Berlin Travel Guide
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Welcome to the Aspria Hotel: A Spa And Gym With Rooms On Top
The W Barcelona may be stealing all the headlines but it’s not the only new kid on the European hotel block this autumn. The Aspria Hotel in Berlin looks pretty nice – and it’s rather more affordable, too.
Opening next month on 6 November in the posh Charlottenburg district (west of the Tiergarten), it doesn’t have the most auspicious of pedigrees – Aspria is a chain of health clubs in Europe - but they’re now offering accommodation at their digs in Hannover and Berlin. Original, but interesting – it means that the spa and fitness area are going to be souped up no end. In fact, the Berlin spa is going to be 14,000 m sq – to be shared by just 42 rooms. Look at that pool. We're doing lengths in our heads right now.
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Concorde Berlin Has Second Best Fall of the Wall Package
So it's been twenty years since the Berlin wall came down, and that's as good a reason as any to visit one of our all-time favorite cities, Berlin. To celebrate the anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, the Hotel Concorde Berlin has got an "Ich bin ein Berliner" package going through to December 28.
If you decide to be a Berliner for a couple of days, you can get two nights' accommodation, buffet breakfast, one dinner, plus the authentic Berlin part: a Palm guide, Berlin Wall map and a private guided tour in a Trabbi — those old east German cars which somehow haven't fallen apart yet.
The deal starts at around $370 per person based on double occupancy and the Concorde is said to have some of the biggest rooms in the city. Oh, and this deal is a whole lot more logical than the time the Concorde decided to throw French lessons into their accommodation deals; but it's not the best Berlin Wall deal we've come across; remember the Ritz Carlton's Remember the Wall deal which even includes an actual chunk of the wall? Much cooler.
[Photo: gavinandrewstewart]
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Berlin's Circus Hotel Is Not to Be Confused with the Circus Hostel
The difference between a hostel and a hotel may only be marked by one lowly letter “s,” but anyone who’s ever stayed at a hostel knows the experience can be starkly different. Let’s just say “peekaboo” showers can take on a decidedly more awkward meaning.
So when a legendary hostel opens a 64-room hotel, it’s hard not to cock your eyebrows at least a bit. In Berlin, the owners of Circus Hostel did just that, last October opening the Circus Hotel (sans “s”). The NYT checked the new spot out to discover whether backpackers are getting richer or the rest of us are feeling the pinch.
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Three For Two With The Rocco Forte Collection
Not going to Europe this summer? This might tempt you. Stay two nights at a Rocco Forte Collection hotel (with 12 to choose from in places you’d like to be anyway, like Rome, Prague, Berlin and St Petersburg), and they’ll throw in a third for free.
The only caveat – the offer is only valid for stays during high summer, between July 27 and September 4. Unfortunately, that’s also when most of the locals will have deserted places like Rome for the seaside – but hey, at least the buses will be a little less crowded.
With this offer, the Hotel de Rome in Berlin costs $861 per room for the three nights – not so bad for $287, given that it includes breakfast (although it excludes VAT). Brown’s Hotel in London, meanwhile, will set you back $950 for the full stay. So now all you have to do is choose which one.
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Add The Michelberger to Our 'Worst Hotel Rooms For Drunk People' List
Remember our list of the Worst Hotel Rooms for Drunk People? Yes, well: just as we were reminiscing about our fantastically blurry, buzzed and stumble-y weekend, we came across photos of Berlin's new Michelberger Hotel on Contemporist. And as we gazed at the pics of these rooms, the party girl alter-ego inside of us, well...she cried.
The 119-room hotel is on its way to Berlin and is slated for a September opening. Contemporist says:
Five different room categories offer a range of different layouts. The rooms display a high level of space efficiency and lots of vertical drama and airiness - a feat allowed by the placing of loft bed areas above the bathrooms. Most rooms are for singles, couples and threesomes but other options including The Big One allow groups of 4 or even more to room together.
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Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin's Gift Shop Overflows With Pricey Products
It may be the Berlin hotel of choice for visiting dignitaries, like Queen Elizabeth II and President Obama, and it may occupy a sweet spot next to the Brandenburg Gate, but the Hotel Adlon Kempinski suffers from a serious case of inflated ego.
Perhaps they'd remember that it was out of their windows that Michael Jackson dangled his baby? Or maybe they'd take a second look at their less than 5-star website? But no, the Hotel Adlon sure loves itself and knows that when you pay some 1,900 Euro for one night, you too are head over heels for their snooty exclusivity.
For the reason that the Adlon simply can't imagine that their guests would stay with them and be able to continue living without a hotel-monogrammed cheeseboard, you will find the hotel's very own store around the corner on Wilhelmstrasse. If you think the W Hotels' stores are a bit much, then please stay away from the Adlon.
