Dom Hotel Am Romerbrunnen

The bathroom was the one problem: its window wouldn't close, so that room got really cold. Otherwise the hotel was fantastic. Our room was nice, quiet, and convenient, and the downstairs bar felt warm and cozy after the winter rain. I'd definitely stay here again.

My main issue was the price. I thought I was booking at €58 a night for six nights, or €348, but the total somehow became €818. Even with taxes, I can't see how they got that amount. I should have paid closer attention when booking. At the price originally advertised, the room would have been worth it, and I'd have rated it higher. It's a cute hotel with a great location and staff. There were other small issues, though I could forgive them. The room was clean, the location was perfect, and the staff were very friendly, as advertised. It was forecast to be one of the hottest days of the year during my trip. There was no AC, but they'd bought fans the day before and put them in every room, which I thought was kind and thoughtful. The shower curtain was far too small, so water went everywhere. There was no fresh fruit in the room as advertised, though I saw some downstairs that might have been free and never asked. After one cleaning, the room reeked of B.O., so the cleaner may need better hygiene. There was no fridge, microwave, or phone, and the TV had a pitifully small channel selection. At check-in, their system showed my trip starting the next day. I had a screenshot of my reservation, thankfully, and that fixed the problem. I never got a confirmation email, so I'd advise others to take a screenshot too.

It was a good experience, just quite different from a standard four-star hotel. This isn't really a hotel so much as holiday flats managed from a bar. The flat itself was nice and very spacious. The beds were German-standard hard, like fiberboard. Germans seem to love that, but it was a bit much for my fragile Viking body.

We arrived at 8 pm, but the hotel had closed and we couldn't check in. Booking.com told us to get the key from a keysafe, though that wasn't in our check-in instructions, then gave us terrible verbal directions. Domspatz City Apartment is not in the apartment block called Domspatz City apartments. To reach it, you go through the back of a kebab shop, past the kitchen and storeroom, then up four flights of tiny stairs with no lift. With suitcases for a family of five on a fortnight's holiday, that was awful. The place was basically a bedsit. There was no way this was suitable for families: the shower was in the hall behind a curtain, and the “lounge” had four chairs and four single beds. The kitchen had no glasses or bowls. Noise from shouting at the kebab and pizza shops below, nearby bars, and drunk homeless people arguing on the street corner went on until 4:30 am. There were two adults and three kids, and we'd been travelling since 4 am and needed sleep. The cathedral, just 100 m away, started ringing its bells at 7:30 the next morning and kept going for hours. Even after a night drinking with friends, you'd hate to be woken by that. We couldn't stay and checked out three days early, losing all our money, €600. When we left, they offered to move us to another apartment, but there was no way we could stay. It was awful. I don't have a photo, but Google Street View shows the entrance through the Istanbul kebab shop and the apartment on the top floor, above it on the fourth floor, not in the apartment block next door. That place would probably have been just as noisy, since drunk homeless people gather on the street corner.