Berlin Grande Hotel — Hotel in Dover

NOT PET FRIENDLY among other concerns

This hotel is pet tolerant, not pet friendly. They should never, ever, use the term pet friendly in any of their advertisements. Guests with pets need to know that up front. I walked my leashed, tiny, 14 pound Shih Tzu thru the front lobby and was scolded like a teenager and told in a very loud and condescending tone by a manager that, “Pets are required to enter in and out of the pet corridor entrance and pet room patio doors”. Granted, I signed a full page pet agreement form when I checked in but, didn’t receive a copy of it, so I guess I should have memorized the entire small print, one full page, form before I left the front desk. My wife and I have traveled for business and pleasure and stayed at 100’s of hotels (at a lower rate and much better quality than this hotel) that are pet friendly and allow pets in common areas so that’s why I innocently walked my leashed pet thru the main lobby. Most of the hotels even had pet treats at the front desk. My pet IS my family. This hotel should never claim to be pet friendly when it has restrictions (that equate to nearly the entire hotel) to where your pet companion can accompany you within the hotel. I paid for my family to have access to the hotel-not to be treated to Jim Crow era like regulations. I attached a picture of the 14 pound offending terror I walked thru the lobby. Next, be prepared to hear EVERYTHING that is going on in the rooms beside yours. Toilets flushing, showers, folks walking on floor above you if you’re on the bottom floor, guest conversations. The hotel walls do nothing to contain sounds inside the room. Basically, act as if your private life is on display to those around you and act accordingly. You’re gambling with this hotel’s construction that your neighboring guests share the same respectful traits as you or you’ll be in for a less than pleasant stay. HVAC works well however, if you’re a light sleeper it’s going to sound like a jet plane landing in your room every time it turns on. The pet rooms are located next to the swimming pool area-plan on the paper thin walls allowing in as much noise as if you were sitting in the swimming pool area. Our stay had a group of kids that were playing and having a great time. I didn’t get to use the jacuzzi since it’s a shared space in the pool area with no privacy. I didn’t want to spoil the kids fun while they were jumping back and forth from the pool to the jacuzzi. Our room was also near the pet owner access door so we had the pleasure of hearing that door opening and closing at all hours of the day and night since the walls offer no sound deadening protection. The room was mostly clean. The bathroom toilet has a stain ring and the bathtub has a dingy black film on it. I attached pictures. For a $200 a night room I anticipated better. We only stayed 1 night. Most of the hotel staff is friendly. Breakfast was decent with a nice dining area. For the cost of the hotel and weighing the pros and cons-the cons win out by a landslide. Spend your dollars somewhere that has better noise canceling construction, more enjoyable accommodations, and a pleasant staff. If you book thru a travel site don’t expect the quoted price to be honored from the site. While checking out I overheard the manager on duty arguing on the phone with a guest that booked a room about their rate on a travel site. Manager said this hotel does not honor travel site rates because the sites don’t purchase the room and resell them. Another questionable practice I’ve never seen done before. I’ve read the Berlin Grande Hotel Management replies to comments here. Most of the replies from the management fall into the typical blanket corporate responses or deflect back to the guest without actually making improvements. All the items I’ve shared have been mentioned before and I wish I would have read reviews of this hotel before reserving a room. Keep that in your thoughts when you are making your hotel...

