Bernstein Villa Kastania

What a lovely little gem. Staff friendly and rooms very clean. I travel a lot and very rarely find hotels as clean as this one. Great location too. Would highly recommend

While Hotel Villa Kastania, Berlin, is generally a good hotel, I can't recommend it, due to the rude behavior of one of the reception clerks. This behavior spoiled the atmosphere and ruined my mood for my short stay (1 night). This guy was not very courteous and serviceable from the moment I got there. After realizing the hotel has no lobby where you can sit and work with a laptop, I asked to do so in the dining hall (my room wasn't ready yet). He approved, but said I should be sitting next to a Coffee table rather than next to a regular one, as "the hotel is fully booked and people are coming for breakfast". Since you cannot really work next to a low Coffee table I asked to sit next to a dining table, explaining that people never all come to have breakfast at the same time. He did not like it (and expressed it and his tone) but I did, and guess what - the dining room was almost completely empty the entire morning! But the really severe behavior on his part happened a bit later on. I went out to have Coffee outside, telling the nice and polite waiter of the (empty) dining hall that I'm storing my laptop aside but leaving my charger and mouse on the table, since I'll be back to work there shortly. He approved. When I returned, the reception clerk started talking in a really rude, impolite and improper way to me, almost shouting at me, about how I shouldn't leave my things "In the restaurant". I explained that I left it because I was going for a short while, but he continued accusing me of acting the wrong way, as if as a first time guest I have an idea of the hotel's policy about leaving things here or there. Even when I told him that I informed the waiter about this he did not calm down. He only calmed down from his raging behavior when I snapped back at him, telling him that he has no right speaking to paying customers like that, that he can't expect a client to know his made up arbitrary rules and that even if someone does something wrong - there's a nice and polite way to point that out, especially when your job is to serve him. A paying client should not be treated like a young kid getting reprimanded by a hotel clerk, who clearly doesn't like his job, doesn't know the meaning of service and has no patience for clients. I NEVER ran in to this kind of behaviour in any hotel I stayed in. Only after talking back to him in this fierce way he started to behave more politely towards me, but he never apologized. During check-out, when he asked if everything was OK and I responded: "Yes, besides your behavior yesterday" he did not apologize. Therefore, I do not recommend staying at Hotel Villa Kastania, Berlin. A place that employs someone acting like this, who clearly doesn't know how to treat customers - is not a good pick.