Regiohotel Quedlinburger Hof

The place was clean overall and breakfast was good, but getting into the hotel was a mess. We arrived from another country at 20:01, before the stated 21:00 desk closing time, and nobody was there to let us in. A passing guest got us inside, where we found a sign telling English speakers to call a number. The person who answered spoke only German, hung up while I was trying to explain, and didn’t answer when I called again. I tried another number and got the same woman. Luckily, the guest who’d let us in spoke some English and could translate so we could get our key. Without that guest, we’d have been in a very bad spot. The customer service agent wasn’t helpful. Later I checked my email carefully. The booking said check-in instructions would arrive 48-hours ahead, but I never received them. There was also a bad smell coming from the bathroom. I’d booked through a 3rd party, and its listing said the hotel had laundry, but it didn’t.

After a 10-hour trip, I arrived exhausted in the evening and spent half an hour unable to get into the hotel. Before that, I’d lost another half hour trying to work out how to reach the parking lot around an unmentioned road closure. I literally had to drive over the pavement to get in. Their online check-in system is supposed to make things easier, but it was awful. In the end I cancelled my reservation while standing outside, with nobody there to let me in. They should have a receptionist there full time to answer calls and welcome guests. It could have been so much easier.

My room was meant to have a city view, but looked out over an abandoned building, the railroad tracks, and a parking lot. The walls were paper thin, and the bed felt more like a cot. The place came across more like a hostel than a hotel. It’s right by the train station, though there are charming hotels with character in the town center. The reception clerk was screaming at me, mostly because I don’t speak German. No one working there spoke a word of English. He also yelled at the German-speaking woman behind me. He seemed emotionally fragile, and I was afraid he might become violent. I’ve never had an encounter like it in 40 years and 130 countries of travel. The hotel emailed at 10am to say my room was ready, but when I arrived at 11am, the clerk said it wouldn’t be ready until 3pm. This was Christmas Eve. In my 3 days there, I saw no cars in the lot and no one around the hotel, which seemed practically empty. I’d stay somewhere else in this charming town.

We left after one night. The breakfast was a disaster, messy and unclean, with lots of things missing because they weren’t replenished when the plates ran out. Trains were very loud, and the thin walls and doors meant we heard guests in the corridors and other rooms all night. The room was very hot without air conditioning. When we opened the window, there was no protection from mosquitoes. Hooks in both the room and bathroom were coming loose, so we couldn’t hang our towels. It wasn’t a nice stay, and the man at reception was hard to understand in both German and English.