ARKTUR City Hotel - Berlin, Germany     

Booked this hotel for a group on Berlin Marathon weekend and due to lack of availability elsewhere! Location: About 5 mins walk to Richard Wagner-Platz or a little further to Deutsch Oper this hotel is just outside the centre and just a couple of stops or short bus ride (bus stops outside the hotel) from Zoo. So a shortish ride to the main attractions. The hotel is a grey concrete block - not appealing on the outside and is on a failry main road so the rooms on the front can be a bit noisy but I was tired... Rooms: Reasonable size - all rooms seem to be of 2 single beds. Clean enough but the shower curtains didn't fit so the bathroom floor got soaked and there wasn't any soap/shampoo provided, just a hand wash. Staff: Most were helpful and spoke reasonable English Food: Breakfast was fine, a range of cereal, breas, chesses hams, fruits etc. But there are no signs anywhere that there is a charge for breakfast and we weren't told, it was just added onto the bill at check-out whether we had breakfast or not and had to go through each person and delete the costs! It costs 8 euros per person per day but there is a cafe next door which probably does breakfast for cheaper.

I stayed at the Arktur for a couple of nights in early September. Because of the IFA-Show at the same time they charged a much higher price than they normally would. The room I stayed in was on the first floor. It was quite large - that was the good part. The negatives: The hotel is at a busy road and it was terribly loud in the room. The carpet was dirty, the bathroom so small that you couldn't move. The TV is the smallest I have ever seen, so even though you get 200+ satellite channels you can't see much. The towells were thin and old, the hotel generally looked worn and cheap. Overall it was my worst hotel-experience in years.