Penthouse Stephansplatz by Welcome2Vienna

A great choice if you need a big apartment in central Viena. The flat was clean, bright, spacious, and centrally located, and the company gave excellent support. Strongly suggest!

The room was huge and really nice. For that price, I bet you can’t find a closer location to the center.

For an apartment in this price category, I can’t believe there’s nowhere to leave luggage until your flight. They said we could leave it if nobody else was checking in after us, but it would cost 60 euros. In all my trips, this is the first time I’ve run into that.

The apartment’s location is excellent, with good shops in the area. But our stay was dominated by the stairs. We were five women over 60, and one of us was recovering from a broken ankle. The apartment was on the fifth floor, and when we arrived at about 10:30 PM, a representative was waiting downstairs. He told us the elevator had a “fault” that day and we’d need to climb 135 steps. He said he’d help with our heavy suitcase, then went ahead and left us to drag ourselves up behind him. We were out of breath and furious. We asked for another place and compensation, but weren’t offered an alternative. At reception, we were charged €500 for possible damage to the apartment, which seemed strange. The money was returned to our account after 11 days. The next morning, Monday, we asked people in the building how long the elevator had been out. It had been inactive for over a week. We were angry that nobody had told us in advance. If we’d known, we would have chosen somewhere else. The lack of an elevator seriously affected our trip. We had to plan when to leave and return, and skipped several places on our schedule because going up and down was so difficult. If there had been a working elevator, we would have gone out more and enjoyed the city. I came home with severe lower back problems and a swollen, painful knee from the stairs. As soon as I landed in Israel, I went to an orthopedic surgeon for treatment for my knee and back. With our friend recovering from a broken ankle, this was no kind of vacation or rest. We reached the point where we wouldn’t enter any store with stairs because we could no longer face climbing them. There are two showers, one with a bathtub and one with a shower, but you can’t use them both at once because there’s no water flow at all. The bathroom is also very unsafe to get in and out of, especially for people over 60, so we took turns showering one after another. We asked for a full refund because of the distress and how little we could enjoy our stay. We received 20% compensation, which I think is a real shame. We’re disappointed with Booking and the apartment owner. In our view, they should have compensated us in full. We came to enjoy ourselves and returned exhausted, with a bitter feeling about our Vienna stay. It’s 2022, and there’s an international accessibility obligation. Unfortunately, this place didn’t meet the requirements or provide another solution, and left us to deal with the consequences.