Provocateur, Berlin, a part of Sircle Collection

Lovely rooms. Very romantic, perfect for couples. They forgot to clean our room which was a bit of a disappointment. The location is not ideal for tourists, it’s about 20-30 minutes with a taxi to most attractions. However, this is also reflected in the price level; it’s an affordable hotel for what you get. Very nice bar. Breakfast was great.

We read the reviews but still decided to book, as the rooms looked cool and some of the negative comments seemed circumstantial. We booked and paid directly via Expedia. When we arrived we noticed on the paperwork that we were given a classic room and not the superior room we booked/paid for. I queried this and the very dismissive person behind the front desk informed us that the hotel was overbooked and so we had been downgraded. Firstly, he didn’t tell us that, I had to point it out (which felt sneaky) and secondly, we were offered nothing by way of compensation, the person on the front desk told us to come down to ask for a partial refund in the morning. Perhaps an offer of a voucher for the restaurant or for drinks would have been something, especially as they knew we had been downgraded. It felt like an avoidable conflict that they really weren’t interested in! During our stay we spoke to a different person every day at the front desk, so had to rehash the whole story and were fobbed off each day, being advised they would do something but not today. (For context, we were offered breakfast on one of the days, but this didn’t feel like compensation enough and we were heading out for a reservation.) The one seemingly helpful front desk person told us they could definitely do something at check out, but was never seen again, despite saying they were working all of that day! When we went to check out, we were served by 2 new staff members who (after having to re-explain everything) advised that all they could do was a free upgrade next time we stayed. Unfortunately we wouldn’t go back. Interestingly, they also asked whether we were informed of the downgrade during check in (which we weren’t), which leads me to think this is a regular occurrence! I have never been downgraded in any hotel before!! We did get a good deal on Expedia for the room we booked (equal to the hotels ‘classic’ room price), but we could have booked the classic room we received for over 100 euros cheaper on Expedia, had we chosen that option instead of the superior room we booked! It definitely feels like a busy restaurant/bar with a hotel ‘add on’, the hotel is definitely not the priority! There are too many staff to be able to provide the hotel with any kind of consistency, although only ever 1 or 2 people serving the hotel, so it is really poor service and impossible to speak to anyone without going down and waiting at the desk! The rooms were fine, nothing amazing, but clean enough. We were given a room right above the glass bottle recycling bin, which was used at around 6am to empty all the glass bottles and was very loud, waking us up! The classic room we received only had 2 coat hangers (not even a hook for coats), which meant living out of our suitcases for the time we were there! They definitely need to consider more hanging/storage space - this wasn’t even their smallest room! Location was pretty good as right outside an underground station, but not a lot around the hotel! I really wouldn’t recommend.