Hotel Preuss Im Dammtorpalais — Hotel in Hamburg

I was in Hamburg for the European CF Society Meetings and moved here from the Radisson Blu after my initial meeting was over.||||This hotel is about 200 meters from the Dammtor train station. From the airport, take the S1 train to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, change to any train on platform 2 and go one more stop. Walk down the platform in the same direction as the train is going and go down the stairs. Most people will go the other way. Turn right at the bottom of the stairs, cross the major street in front of you, turn left, walk past the domed University of Hamburg building and turn right between that building and the next. At the end of the walkway between buildings turn left, and you are facing the hotel across an open space and small street.||||It is one of about 5 hotels that share the same building--sort of a condo for hotels rather than individuals. There is no handicap access that I could tell. Steps lead up into the building lobby. An elevator built in 1962 takes you up to the 4th floor where the Hotel Preuss is located. Ring the bell, and the clerk lets you in and does the check in. After hours, which starts around 3, there is a clerk that oversees check in for all the hotels down in the building lobby. I made my reservation on bookings.com, and they were expecting me. ||||Coming in past the large heavy wooden door, one realizes that it is a cross between regular hotel like the aforementioned Radisson Blu and a bed and breakfast. There are only 9 numbered rooms, but I never figured out if there was a room 1. The young man that checked me in was a student at the University studying hotel and tourism. The clerk that I saw the rest of the week was a woman from Afghanistan who has quite the tale to tell of her family's harrowing and tragic experiences with the wars, the Taliban and her personal escape to the West.||||I had room 6 at the end. It has a single twin bed with mattress on a wooden box, with a bottom sheet and duvet rather than American style sheets and blankets. There is a single comfy feather pillow. There is a small desk with a small television that I did not try, a free standing full height cabinet closet, a chair, a wall mounted suitcase stand and a nice head board with well positioned reading lamp as the furniture in the room. The floor was wood. It was very clean and neat but clearly not luxurious except for the towels. There is a door with windows leading out to a small balcony that turned out to be at about tree top level. Street noises are loud but quite remarkably completely disappear when the windows and door are closed. At night, the noises calm down making it possible to sleep with the windows open, but in June it gets a bit chilly.||||The bathroom looks like it was an addition to the room. There is a sink with small built in glass shelf and mirror, the toilet and a raised shower, probably to allow enough height for proper drainage. The shower head was a mounted hand held that worked incredibly well with a single touch faucet. They provide soap and shampoo in single use packets, so if you are fussy, you might consider bringing your own. The towels were luxurious which was a pleasant surprise. ||||The door to the room was another vintage large heavy and mechanically keyed one. It looked like it once had a classic skeleton key but a more modern lock with deadbolt has been fitted. There is no safe, but after a day, it felt extremely secure. There is certainly no possibility of non-guests wandering through since the main door requires either a room key or the clerk to open it. The clerks triple up their duties as breakfast attendant, desk clerk and room attendants. It's possible to talk with them to find out their personal stories.||||Internet access is free. It is also secured by a WPA 2 password that they will give out upon request. At the desk, my laptop reported speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second but at my room at the far end of the hall, the signal was quite a bit weaker, and I had to walk the laptop back down the hall a few feet to make the connection on a few occasions. Once connected, it was reasonably reliable. For big files, one would probably want to sit in some of the chairs by the desk or in the breakfast area.||||Breakfast was not included but was 6 Euros per day. Since I checked out before breakfast, I didn't get charged the last day. The hotel is really small and quiet, but there was a small crowd of people there in the morning. I wondered if the hotel on the other half of the floor sent their guests to the Hotel Preuss for breakfast. Food included piping hot hard boiled eggs, three types of cold meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, cereals, yogurt, very good fresh bread, coffee, tea, milk and orange juice. It was quite a nice selection. Table service was set out the afternoon before, and they use three or so different patterns of china that you might find in someone's home rather than the usual no nonsense white big-hotel china that one sees so often. The attendant kept the table stocked.||||Part of the charm of the place was the crowd. My first morning alone, I thought that there was a couple there, then I thought it was a group traveling together. I was wrong. They were all just individual travelers talking to each other. They obviously had a fun conversation judging from the animation and laughter. I discovered that they were all separate when they got up and left individually. I wished that I spoke German at that point. I seemed to be the only non-German speaker.||||A long term friend of mine who is a German speaker checked in halfway through my stay and had room 5 which had a double bed and was larger but also similarly appointed. She thought the hotel charming too and was able to converse with the other guests at breakfast.||||The only possible problem might have been check out. I was leaving at 5 AM to make an early flight. I ended up checking out the day before at about mid day because the clerk leaves later in the day. They don't take American Express, and for some reason, my MasterCard wouldn't work. It might have been that I didn't warn MasterCard that I was going to Europe. American Express worked just fine elsewhere in the city. So check out required a trip out to an ATM in the train station to withdraw money from my credit union and back. I suppose that was the best exchange rate anyway but it was a minor inconvenience. The day I left, they had me just leave the key in the room and close the door behind me. If you stay here and are leaving very early, just remember to tell the clerk before hand. The final bill was prepared by the clerk and took about 10 minutes. I think they may type each one up on a computer and print manually, so don't expect to zoom out of there. Another charming aspect of the place was that the clerk made us a fresh pot of coffee while she worked on our check out bills. It probably slowed down the check out, but it was just a nice thing to do, especially since breakfast was long over and put away.||||I would definitely stay here again, but I would recommend it for people with a sense of adventure and who have stayed in bed and breakfast establishments before and enjoyed the experience. It was one third of the price of the Radisson and about half the price of the nearby Grand Elysee where others of my colleagues stayed for...

The building actually houses 4 hotels, and Preuss is one of them. Its a great location, close to the University, Dammtor train station, Messe and Planten und Blomen (where I spent a few evenings walking around). Lots of eating and drinking places nearby within walking distance, and lots of college kids around.||||I'd booked a single room for a week, perhaps because of lean season I was given a charming double room which was fairly large. The rooms don't look like standard hotel rooms, I got a nice little sofa and round wooden table at one side of the room in addition to usual other stuff. The front desk person called it his best room.||||The bathroom was a bit small for my taste, but quite manageable nevertheless.||||Internet is free, breakfast is charged but not worth for the price. In the cellar of the building is a superb cafe that I highly recommend,||||Had a lovely stay, and it was good chatting with the person in the front desk. Turned out that he studied music in India for some years a great many years ago, and met with many great (old) Indian musicians....

Spend two nights in the hotel in November. I was attending a meeting nearby, so this was a good choice. ||Hotel is situated in an old brick building. The same building (same entrance) accommodates several other hotels as well. Hotel Preuss is on the fourth floor, small elevator takes you there.||Great things about the hotel were||- reasonable price||- reliable hot water in shower and good bathroom||- quiet location||Things that I did not like||- room heating was manual and room was cold most of the time||- turning the heating on cause funny smell (burning dust or similar)||- free wifi was really lousy, couldn't even download basic email (gmail)||- relatively far from city center (about 1 km walking), not much services around the hotel ||I did not try breakfast, at 9 eur per person doesn't sound too expensive.||||I recommend the hotel if you are coming to Congress Center and don't want to pay big bucks to Radisson or...