Kranenturm — Restaurant in Rhein-Nahe

I really hesitate writing bad reviews for small businesses. I realize the sacrifices family's make when they're self employed and the special challenges of the hospitality business.||But I feel that I must share with others my experience with Hotel Kranenturm.||I'm based here in Germany and my parents were visiting from the states to see my partner and myself. Since they had a mid-morning flight home from Frankfurt, we had a planned a special day and night on the Rhein River and especially Bacharach, which is my favorite Rheinland village. ||On 2 April 2018, we booked two rooms via Hotels.com for a check-in on 11 May 2018 and a check-out on 12 May 2018.||On the morning of the 11th, we arrived in Bacharach early to take a day cruise and we dropped our bags off with the female owner of the hotel. ||When we returned from our day cruise in the later afternoon, we planned to finally check into our rooms, freshen up and enjoy the evening before our dinner reservations.||At this time, the female owner of the hotel first stated that our reservation was not in their system. When we showed our printed itinerary, she hesitated and told us that there were no rooms available. ||As we were waiting for resolution, several other guests came forward with reservations and were given rooms. It's apparent that certain booking sites (Booking.com) had their reservations honored and others (Hotels.com) did not.||She eventually offered us a room that was described as "almost ready." What apparently was meant by this was that the room was under construction. She brought us to a room with a saw and a concrete floor. ||Eventually, we were told that her husband (the male owner) would find us another hotel room (not in Bacharach because the city was filled) but elsewhere.....he apparently disappeared.||We eventually were able to use the lobby computer and book a room in nearby Bingen, cancelling our dinner reservations in Bacharach and upending our plans.||I've traveled to 40 countries in the past few 7 years. I realize overbooking happens. ||But I feel like this situation could have been prevented. My guess is that the hotel was preparing to rent more rooms that are/were currently under construction. These rooms were apparently not available for use at the time of our arrival. And I presume that the hotel decided to give rooms to guests using Booking.com and other sites before Hotels.com guests.||The room eventually offered was not acceptable - I'm a German resident and taxpayer, - I'd be shocked if this is legally permissible here to offer a room with a saw and exercise equipment in it to guests. ||I'm also dismayed that we had dropped our luggage off in the morning and not informed that no rooms would be available. ||It was just a shocking, appalling experience and given that this hotel is listed in Rick Steves and other guides. Hopefully this can be a learning experience for the hotel and...

It is a very unique hotel as it is built in to the ancient wall of the city. There are many castles nearby so it is an excellent location if you want to take in some of those. The drive to Koblenz along the Rhine river is nice (about 45mins) and you will see many of the castles along the sides of the river up on the bluffs. The town of Bacharch is cute and is very walk-able. A trail goes up to their castle (which is an active youth hostel) atop the hill, but there is not much to see there. The outer walls of a historic church are a unique site (no roof) so you might want to explore that. There is also a platform off to the side of the city that you can climb up and take in a nice view of the city and river. I would recommend that. ||The hotel was nice and comfortable. Loud trains are adjacent and travel closely by through the night, but it did not disrupt our sleep. I suspect light sleepers would be bothered by this. We were on the third floor and there is no elevator, so be warned you will need to carry your luggage. Breakfast was a good mix of cereal, eggs, bacon, fruit, toast, yogurt etc. Parking is very close, just outside the wall, but upon checking in, the reception could not explain to me the rules for parking as there was a language barrier. The teen boy checking us in knew no English and he was the only one on site at the time. I asked around in town to find out about parking and it seems you have to pay into a machine during daytime hours, however the machine was broken when I went out there, so I never paid the two days I was there. So overall, I did really like the uniqueness of this hotel being in the ancient wall, the rooms were nice/large, breakfast was good and everything in town is walk-able, although it is walk-able from any location in...

Stayed here many years ago, the hotel is good enough but as the saying goes travel is about location. First I would never stay in Bacharach, it is not particularly interesting. It perked up a little during the tourist rush then gets real quiet. You are going to hop on a boat or train to go any place interesting, best bet is to stay up or down river.

That said the Hotel Kranenturm is close to the station and docks so going out out of this small town is easy. The hotel itself is a neat re-purposing of the town wall and tower that is a stones throw from the busy Rhine. That said it is not shipping that impacts your stay it is the trains. Amazingly the hotel is incredibly well soundproofed, but given the train tracks for the rail line paralleling the riven are constantly used and tens of feet away from the hotel you will most assuredly feel them. Repeatedly.

The hotel owner was nice and did not make much of a fuss when we cut our stay short a day and added a day to our next stop Heidelberg. The hotel was clean, though like most places in Europe was small. At the time it was a little dated, but well maintained. The feel of the place was more a rural German inn than a big city or chain hotel. I liked that.

The restaurant inside at the time had a decent selection of tasty food for breakfast.

So it was an okay stay which was in the days before everything was on the web (they did have a basic web site, which greatly aided this leg of our trip). It was a pleasant stay once we got used to the train and if you have to stay in this town a safe and...