Hotel Augusta - Berlin, Germany 

Not a good recommendation. It is well situated just off the Kurfurstendamm. The staff are pleasant. The room was pretty. Bathroom lovely but what they do not tell you is that they also accept parties of schoolchildren who take every available table for breakfast. With just one hot drink machine available, if you are unlucky you have to queue for your coffee, perhaps behind ten children. The reception is on the first floor and although there is a lift at street level, there may be masses of kids using it so you have to walk up. And the lift only stops between floors so you have to carry your luggage up some stairs anyway. They say there is as a safe in every room. None in ours. Phone not working either. They also pretended that they had no idea that parties of children were booked in - that it was an agency's doing. Hard to believe especially when the second group in four days arrived.

Overall experience was not the worst I've had - but pretty close. Be sure to get EVERYTHING in writing, so you receive all you expected and paid for - even if that means being insistent with the staff (who are brusque at best and downright rude at worst). Location is great; excellent neighborhood near fashionable shops, restaurants, and transportation. Non-smoking rooms really were non-smoking, which was perfect (and unexpected in Europe). Now the catches we experienced... We are seasoned travelers. We reserved two months in advance directly with hotel via email for our two-person, nine-night stay. Requested and were confirmed with a particular number "Superior" room, quiet, non-smoking, with in-room w-lan. After a 12-hour travel day, we arrived to check-in and were inexplicably assigned to a lesser room with a small bed. When we informed the staff of their mistake and explained we could not both sleep in the small bed (although we are both average sized), we were told there was "nothing else available," despite the written confirmation we presented to the very person who corresponded with us. When absolutely pressed (she herself did not offer a single option or apology), she reluctantly said we could switch to the promised "Superior" room after the first two nights. With a large convention in town, we had no choice. These non-German speakers were simply too exhausted to argue. Incredibly, the staff tried to force us to pay the Superior room price for these first two nights and only relented after we disputed with our credit card. When we finally were able to move to a Superior room, the staff tried to shoehorn us into one without a shower (tried to sell us on the "beautiful jacuzzi tub" which is not all that appealing to these business travelers, especially given it is about the size of a thimble). We were willing to believe that this bait and switch was simply the result of a one-time misommunication with us, until we saw the very same thing happen to at least three other parties at check-in over the course of our nine-day stay. Coincidence? I think not. Finally, after two nights and two moves, we were allowed to take the actual room that we actually reserved. First morning, shower drain was VERY slow. Second morning, it was clogged completely; we could not shower without water overflowing onto floor (no tub - just shower). We reported to staff that shower was totally unusable and plumber (or at least Drain-O?) was needed. Staff never attended to this, despite repeated requests, and never acknowledged the issue unless I raised it. Finally, in desperation, I myself disassembled the drain and cleaned out a four-inch hairball (not ours). No, my friends, this definitely was NOT my most positive hotel experience. Shower worked just fine after that! Other issues: We were careful to request a quiet room and were confirmed with same; but neither the initial smaller room (facing courtyard) nor the promised Superior room (facing Fasenanstrasse) was quiet by any stretch of the imagination. Hotel touted the "new" fourth floor featuring in-room w-lan, but in-room w-lan was non-existent in either room; not sure whether the other few rooms on "new" fourth floor really do have it, as advertised. Hotel site claims that "all rooms have...Internet" (which I suppose is intended to mean a landline?) but neither of our rooms had any kind of land-line Internet access. Hotel site also claims there is a "large breakfast buffet," but we found a hot chocolate machine and a table of meat that was picked over by 9am. Site also says there is a "small safe in every room," but our lesser room did not have one. We found no in-room temperature controls, other than small bathroom heater. Very warm in room, even in May.