Archive for the ‘hotel’ Category

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Casa Garzotto

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

P6061607Casa Garzotto
Via Garzotto 8
52210 Rovinj, Croatia
Tel: +385 52 811 884
Mobile: +385 98 61 61 68
Fax: +385 52 814 255
caragarzotto@gmail.com
http://www.casa-garzotto.com

This was a great find by our traveling buddy Jul for our Istrian Road Trip. We were a little disoriented upon arrival — the Altstadt confused us, and our GPS, and we were unsure parking in the big city lot outside the the old town was a good idea or not.

But it all worked out for the best. The location is ideal. The price was reasonable. The staff was extremely helpful and friendly, and never steered us wrong with recommendations for gelato or restaurant meals. We had a nice breakfast in the main area, just around the corner (≤10 second walk) from our rental apartment and were charmed by the apartment’s old-world, multi-level design (kitchen and one bath on the ground floor, loft bedroom up the right-side staircase, 2nd bedroom and bathroom up the left-side staircase).

I’d stay there again in a minute.

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Hotel Sully Saint-Germain

Sunday, December 7th, 2008
The Joint

Hotel Sully Saint-Germain
31 Rue des Ecoles
75005 Paris – France

http://www.sully-saint-germain-hotel.com/

Sarah

We reserved this hotel due to the price, location and wireless connectivity. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. The price was fixed and the location (a short walk from the Maubert-Mutualité Métro station) was ideal. The design of the lobby and the rooms is quite attractive. The basic double room is fairly small by American standards, but has lots of storage space (closets and drawers, etc.).

Unfortunately, the promised internet was not accessible in the rooms. To use it, you had to bring your laptop and other materials down to the lobby, then jockey for position with the rest of the hotel guests set up for surfing. We like to bring our laptop with us to help with planning our outings, so reliable, room-accesible internet is important to us. We were a little disappointed on that score.

There were a couple of other odd occurrences. There was a brief power outage one evening – about 30 seconds with no lights. Not a big deal to us, but we did overhear another couple complaining to the concierge about another outage the previous evening that happened while the woman was in the shower. So I guess that happens with some regularity. Also, on the morning of our checkout, I couldn’t get the water temperature to cooperate. It started out normal, but then started switching between burning hot and freezing cold. It made rinsing my hair an adventure.

The breakfast included in our rate was adequate, except for the coffee (it was dreadful). The elevators are extremely small, so occasionally taking the stairs is the best option. Generally, it was a pleasant experience. It is by no means a luxury hotel, but as a place to sleep, shower and keep your stuff while you’re out experiencing Paris, the Sully Saint-Germain is a good choice.

Cliff

Sarah hit all the points I’d make. Location was the most important aspect for me — it’s an easy walk to the Ile de la Cité or the Louvre or just hop onto the #10 Metro line to get out to other parts of the city or a bigger train station.

room rue_des_ecoles_4886 balcony1


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Ramada Sibiu

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

Ramada Sibiu Hotel
Emil Cioran Str, No 2
550025 Sibiu
Romania

This is a pretty snazzy place! Nice room with a great bathroom and a classy design. My only complaint: the breakfast options were pretty meager (plenty of horrid coffee though, if that’s your thing) and although they offered to pack us a snack to compensate for our early departure, there was no coffee available at all that morning. Here are some pictures from the room:

PA134750 PA134749

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Hotel Lasserhof

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
The Joint

Lasserstrasse 47
Tel. +43-(0)662-873388
Fax +43-(0)662-8733886

Cliff

I am pretty disappointed with the Lasserhof. Last time I stayed here, with buds Potter and Gabe, when we did the Sound of Music tour back in November 2005, we thought the place was great. This time, we got stuck in a poorly-lit room with its only openable window in the bathroom. It’s pretty easy to get to from the train station and the pricing was reasonable, but maybe next time we’ll spend a little more and get a better place (the NH, with their 14€ breakfast buffet and 24-hour Sound of Music channel, comes to mind). More disappointments from Sarah’s perspective below…

Sarah

What the hell happened here? Cliff was nearly glowing in his review of this place from his first trip to Salzburg, so I was pretty excited about trying it out myself. The reservations staff was very helpful when I got conflicting information about availability back in February during the trip-planning stages. Check-in was a breeze, but after that things started to go wrong. The minifridges in the rooms weren’t actually cold, and yes, we did check to see if they were plugged in. What’s more, the TV in my parents’ room had a bad picture and the volume was unchangeable. And then the window issue in our room made it muggy and stifling. Plus, the guy at the desk gave my dad a hard time about getting a spare key for his room, however, I think this guy was just having a bad day, because he ALSO tried to give my parents’ room to some other guests. I managed to get the issue cleared up, but he wasn’t real pleasant about it. The breakfast was pretty adequate and other than the keymaster, the staff was very helpful and accomodating, but the cons outweigh the pros, so I don’t think we’ll be going back.

