Haus Iderhoff- Wohnung 5

The apartment itself was small but really nice, clean and comfortable, with everything you could want. The outside of Haus Iderhoff was a different story. It's being renovated, with scaffolding and construction equipment filling the yard. None of that was mentioned in the description when we booked last year. The description also didn't say the house's own swimming pool was closed for renovation, and that's exactly why we chose the apartment. You should be able to park and charge bikes in the bicycle cellar, but it was packed with old, dusty bikes and had no charging outlets. I don't think it's reasonable to leave a bike outside in wind and weather. The stairwell and hallway to the apartment are dated and unattractive too.

The location is excellent. The supermarket is just 20 meters across the street, and the town, restaurants, and large beach on the northeast side are all within a 10-minute walk. The fish shop is 100 meters away. We were there with our 83-year-old mother, staying across two apartments, and were pleasantly surprised by how well run and clean the building was, despite initially feeling skeptical about its size. The chlorine smell in the stairwell kept reminding us of the highlight, the swimming pool, which we nearly had to ourselves. It felt luxurious, though the air was a bit too warm and the water a little too cool. It would be better to warm the water more and the air less. The apartments were furnished differently, but each had what we needed. My mother brought her folding walker into the apartment. Nobody stopped us, and we wouldn't have accepted a rule against it anyway. The many posted notices, especially about sorting and disposing of rubbish, came across as rather strict. Still, I can imagine what a caretaker has to deal with these days. It was our first visit to Norderney. The island has its charm, though it doesn't have the cozy thatched-roof feel of the smaller islands. There are lots of shops and two or three bars with a bit of a Mallorca party scene. It's easy enough to avoid, since the island is big.

We had plenty of room for two, and the apartment was clean and very nice. The bathroom was small but stylish. We couldn't use the swimming pool because of Covid, which was a pity since it would've been a real highlight.

We chose apartment number 19 because it was lovely and central, and we were traveling with our 90-year-old mother. But her walker had to stay downstairs in the hallway. We weren't even allowed to bring it up into the apartment. The unfriendly caretaker pointed this out to us. We won't book this building again.