Four Points Flex by Sheraton Essen

The one good part is that my son laughed his head off when I told him what happened, especially about the cookie. I came back from work to find three bags of Italian specialty coffee I'd brought as a gift missing from my room. My individually wrapped Chinese fortune cookie had been eaten too, with the wrapper in the trash. The room hadn't been cleaned. It felt like an employee had simply decided to take whatever they could. When I reported it, the receptionist wrote “204, 3 coffee bags” on a tiny post-it and said the hotel would write to me. No apology, no surprise. It all seemed normal to them. Let's see if the hotel makes this right. If they do, I'll delete this review.

It's a quiet, standard room, nothing special, and about a seven-minute walk from the central station. The location is great, but the front desk doesn't always have English-speaking staff, which can be pretty inconvenient.

The receptionist was dismissive when I asked to switch rooms so we could rest before heading out again. She gave no reason for refusing, just said she'd send someone to clean instead, though waiting then was inconvenient for us. Her manner was unprofessional, and eventually she stopped answering even when I said good evening. We stayed four nights. For the first three, I had the “Do Not Disturb” sign up. On the last day, after being out for several hours, I expected the room to have been cleaned, but it hadn't. Only when I asked did I learn that I had to sign up for cleaning, something nobody mentioned at check-in. We were very tired, and this was disappointing. I won't stay at this hotel again.

The hotel is very close to Essen HBF, and the staff are friendly. Breakfast was included, and there's a bar open late. Rooms are nice enough. There was a lot of construction going on near the main road by the entrance.