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Prosecco, Petit Fours and a Pool at Berlin's Hotel de Rome
By now it's probably obvious that no matter what world city in which we find ourselves, we will be willing to sniff out a great hotel tea service. If we're not staying at the tippy-top 5-star hotels, oftentimes a drink in the bar of one or indulging in some afternoon tea is the way to go to still have access to the luxury experience. Our recent visit to Berlin is no exception, and we found ourselves headed to the rooftop bar at the iconic Hotel de Rome.
Just off the main drag of Unter den Linden street, the Hotel de Rome sits at the back of a tourist-filled square, but the busloads have come to see the platz's sunken memorial to the Nazi book burning and not the stately hotel only steps away. For this reason, the Hotel de Rome is pleasantly quiet, and its rooftop bar seemed to sit just as many locals as visitors.
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Inside The Marriott Berlin: Our Temporary Home On the Platz
We suppose now is the perfect ime to thank the power of Twitter; without it, we wouldn't have scored a 5-star property in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin for less than what the busloads of tourists at 3-star Novotels were paying.
Granted, we didn't choose Marriott Berlin for being the city's "Contemporary American Lifestyle Experience," but were stuck with it as a result of using a $50 Twitter coupon from Cinco de Mayo that we received from Priceline's @TheNegotiator account. A name-your-own-price search later, and we had three nights nailed down in the center city.
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Behold: the Marriott Berlin's 'Contemporary American Experience'
Just how well-located can a hotel be without actually causing guests to trip over hoards of tourists? We think we found the answer in the Marriott Berlin at Potsdamer Platz this past week, which a few blocks' down from the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten, while within walking distance to most everything else.
As usual, we're just teasing you with the video tour of our room above, since the delicious full review of our stay will come around tomorrow. Until then, you can read up on their shameful WiFi plan or enjoy the above glimpse into our temporary home while in Berlin. It's a deal we're proud to admit that we maneuvered thanks to the name-your-own-price function on Priceline with the help of Twitter.
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The Marriott Berlin Charges $530 For WiFi Access
In an ideal, globally-connected world, all hotels would have free and fast WiFi. This is however not a perfect world, and so traveling across borders with the intention of checking your email or uploading pictures to your Flickr is often a bigger headache that it should be.
Our most recent instance of entering Hotel WiFi Hell occurred during our 3-night stay at the centrally-located and business traveler-happy Marriott Berlin. After enjoying free and freeflowing access at a much cheaper hotel elsewhere in the city for our first few days in Berlin, we were admittedly spoiled. Nonetheless, we found the internet plan at the Marriott too exorbitant for any visitor:
· One hour of access (common areas): € 6.95 ($9.72)
· One hour of access (in room): € 5.95 ($8.32)
· 24 hours: € 19.95 ($27.91)
· One week: € 99.75 ($139.56)
· One month: € 379.05 ($530.33)
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Ritz-Carlton Berlin Makes History Cool 20 Years After Wall Fell
A freak-out moment: we actually remember the fall of the Berlin Wall and now there are hotel packages celebrating the 20th anniversary of that momentous day. Ignoring the we-feel-old thing, we our focusing our thoughts instead on this package, put together by the Ritz Carlton Berlin.
Their "Remember the Wall" package is being offered from now until the end of the year and has a bunch of cool inclusives for $417 per double. You get Berlin Wall Museum tickets, a Goodbye Lenin DVD (great movie!), Gorbachev cocktails on arrival and even DDR Rottkaeppchen sparkling wine. You also get a "genuine" piece of the Berlin Wall, but we are a touch skeptical about that--if all the tourists in the world put their souvenir pieces of the Wall back together, we suspect there'd be enough for two or three walls.
Berlin is a great city and the Ritz Carlton there not only has comfy beds but also a truly central location on Potsdamer Platz. A Fall of the Wall anniversary year sure sounds like a good excuse for a quick trip there.
[Photo: gavinandrewstewart]
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Inside the Hilton Denizen 'Brand Experience'
This is your hotel.
This is your hotel on drugs.
And it looks an awful lot like Denizen.
Last week when Hilton Hotels announced its much-anticipated luxury lifestyle chain, Denizen — about which everyone seems to have an opinion — they dropped the news at the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin by setting up a "brand experience" for the 1300 conference-goers to walk through.
In a bizarrely eccentric (but perhaps fittingly offbeat) move, the big H launched its newest brand by throwing an "Age of Aquarius" party: opera singer Inva Mula-Tchako (the voice of the blue alien in The Fifth Element) sang the seventies jam from above a floor-to-ceiling installation of a deconstructed Denizen "experience" inside a recycled shipping container.
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