Germany Travel Guide
Tags: Hotel Swag / Hotel Shopping / Kempinski Hotels / Berlin Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Tags: Hotel High Tea / Berlin Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / → All Tags
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.
Tags: HotelChatter Reviews / Berlin Hotels / Marriott Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / Berlin Hotels / Marriott Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Tags: WiFi Hell / Marriott Hotels / Berlin Hotels / Hotel WiFi / International Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
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)
Tags: Design Hotels / Germany Hotels / Marcel Wanders / Hotel Construction / → All Tags
Coming Soon in Germany:: The Design Hotel-Power Plant Hybrid
Now that the Mondrian South Beach has been open for almost six whole months, the hype as well as the advertising of its Marcel Wanders-designers interior has died down. This means it's perfect timing for Marcel to put himself back out there by leaking photos of his next big hotel project, the Kameha Grand in Bonn, Germany.
Due to to open this fall, the Kameha Grand is going to be one of those hybrid design/business hotels, where they'll be venturing outside of neutral tones but still respectful of business traveler tastes. Boasting 192 rooms, 61 suites, and one massive Presidential Suite with a sweeping staircase reminiscent of Wanders' Miami masterpiece, the Kameha will bed the trendiest of suits.
Tags: NYT Reviews / Germany Hotels / → All Tags
The George Hotel in Germany Seems Culturally Confused
Perhaps even more than us, the New York Times sure does like a hotel with a quirky shtick. Last week, they checked in to a London hotel that can’t quite make up its mind between “rough” and “luxury;” this week a Times-er navigated The George, a Hamburg, Germany, hotel all decked out in British décor.
Weird as it may seem, the design hotel's English theme is a reflection of its location. According to the NYT, the port city of Hamburg and its residents "have always had a fascination with its larger and more famous counterpart across the North Sea and up the River Thames." Apparently locals have long partied it up in London instead of Berlin. Guests get a wee bit o’ Britain through touches like Union Jack throw pillows, a photo of Twiggy and a double-decker bus, and a swanky London-like bar with a 60-page drinks menu (though the restaurant serves Italian fare).
Tags: Nude Hotels / Hotel Hype / Germany Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Guests 'Must Be Naked' at Germany's First Nudist Hotel
We're going to admit something to you dear readers. We hate pants. More often than not, if you ever walked in on us at home we would not be wearing pants. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration as we are wearing pants at this moment. But whenever we can not wear pants, it's a good time.
However, we don't think we could ever bring ourselves to check into this nudist hotel, Hotel Rosengarten in Freudenstadt, Germany. From Spiegel Online:
Guests will be required to remove their clothes at the entrance and must be naked at all times while on the premises, according to the strict house rules that have already been posted on the Internet. "We hope to open as soon as possible," Silvia Probsthain, a member of staff at the planned Hotel Rosengarten, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It will be the first comprehensively nudist hotel in Germany."
"Comprehensively nudist." Wow. Words fail us.
Tags: Berlin Hotels / Hotel Deals / Ritz-Carlton Hotels / → All Tags
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]
Tags: Ice Hotels / Hotel Reviews / Germany Hotels / → All Tags
Aren't We Over This Ice Hotel Thing Yet?
Where: Garmisch-Partenkirchen/Grainau at Zugspitze, Germany
The "Romantik" suite. Please note the disco ball.
We need to be careful with our money, people. The Ice Hotel craze was big and cool (har har) back in '06, but aren't we over that by now? Dropping big bucks to sleep in freezing cold temperatures is... well, sort of what we do in our poorly-maintained NYC apartments in the winter anyway. Not to be frigid (ha!), but this hotel trend — and its baffling staying power — is one, we must admit, we simply don't understand.
But the Times UK isn't over the ice hotel thing just yet — they've gone and reviewed Germany's relatively new Iglu-Dorf, touting it as "the lone traveller's low-cost answer to Sweden's famous Ice Hotel."
Tags: Denizen Hotels / Hotel News / Hotel Art / Hilton Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Tags: Hotel WiFi / Snapshot / Hotel Amenities / International Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
In Berlin, Ask For Strong WiFi and Ye Shall Receive
What do you get when you ask nicely for a room with a strong WiFi signal?
If you're lucky, you get what appears to be the best WiFi room in the house: the one with the router on the wall right outside your door. It's our wildest WiFi fantasy come true.
This shot was snapped in the hallway of the Berlin Plaza Hotel, a three-star hotel in Germany that offers free wireless everywhere in the hotel — and especially here. Nevermind that the Netgear box chillin' on the wall may not be the most attractive decor... 'cause you can bet Irish Typepad didn't have much trouble uploading that photo to Flickr.
[Photo: Irish Typepad]
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