5
David Ballard -
a year ago
Outstanding value and rewarding experience-- stayed three nights but would gladly stay a month
The Seminarhaus S1516 is an outstanding value and a rewarding experience. It is a clean place, of clean design, with an esthetic that is as functional as it is appealing.
First, what it is not: 1) It is not a hotel. It is a floor of a residential building; 2) It is not a hostel. There are shared bathrooms and a small kitchen area, but it's not really a hostel, as there is no common area for hanging out, the guests trend considerably older than most hostel guests, and it does not seek to be convivial. There are no permanent staff on duty. There are no TVs. It's as if you booked a comfortable cell in a modern monastery.
Location is just 100 meters or less from two major streets in Berlin, in the heart of a very hip district. The exact location of the building is on a nondescript mostly residential street about half a block from a major Berlin street (Brunnerstrasse). The building was constructed on land that was no-man's buffer land as part of the East Berlin wall system. The wall itself was about ten meters past the building property's back wall. It's not a charming street and the views are not great, but the location is, in fact, outstanding.
As mentioned, the design of the furniture, the rooms, and the building is very pleasing. It is spare, however. There are no/no luxury features (as mentioned, not even TVs). It is simple and straightforward.
My room felt much bigger than the images on the website led me to think it was. I took the double room because I was afraid the single would be too tight. I should have taken the single. It was enough space for my possessions and my exercise routine. There is a closet and there are numerous shelves in the room. My room shared a back balcony with two or three other rooms, but I never met anyone on that balcony-- and really never said more than hello to any other guests.
Something that others might consider negative that I don't is noise from the street in the back (I was there Saturday night), and, potentially, noise from other rooms. You can hear others in their rooms sometimes (nobody was loud when I was there, but I heard my own computer's speakers from the hallway when I walked there from the kitchenette, so clearly anyone walking by my room would, too).
The one thing I thought could be done better is:
As mentioned, there is refrigerator and a sink (but no microwave) in a common kitchenette area. The problem is: 1) Guests have no guidance about use of that area. There were no posted rules or information about the kitchenette. Should we run the dishwasher or wash dishes by hand or leave them in the sink? Should we mark our food or assume nobody else will "share" it? The man who checked me in pointed to the instant coffee on the counter as something for guests. It was gone by the second morning I was there, so are guests supposed to ask someone (whom?) for more, or are they supposed to go buy some to leave there? There is no staff around the place, so it's not like there is place to go to ask for more coffee. Some information about the kitchen area would have been very useful to me.
Also, perhaps cleaners and/or others don't work weekends. Okay, but tell us that, and tell us what to do.
