aappartel, Bielefeld **

On first sight, the hotel makes a decent impression. Okay, the elevator is up one flight of stairs and the breakfast room isn’t particularly large, but that’s ok. The hotel’s location is quite good, very close to the old part of town, about 10-15 minutes on foot from the central train station (you can also go one stop by underground to Jahnplatz, it’s 100m from there).

The room is unusually decorated; mine (403) had two single beds arranged diagonally. This, unfortunately, has the effect of positioning the headboard of the left bed (which was unmade) at about the spot I generally have my elbow. Luckily, they aren’t cemented in place; I moved it out of the way.

Instead of a chair and desk, the room offers a longish wooden bench with matching wooden sideboard. The bench is somewhat uncomfortable and cold (strangely enough) - possibly, because the heating was completely turned off in the room. I had to rearrange a somewhat haphazard plug multiplier under the sideboard to give me room to at least plug in my laptop; there aren’t any outlets above.

The bathroom is large enough, however the shower stall has a curtain, something I can’t stand. Also, there are no hooks whatsoever in the bathroom, so towels have to be stuffed into the rungs of the heater. There is a soap dispenser next to the sink on the wall, unfortunately, not in the shower.

The bed was okay, but what took the cake was the apparent thinness of the walls to the next room - I was able to understand every word of the conversation the folks next door were having - as if there was a hole in the wall. Completely ridiculous. The elevator was built in 1962 (!), so while the place looks quite recently renovated, the infrastructure is certainly lacking.

Breakfast wasn’t a treat - while it looks to be quite well-stocked, the scrambled eggs were rubbery (I’ve never encountered this before in all my years of travel) and the bacon looked like it was merely passed over the pan. No yoghurt or fresh fruit.

Wifi isn’t free of charge, though the €2 for 24 hours aren’t an issue. What is an issue is that throughput is sporradic - at times, the connection seemed to stand still for 10-20 seconds at a time, then it would load very quickly only to stand still again.

For all that, the price seems too high, I really can’t recommend the place. This is a shame, because the location really is quite good.
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