If I had been in the room on my own I might well have screamed the place down. We did inform the receptionist on leaving. We wonder if any senior staff were informed?
Hint. Remember to put the ‘do not disturb’ sign up if you don’t want staff walking in your room when you’re still in bed. This shouldn’t be necessary but it clearly is."
