Booking a hotel on the morning of arrival can limit the options available somewhat. That said, I’ve actually been pretty lucky in general with such an approach, scanning a list of available properties and sussing out a quality hotel at a bargain price. That’s just what I discovered at the Hotel Eurostars Berlin. A beautiful, brand new property with a comfortable room adjacent to the Friedrichstrasse train station in the heart of Berlin and it was less than $100 for the night and earned points in the Welcome Rewards program from hotels.com.
I tend to avoid hotel chains a bit, but this was an exception to that. Partly because it isn’t a chain I had ever heard of and partly because the reason I avoid them – generally overpriced – didn’t apply. I’m glad I did as the hotel was near perfect for my needs.
The property is new construction which opened in April 2011. It is clean and fresh, with a relatively modern vibe. If they installed dimmer switches in the halls and upped the music levels in the lobby I could almost see it being a W hotel. It isn’t quite that trendy, which is a good thing in my book, but the décor definitely has that vibe in some ways.
The room itself was great. Plenty of space to move around (this was definitely the largest room I had through the week in Europe) and the bed was quite comfortable. The TV offered up a pretty good selection of channels and the desk had plenty of outlets, though strangely there was no chair. Not sure if that was an oversight or on purpose. I just used the chair in the corner and it was fine, but that was definitely an interesting discovery.
The bathroom was relatively huge and nicely appointed, particularly the shower.
Add in complimentary WiFi – the front desk clerk asked how many devices I had so she could give me the correct number of vouchers – and being directly adjacent to a major train station only one stop down the line from the Hbf and I was quite happy with pretty much everything about the place. It served as a great base of operations. Walking to the Brandenburg Gate area was about 10 minutes and connections to the TXL Airport Bus at the Hbf were incredibly easy. That’s not to say I didn’t get lost in the Hbf for about 30 minutes on my arrival, but the departure was much less a problem.
Overall, I’d recommend this hotel without hesitation, even for folks who aren’t quite as "aggressive" in their hotel budget efforts. It is a full service hotel in a prime location at a very reasonable price.
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Friedrichstrasse is a great area to stay in Berlin. The station itself has a bunch of grocery stores that stay open late, there are lots of restaurants and shopping nearby, you are close to a lot of the interesting stuff in Oranienburgerstr. as well as Unter den Linden and the Museuminsel.
In the USA independent hotels can be unpredictable in quality but certainly in countries like Germany and Switzerland they are generally a much better value than the worldwide chains. However, sometimes if you are elite and get free breakfast, free internet, and maybe even free cocktails and appetizers from a lounge in the evening, that can balance out the extra cost of the chain.
The neighborhood was great as you say, Carl. Sadly I didn’t get to explore in the morning as my reservation was screwed up and I had to run to the airport but it looked pretty nice.
As to the hotel elite status thing, this hotel had the free internet in the room rate and most of the ones I stay at do so that’s not compelling at all. Most also have breakfast, though this particular one was charging ~$15, I believe. And I prefer my drinks and snacks out of the hotel, where I can actually experience my destination rather than hang with a bunch of other travelers who need to be insulated from the destination. Hotel status just isn’t compelling for me with my travel patterns. Even when I do stay at chains in the USA which are, you’re correct, more reliable, I tend to book where the points are more useful to me, and that’s often not with their direct engines.
You got lucky with free internet. There are still hotels charging as much as 20 Euros for the Internet, and sometimes as much as 30 Euros/person for breakfast, and while I agree with you that eating outside the hotel is the way go to for lunch and dinner, a nice hotel breakfast buffet is a great way to start the day, and if it’s included it’s guilt-free!