Pension 1

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Where to begin? After a long and arduous bus journey to Berlin, I was looking forward to finding the property and checking into my room as soon as humanly possible. I found the place easy enough and I followed the email instructions to gain access to the main building, the flat door, and the key box via a series of numerical codes. The latter is where the whole thing came undone. I successfully accessed the key box but there were no keys (as promised) inside. I backtracked my steps in case I had made a mistake with, or misunderstood the instructions at any stage. It seemed like I had done everything correctly so there was nothing left to do but contact the property and ask for assistance. The booking reference contained two contact numbers as well as an email address, all of which were also advertised on the walls of the property. Neither number connected and the email never sent due to a problem with the recipient's address. I found a third contact number in a draw but that was also out-of-use. I asked a Germany-based friend to try the numbers on my behalf but they encountered the same issues. I sent messages on booking.com and waited for a response via one of these channels. This gave me time to have a coffee and peruse the property. The property contains: - One separate toilet (quite clean) and a separate shower and toilet (no hot water until further notice sign on the door). - I counted at least eight separate rooms on the floor, all of which seemed to contain more than one person. - There's a wall painting of a Big Mac. - Building work going on in one of the corridors. - Kitchen with no sink for washing. I thought about taking some of the emulsion lying around and painting over the Big Mac. I didn't know where to wash my cup and spoon and—between thinking about setting off all the fire extinguishers—I considered microwaving them both, but I stopped when I realised that it would just make life even harder for the poor people who had found themselves in Pension I. I booked a new hotel and left after an hour of waiting for a reply. Pension I never got back in touch via any of the four/five lines of communication, and I had to ask the good people at Booking.com to get involved and recover my payment. While the whole experience was an inconvenience, I did get to see the sub-par facilities in person, which allowed me to book a much better (and cheaper) hotel not too far away. SAVE YOURSELF THE HASSLE AND GO ELSEWHERE.

Pretty noisy environment, you can hear every step the other guests make. Also the toilet right next to our room was fixed at 7 o'clock in the morning without anyone informing us in advance - one of the workers even bursted into our room. The room was otherwise okay, as you'd expect for the price. The shared bathroom was okay, one of the other guests had questionable toilet manners though.