Hotel Astoria — Hotel in De Haan

I booked two rooms sort of last minute, maybe 10 days before our trip to De Haan, for a two night stay. Maybe that is where the problem started. I was asked to pay for our stay in full the day before our arrival. In all my years of international travel, I have only one other time been asked to prepay for a hotel stay despite presenting my credit card guaranteeing payment. That should have been a warning sign.

We were told in our welcome email the day before that check-in was after 15:00 and true to their word, we were still not cleared to our rooms at 15:00. OK, I get that and I will not fault the hotel for that. The reception was kind enough to hold and store our luggage as well as offering us a welcome drink.

The hotel bills itself as a 4-star hotel and I can’t quite agree. The rooms had no air conditioning, no mini-bar or refrigerator, no bathrobes, older towels, meager toiletries in the bathroom, and no shower. There was a bathtub, but no shower curtain or splash guard, and a very short hose to a handheld shower head that necessitated bending or stooping in the tub in order to use this feature. Needless to say, but the floor ended up very wet after each use. This is 2024 and guests expect these things as standard features of any hotel room.

The room did have a TV, a small desk, a Nespresso coffee maker with 4 coffee pods, and 2 bottles of water. An open closet area was outfitted with 3 or 4 hangers, not nearly enough to hang some items for a couple.

When we came back to our room in the evening on the second day, we noticed the carpet had not been vacuumed (how do I know? The dirt that was there in the morning was still there). The coffee pods were not replaced and neither was the water. The shower gel and shampoo in our bathroom was also not replaced and to compound the issue, housekeeping threw away the partially used bottles leaving us with nothing. (Note: my mother who was in the second room had her coffee, her water, and her shower gel and shampoo all replaced).

The sink in our bathroom was clogged and drained only very slowly. We only brushed our teeth and washed our hands, so there should not have been any reason for this.

Our phones did not work and we were not able to place a room-to-room call to my mother and she was not able to call us. I was told there were phone use instructions in the room, but neither we nor my mother found any such instructions in our rooms and the phones themselves had no printed or labeled instructions.

The worst thing, perhaps, was finding a small cockroach on my nightstand in the morning when I was picking up my phone and watch. Definitely something I would not have expected!

On a positive note, the breakfast buffet was good and had something for most people. A nice touch was that one was able to have eggs made fresh to order. I ordered my eggs with bacon and must say that it does not meet the definition of bacon since it must be crispy, which this was not. The breads and rolls were outstanding and there was a fair selection of cold cuts and desserts atop round out the breakfast. The price of the optional buffet was a tad on the high side and the practicality of not having to leave the hotel for breakfast weighs in the balance.

I brought my concerns and observations to the attention of the front desk and while they were acknowledged and while I did receive an apology, I would have expected more of a response than an offer of a complementary drink before leaving (we had just finished breakfast before checking out). Customer service and complaint resolution are critical in any business and especially in the hospitality business. I remain curious if management will...

The hotel is located in the centre of De Haan. Close by are free parking spots and the beach and the digue are not far away. The hotel is a very beautiful building. When it comes to the rooms, we sadly made the bad experience that the room was boiling hot. (fault on our side, had we read enough reviews, we would have known that the rooms have no AC) Our bathroom was also not cleaned in a proper way (I even have doubts that it had been cleaned at all...) Towels were hanging and lying in a weird way. No fresh shower towels. Water in the sink, used hand soap. After bringing my complaints to the receptionist the latter confirmed that the bathroom had been cleaned (I still have my doubts) and that they have a problem with the cleaning with the towels and that they will bring them as soon as possible to our room. We left the hotel for the rest of the day. After coming back, no towels. The other morning at 9 am, we called to the reception to request towels. We checked out at 11 am,still we had not seen any towels... So we used the only 1 fresh hand towel available in our bathroom. We brought our complaints and disappointment to the receptionist at checkout. She was very nice and forwarded our complaint to the manager. The hotel apologized and offered us a free drink, which we declined as we were on a schedule. Unfortunately we made this bad experience. Too much money for not enough comfort and service! We will...

I stayed at Hotel Astoria with my family in August 2022. This is one of the priciest hotels in De Haan which itself is an expensive city. ||||To start with the hotel does not have a step-free entrance, quite shocking in this day and age so if you are travelling with lots of luggage, have a family with a push-chair (like us) or a wheel-chair user rule out staying here straight away. There are about ten high steps to access the hotel, staff offer no help instead they actually look at you like you are a nuisance. ||||At arrival, the check-in staff tried to charge us for the extra bed in the room without bothering to see the booking so be careful if travelling with a family. We were told we can have a complimentary drink from their bar. When trying to claim this offer the staff makes you feel like you are a freeloader, pure rude behaviour followed by a list of drinks that the offer doesn't cover. Basically you can only have a beer or a soft drink. ||||They say they have parking on premises but it's actually just free off-street parking. On the day of our departure there was a fare in the city center so we had to park our car 2miles away. The staff prefers business from walk-in customers in bar and restaurant over hotel guests. Attitude towards children was specially cold and distant, again making us feel like we are causing...