Domspatz

For a one-night stay, it was comfortable, surprisingly quiet, and heated well. We had a top-floor room, number 42, with a large balcony and good views. The location was perfect, around the corner from the cathedral and its Christmas market, with another market only minutes away. Breakfast was decent: cereal, bread and cheese, cold meats like ham and salami, yogurt, orange juice, hot coffee and tea, and hard-boiled eggs. My side of the double bed squeaked a lot, and after a few uses the bathroom smelled like urine, perhaps because of poor ventilation or cleaning. Bring slippers or flip-flops.

The location was the one good thing, and the bed was comfortable. The room was so small you had to jump over the bed to get to the other side. The shower was dirty, and the phone didn't work because its cable was broken. It was very hot in summer with no AC, the whole building smelled like Döner, and the WiFi didn't work.

The location worked perfectly for us since we wanted to be near the station, and the bed linen was clean. I stayed one night as a budget traveller between two long days of travel, though the rest of the room didn’t feel clean: there were long hairs on the bathroom shelf, the floor towel didn’t seem fresh, the chair throw and bed cushion had awful stains, and the shower backed up with someone else’s hair floating in it. There was black mould on the tiles, and the water bottle had already been opened. We’d given an arrival time, but the hotel was shut when we got there. We had to pick up the keys from a really noisy kiosk around the corner, while surrounded by drunk people and getting out my passport and personal details. There was street noise too, including loud music from the kiosk, though that stopped at a reasonable hour. On checkout day, even though checkout wasn’t until 11, someone knocked repeatedly and opened our door around 9:30 and again at 10:30, which made us feel hurried out. I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve stayed in hostels, B&Bs and budget hotels that were cleaner and friendlier. The receptionist the next morning was pleasant enough and said she’d tell the manager, but I doubt anything will actually change.

At 3:30 am we still couldn’t check in, even though I’d called beforehand to confirm the self-check-in terminal was supposed to work around the clock. Nobody could help, and the emergency number told us to find another hotel. We had to look for a room somewhere in Cologne in the middle of the night. Domspatz Hotel I Boardinghouse never returned the money we’d paid in advance for the room or the taxi fare, and we heard nothing from them. I’ve never had such awful customer service. I would never stay there again.