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Radisson SAS Gewandhaus Hotel, Dresden

Friday, March 28th, 2008
The Joint

Ringstrasse 1
D-01067 Dresden
Germany

Phone: +49 (0)351 49 49 0
Fax: +49 (0)351 49 49 490
Info.Dresden@RadissonSAS.com

web site

Cliff

Nice bathroom! I was a little iffy about an Expedia-booked hotel stay, but you know what? This turned out great. That bathroom was neat, but for me the best parts were really a nice big comfortably firm bed and sincerely friendly desk staff. We paid in advance via Expedia due to their special rate deal, and when we checked in, there was no upsell attempt or even more than a suggestion to leave a credit card behind for incidentals. I explained that we weren’t expecting any (we hardly turned on the TV and used the minibar fridge to store our own food, and never ate anything at all from the restaurant), so that wouldn’t be necessary. And the receptionist took that with a smile. When we checked out, it was merely a matter of turning our cards back in — really smooth. Sarah will probably have a few things to say about the bathroom, but I’m the one in the picture.

Radisson SAS Gewandhaus the bed the doorway Dresden Radisson SAS lobby

Sarah

That bathtub kicked a$$. It had bubbles. I got out a couple of times to go see Dresden.

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Little Texas

Thursday, December 7th, 2006
The Joint

Stradela Moara de Vant 31
Iasi, Romania 700376
Phone: +40.232.272545 Fax: +40.232.272545

http://www.littletexas.org

Oh my goodness. I never would have believed it, but this place has the best TexMex I’ve ever had in Europe. Bar none.

I am seriously thinking about trying out their hotel facilities on my next trip to Iasi instead of staying at the Hotel Unirea (my “usual” pad, you might say).

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NH Salzburg

Sunday, November 19th, 2006
The Joint

Franz-Josef-Strasse 26
A-5020 Salzburg, Salzburg
Phone: +43 662 8820410 Fax: +43 662 874240

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yl7cm9

Cliff

Sarah scoped a great price. Too bad it didn’t include breakfast. We found out only after chowing on it that it was €14 per person. Yowch.

Sarah

The price was pretty unbeatable (59€/night!) for the location, but finding out that breakfast wasn’t included was a nasty shock. But it was an awfully tasty and varied breakfast.

The hotel has a very sleek, modern lobby – somewhat japanese in style. This was kind of misleading when it actually came to the rooms themselves. They were plenty comfortable and the bathrooms (my personal obsession) were very clean with good water pressure. But there was nothing of the style from the lobby.

A big bonus here is that they have a fitness and sauna facility for all guests to use. Make sure you go down to the sauna already in a robe and carrying your towel – there’s no private changing room down there!

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Hotel Unirea

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
The Joint

Piaţa Unirii
Street No. 5 Code 700056
Iaşi, România
Phone: +40-(0)232-20.50.00 Fax: +40-(0)232-20.50.26
http://www.hotelunirea.ro/unirea_hotel.php

This is a great hotel. I’ve stayed here twice now. It’s beautiful inside, and as beautiful outside as can be expected, I guess. My only suggestion for improvement would be to make the non-smoking section of the mezzanine (breakfast room) larger. Romanians love them some tobacco — almost as much as the Viennese, it would seem!

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Hotel-Pension im Klosterring

Sunday, May 28th, 2006
The Joint

Familie Lutz
Klosterring 3
78050 Villingen-Schwenningen

phone: +49 7721-8994-0
fax: +49 7721-8994-50

http://www.hotel-pension-im-klosterring.de/

Cliff

This place would have been just what we were looking for at the end of our road trip had it not been for the advertised WLAN connection that didn’t work (or at least didn’t provide a signal all the way up to the 3rd floor, where our room was). It was quiet and cheap and convenient to get to. The breakfast the next morning offered a nice spread of the usual items, too. We stayed there for 62 Euros total and quite enjoyed the water pressure in the shower (you can’t always count on good water pressure in European hotels — especially smaller, family-operated ones like this). No kidding, it works!

Sarah

This was our last stop on a road trip and I made the reservation the morning we set out for Villingen. The bar was set pretty low, since this was a last minute arrangement: clean room with shower and WLAN. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. The folks here were nice, the location is alright, but the room was very lackluster. I think the disappointment mainly came from the fact that Villingen was completely DEAD. It was Saturday night and there was no one out in the city center at ALL. Because of that, we ended up back at the serviceable-yet-boring B&B pretty early.

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Hotel Beaux Arts

Friday, May 26th, 2006
The Joint

73-75 rue President
Edouard Herriot
69002 LYON
FRANCE

Cliff

Personally, I found nothing remarkable about this place. I was wiped out from the long drive and was just happy to have a place to lay down and sleep. I wasn’t tired enough to overlook the price though — this place ain’t cheap. But I guess that this chain is known for that.

Sarah

Pricier than I would have liked (€90/night), but the facilities were pretty nice. Decor isn’t all that great, but the location is outstanding. The room was HUGE by European standards (generous by American), the bed was very comfortable and the bathroom was clean and well arranged. Breakfast buffet the next morning was nicely varied in a quiet room. Only problem – there is no designated parking for guests. That meant that we had to park in one of the downtown public lots and pay overnight rates to get our car out the next day (which actually was about half as much as we thought it would be). Not terribly inconvenient, but a little frustrating when trying to actually get out of the car and into the hotel. Overall, it was a good experience.

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