Hotel Garni Am Hopfenmarkt - Rostock, Germany     

This "hotel" a bit bizarre, since it seemed to be disjointed into two different room sites and the restaurant, where you paid and went through check-in and check-out procedures. It was okay, though I think that in Germany in general, these low-quality hotels are vastly overpriced. You can pay just a small amount more and have a much, much better hotel stay at a real hotel, so I think these discount joints need to lower the prices in order to meet budget traveler standards. The room was very spartan, though clean, fresh and with a nice enough bathroom. The location was very good. They were great about changing our room when we discovered that our first room assigned was basically a closet, with those hideous communist-era beds, where they put one bed at the foot of the other, so you have to decide whether to sleep with your feet touching your roommate's feet, or head-to-head, or feet-to-head. And those beds are an absolute torture chamber if you are taller than the length of the bed. So we asked for a room with a double bed, had to pay ten euros more and had a vastly better experience, with twice the space, a larger bathroom and no wooden boards at our feet, impeding all bodily movement during the night (who invented those stupid beds anyway?!) So, if you get one of the claustrophobic closet room, I can understand the disappointment, but our room was fine, and the breakfast was quite good, I thought. It had all the usual German breakfast fare, with meats, juice, toast, waffles, etc. etc. Not much to see in the town, but it is much cuter and prettier than I expected.

Although most of the rooms in this hotel were empty, we were given a room outside of which scaffolding had been erected. At 6:30 the next morning workers appeared, and the noise began and clouds of dust commenced. There is no reception at the hotel building; the reception is in the associated restaurant across the courtyard. We had planned to get up early (although not that early) , so we grinned and bore it and planned simply to voice our complaint after breakfast when we would check out. We were the first at breakfast (!), which was attended by one woman who spent most of the morning on the telephone or deep in conversation with the woman who was working at the reception desk. The coffee dispenser was producing tepid coffee. When I commented, she dispensed a cup and pronounced it hot. A few minutes later, when one of the staff approached her and told her the coffee was not hot, she responded by turning on/ turning up the heat on the machine! Breakfast was otherwise fine, although the person making waffles and eggs decided to make a large quantify of the stuff and put it out to turn cold on platters. There were a number of people floating in and about the reception/restaurant area who seemed to be either employees or friends of employees of the hotel. The employees were mainly occupied with conversing with and providing for these friends and staff, and with talking on the telephone or sittting together at the computer terminal, rather than paying attention to guests of the hotel who were having breakfast. Our room was relatively spacious, but the napkins and accoutrements on the small table in the room were stained and not fresh and had obviously been sitting there for some time. The decor was dated and rather spartan. The door to the room was not plumb with the door jamb so there was gap even when the door was locked. As I noted above, the second floor window looked out on the courtyard, which was somewhat noisy at night; in the morning workers were literally right outside our window on the scaffolding,. I'm not sure what they were working on, but it generated a lot of dust and noise. At 75 euros, this hotel was not cheap, and, in my mind, the physicial facilities don't measure up to a three-star rating. The service was unacceptable.