Hotel Schlossgarten

The Schloßgarten in Neustrelitz is a three-star, not a four-star hotel, and as this is reflected in the very affordable price of its rooms, it wouldn’t be fair to rate it against pricier lodgings in bigger cities. My room was clean and neat — and for the price that I paid for it, reasonably sized. The hotel is not as close to the main train station as one would like, if one is on foot (as I was), but is certainly near to the city centre and thus to all of Neustrelitz’s indigenous attractions. The breakfast room is quaintly elegant (indeed, it’s the selling point of the hotel), and breakfast itself is generous and multifarious, including the all-important staple: all-you-can-eat bacon and eggs. But there is another reason to select this hotel (perhaps the best reason of all): it strongly supports the rebuilding of the Neustrelitz Residenzschloß, the city’s magnificent central palace, which was damaged in the war and then maliciously torn down by the DDR. For a city with such a rich and significant history, Neustrelitz is a somewhat deficient in terms of sights, mostly because of the absence of said Schloß, which was in every way the centrepiece of the city. The missing palace constitutes a gaping void in town, and many of the city’s most interesting remaining sights all orient themselves around this painfully absent structure (the Schloßkirche, the Schloßgarten, etc.). The fact that this hotel avidly supports the rebuilding of this landmark — a landmark that the city desperately needs to be viable — is a strong justification for staying here.

For all that I feel positively towards this hotel for its rebuild-the-Schloß initiative, I would be remiss not to note its minor failings. The most significant is certainly the absence of air conditioning in the rooms, and while one cannot expect AC in a three-star hotel (especially not at this affordable price point), the upshot is still that one’s stay here on any hot summer days/nights will not be as comfortable as one would wish. Also, the room that I was given (over the hotel's garage) had just one, lone window (and not a very large one), which meant that it was quite dark, and the fact that the window faced west rather than east meant that the room particularly lacked morning light. (I see in the hotel's photos that some of their other rooms have larger windows and are much nicer than mine was -- ergo, for whatever reason, the owners decided to slot me into one of their less-appealing rooms, despite the fact that I was staying here for three full nights. Not very nice.) The bathroom was very small, and the shower so tiny that I could barely use it without bumping into the faucets. These are not dealbreakers at the hotel’s affordable prices, but I do think that the Schloßgarten in Neustreliz should seriously consider adding a second window to any rooms that are as dark as mine was, as well as furnishing its rooms with climate control (especially since small, wall-mounted, remote-controlled AC units are not that pricey). The hotel might also do well to offer different price points, so visitors could have a choice of paying more for a better room, or paying less and staying in one of the hotel's less-appealing areas, rather than being slotted into a poorer room based on the host's whim.

please change the pillows I have an allergy to feathers and they were too too soft

the noise made 80 per cent of the time of the other tennants at times passed midnight. Down th hallway and upstairs. And the one and only time i spoke to my family in Australia at 8.30am the noisy tennant banged on my wall repetitively . I then realised the person was trying to silence me but they didnt really have courtesy at 1 to 3 am of that morning. I got very used to the arrogance of some of the tennants! But the owners and all staff were exceptional.