Hotel Haubach

The metro is very close, so I’d choose another hotel nearby. We stayed at Haubach hotel, and it was a bad experience in an otherwise lovely country. I’d come back to Berlin, but never stay there again. The location was good, but the people at the desk and in the back office spoke what sounded like an unknown language and were extremely rude. They may not have understood English or German. Check-in took so long it felt endless, with everything handled slowly by hand and papers to sign everywhere. I felt like only our group was put through it while other people came and went. We’re Indian, not people looking for trouble, so we went along with everything the woman asked us to sign as proof we existed. We were told to carry our bags upstairs ourselves. Nobody offered help or showed us a lift, so I used the strength from my gym sessions to get my parents’ huge bags up, even though some in our group were older and had liver problems. The road-facing rooms were bright and large; those at the back felt gloomy and had almost no view. The next day we found the hotel does have a lift, but it only serves the backyard. You have to go out there for breakfast and use it between floors, but not to move heavy luggage. Completely absurd. One English-speaking woman helped and made the stay a bit more reasonable. Breakfast was bare minimum, with little for vegetarians, though maybe that’s a German thing. I found my photos from the visit only recently, but unfortunately my view of the experience hasn’t changed.

The location was decent, and the woman at reception was nice. She did charge us €2.50 for toothpaste that cost €1.50, apparently thinking we didn’t know what euros looked like, but whatever. For $60 a night, we’d usually expect somewhere nice. This place felt old, maybe from the 80s or 90s. The Wi-Fi didn’t work at all.

Irma was a lifesaver. She spoke English and made us feel safe and welcome. The road-facing rooms are bright and large, while the ones at the back look gloomy. The hotel is in a good location, but the experience there distorted the feeling of Berlin we’d had during our many earlier visits. I personally wouldn’t recommend it to international travelers. The desk and back-office staff spoke what sounded like an unknown language and were extremely rude. Check-in took an hour because everything was done manually, with forms to sign in several places. It was late at night after a long international trip, we were close to collapsing, and the slow process meant we missed dinner. The entrance is confusing, especially when staff give directions in a language you can’t understand. The lift needs a key every time, and opening it at night is difficult because the backyard is dark. It doesn’t stop level with the floors, either, but between them, so older or disabled guests have to haul heavy international luggage up half a flight of stairs. Bizarre. The breakfast is very basic in both choice and quantity, and the woman supervising the room had an angry manner most days. One day the tap water was dirty and undrinkable, with no warning. On our last day, after checking out, we came back from shopping to rearrange our luggage. A receptionist approached my wife angrily and said something about eating not being allowed at reception. We explained we were only sorting our things, not eating, but her body language was shockingly unfriendly. We couldn’t understand anything beyond feeling that we were being abused for reasons known only to them. We stayed five nights and six days.

The rooms were small but nice, and there was a strange, unpleasant smell while carrying suitcases up the stairs. The woman there was a bit cold when we arrived, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted out, and the staff member changed anyway. Not everyone speaks English.