I was disappointed by several things: On the website, it shows 2 robes in the room. I showed my wife this when I was booking, and she was looking forward to it, and didn't pack hers. The view was a joke. I could see the rooms on the other side of the courtyard, but I had to lean way out to see the countryside... and I have a fear of heights, so that wasn't comfortable for me, so I really didn't go out there, even though that was one of the reasons we stayed at this hotel. The noise... wow. Was the hotel constructed with 'echo wood'? The weird thing was, when I heard the booming foot steps, there was no one in the hallway - it must have been the hallway upstairs! This alone will keep me from ever staying at this hotel again. The pictures on the website also show (under rooms and amenities) 2 love seats in front of a fireplace. I honestly thought that was a room photo, since this picture wasn't listed under lobby photos. I was looking forward to sitting there with my wife (we were there for our 22nd anniversary, by the way) and enjoying the fireplace... in reality, our room had a broken fireplace (only about 1/3 of it lit up, making it look pathetic, I turned it off and left it off) which was about 15 feet away from the couch... so even if it was working what was I going to do, pull up a couple of stools from the kitchenette? Poor layout. The TV, which is above the fireplace, is not directly in front of the couch, it's almost in front of the right seat in the couch, so TV watching was awkward, and a little too far away. It also seemed like there was a light missing... something in the ceiling in the middle of the main area would have been nice. It never seemed to be bright enough... add that to the fact that the main area didn't have a window, and you just don't feel like you want to hang out there. The light in the bedroom has 2 fluorescent bulbs (the long kind) one on top, and one on the bottom... you can have both on or neither, so there was no good way for one person to sleep while the other read in bed. It was also way too bright to watch TV. The toilet was a little dirty when we got there, and there were some gross looking stains on the rug... there is no polite way to describe what they looked like to us. The power outlet next to the coffee maker didn't work. (a sign would have been nice!) I put the coffee in, poured in the water, and pushed the button... nothing happened, so I tried pushing it again, thought maybe the cup had to be more firmly seated, so I messed with that... finally unplugged it, and plugged it in by the microwave, and hit the button - it lit right up. Not fun after a night of not sleeping. The bed was comfortable, but since our room was next to the ice machine, (the room the ice machine and pop machine was in is technically part of our room - 2 of its walls are common walls to our room) and about 10 feet from where I was trying to sleep, sometimes it would make a strange wet sound like it was draining or something? That with the amplified foot steps from above, it made it very difficult for me to sleep. It was still cool weather, so my wife was a little cold in the bed, since it only had a thin blanket and a sheet. For the second night, we found a blanket in a bag in the closet (it was apparently for the fold out couch) which made her comfortable. For the price (over $350 for the weekend!) this gorgeous from the outside hotel just doesn't match the price. I usually stay at the Berlin Hotel & Suites (a few minutes down the road.) but wanted to check out this new hotel... I found myself wishing the entire weekend...

We have visited this hotel in the past and had a wonderful time. One of our reasons for staying here is the pool. However sadly at our last stay this past weekend my family swam in the pool the first day for 3-4 hours without issue a wonderful time. The next day we went back to the pool after entering the pool area within 30min. All of my 3 young children under 7 began to cough. I experienced shortness of breath my self. We noticed others in the pool coughing also. Friends of ours in the pool area also began to have problems with their eyes burning. After almost 45min. We felt it was in our children’s best interests and heath that we leave the pool area. At first not wanting to over think it or believe anything was wrong. Because we had experienced such a wonderful time the day before. However as soon as we left the pool area it was a considerable difference in air quality. I went to the front desk and talked to one of the employees and she seemed very uninterested in helping me or worrying about the issue. I explained that we had swam the night before with -0- issues but this day a horrible problem. She never offered to call a manager even though I asked for one. I left frustrated and headed back to my room. After being out of the pool area for about an hour all my children stopped coughing and my shortness of breath subsided. The itching eyes lasted for a couple more hours. The next day our skin still smelled of strong chemicals even after showering the night before. Our bathing suits reeked of chemicals. I did meet another family in the lobby that expressed the same issue with their small children. The manager did apologize but this issue is very serious and someone could have gotten very hurt. The day before all of us getting sick while having a pleasant time swimming noticed 4 different men (hotel employees) in the pool house checking the levels and taking samples in the water. No one told us of any issue with the water, nothing was posted on the pool room door. Whatever they did that night had a serious impact on our health and wellbeing in the pool. I write all of this as a cautionary warning to parents if you feel something isn’t right get out. Don’t wait as long as we did. Someone could have gotten seriously hurt or killed. I asked the manager to do a better job of training his staff to care when people’s lives are impacted especially those of children. Hopefully in the future if the pools PH or chemicals are out of balance they take the pool out of service or tell the customers what they are doing so something like this never happens again. The rest of the hotel is very nice and clean.

Update : the manager did call me and was very apologetic and listened very well to my issue and concerns. He was very kind and wanted to make sure next time my family would be taken care of better personally by him. My comment will stay so that hopefully if something like this ever happens again people might see a pattern to hopefully further deal with the issue. Again I cannot say enough good about the hotel, my only concern was for the front desk staff and the chemical issue with the pool. They also kindly comped one of my day stays. So I believe this hotel and its managers will do better going forward. Great customer service and feedback from staff....