Hotel Sanders — Hotel in Copenhagen Municipality

What makes a hotel a home-away-from home? My formula generally is: (Service + attention to detail)* functional space + some more (at least an attempt! for) attention to detail. And price, of course. I came to stay at Sanders for two nights, during the 3day of design festival.

While the lobby may have been designed on purpose to be a dim-lit vintage boudoir of great taste, I cant say I was in favour of that (particularly at 8 am!). But Im sure i am in a minority here.

There are a lot of things which I found to work, and be fit for purpose, but some details lacked that special passion, that understanding of the bigger picture.

As you check in, and get to the lift - one is met with a good lift design (lets be honest - out of 10 lobby lifts 4 will have more than average standard design, most are meh) - thats a point; and the hallway carpets just about work with my Rimowa wheels - thats a half a point added.

Room, due to major scarcity of rooms at this period, I booked one of the last remaining £310/ night single room. Via my usual travel agent. I am sorry, but when did it happen, that this level price is suddenly considered like a nothing, pre-pandemic £1.95 flat white at Pret? What I am trying to get to is that £300+ for a single room is alot (for the details of service I received). Or at least one would expect an equal service. I work hard for my money and I dont come from a trust fund. It seems that at this hotel a single room at the end of a hall = special kind of treatment. By that I mean a massive service trolley with towels was waiting for me just right outside my door. Which didn’t move anywhere throughout my stay. I felt as if I was in a victorian house amidst a ball night, but was forced to hide on the attick by my evil step mother. Thats immediately major minus points.

My second bain - a WC seats throughout the hotel (my room and public ones). The whole world has heard of soft-close lids. I guess the developers were busy figuring out where to store the towels more than this. It was a rather pleasant bang I experienced. Nervous system wanted a shake up, I guess. Minus mental points again.

Another favourite of mine - and this is more towards the training manager or whoever. As I booked with my common agent, part of the perks and in some participating hotels occasionally as a reward one gets a half or full bottle of wine. Nice touch - bottle opener was served on a cloth serviette. (Usually to soak up the drops of wine etc). I Left it open. Bad touch - the next day, after the room service was in, I found that the same opener still open (what is the logic?? That I want to open up the same cork? Ahahah, please), and the glass I drank from (which I rinsed so it would not smell to me), was … still there. We have plastic bottles but we will not take away your dirty glasses. I always say - luxury can only be built by those who know what luxury is, who have experienced the world.

One would argue I am being picky. Yes I am, no secrets there. Read my other reviews. I am so harsh, because I would like to go back to the times when a 4* hotel WAS a 4* hotel, and a 5* service actually meant something, and that is not taking client’s money for granted and giving them a middle finger in return. I want that business owners would hire professionals and not some summer-time students, and that they would make an effort retaining and training their staff. That managers would take pride in their profession and owners would equally translate their passion on, and not just count their PNL greedily. I would like to be treated same way as that woman I heard was during my check in: someone from the staff was swooning over her (sounded she was an influencer or whatnot), giving chocolate to her, and cleaning dust off her feet (figuratively speaking), while for some reason someone like me is being left with a towel trolley and a f*ck off smile, where actually that client, whom you oversaw that time could have been your brands biggest supporter and may offered partnership to build an empire. But...

Avoid! Avoid! Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

Cozy but small room. Great location.

But such a pain point taking the shower and washing hands! Water everywhere, difficult to control the water amount and temperature, and the most painful is that water coming from the old pipes several places! Such a nightmare taking a shower!!!

The sound from the water dropping down on the ground is so loud and annoying, making it impossible to sleep or relax.

No floor heating in the bathroom, this is another pain point. Ouch! So unexpected in a Scandinavian hotel! First bathroom without floor heating in Scandinavia in my life.

Basically, the bathroom cannot be called a functioning bathroom.

I think hotels at this price level should provide far better.

We are so unsatisfied and shocked. We paied for three nights. At first night 22 o'clock. we discovered this, and for the first time of our lives we wanted to move out at 23 o'clock. Basically we don't want to stay here anymore, and we don't have the trust with the the male receptionist, because we called and asked firstly to be moved to another room which has a functioning bathroom, and he simply told us there was no room available, then we started to talking about moving out and refund. Then he told us we could not get a refund, and suddenly he had an available room!

Now is 23:49. My husband is still negotiating.

We ended up changing to a smaller room in midnight. This room has a bathroom with floor heating (but very very weak) and not leaking pipes.

And today around 8:30 we discovered painfully that there was not enough hot water when taking a shower. My husband had to take some hotter water directly from the sink to wash himself, because the water there was a little hotter than from the shower. And there was water everywhere. I myself didn’t dare to take a shower. That is, I could not take a shower yesterday evening or this morning.

There’s business meeting starting at 9:00. We will come back at noon to negotiate with the hotel. Not only we want our refund, but also compensation for staying here for one night. Yeah, the hotel’d be paying us in order to having us stay here....

Stayed one night on the 5th floor, was a short and sweet visit on the last day of our visit in the city.

Loved the hotel and staff, particularly the interior decor and most certainly the cocktail lounge attached. Below are a few things to consider:

Not sure if we booked the smallest room available for a couple or all rooms are this small, but I started developing back pain having to hunch constantly when moving around the room due to vaulted ceilings in the room and the bathroom. The room we were in (502) was not “tall person” friendly and logistic of navigating the room with open doors to the bathroom with extremely low ceilings made it cumbersome to actually use the room. If you only plan on laying on the bed and come with limited luggage, it may not be too much of a hassle.

Limited floor space. Could not comfortably open 2 large suitcases, let alone unpack them into the dresser. It was def one of the smaller rooms (height and surface area wise) that I’ve stayed at.

Still worth 4.5 stars out of 5 given the high quality of service and interior design. Glad wifey booked us 1 night to sample/try the hotel out, but cannot imagine staying in that particular room for a week.

If you walk out of the hotel and take a right, under the fancy arch, you’ll see a Metro entrance like 300-500 meters from the front door. That entrance never showed up in Google maps but is the closest to get into the metro system, particularly if your going or coming from the airport. Ended up being routed to the further entrance from the hotel due to Google Maps in the rain, that wasn’t fun. For those reading, take the stairs down to the metro after taking a right from the hotel and ignore Google Maps...