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Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg, Cologne, Germany

I found out about Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg thanks to my friend on hotels and travels, Polina @splyushik, for what I’m very grateful, because in the end, this hotel became one of the leaders in my hotel rating in 2019.

First impressions.
The first big impression of the hotel was waiting for me … in the toilet near the lobby 🙂 I always like to visit such public places and often find them very unusual.

We’ve arrived at the hotel earlier and were asked to wait, so we walked around the town, returned, and the room was still not ready, although it was already more than 15.00. – time of official check-in. I had to persistently remind of myself at the reception, and even several times.

The road to our room turned out to be very unusual: interesting corridors, transitions between buildings, a cool elevator.

Room.
The room is spacious, comfortable, in a calm and concise style. The only minus was the door to the next room (connecting rooms), due to which the neighbors were sometimes well audible.

Great bed with good linens, bedside lamps and bedside tables.

A nice and roomy wardrobe in the hallway with a minibar of drinks included in the room price.

There is a coffee machine with coffee capsules, but there is no kettle with cups (I think this is an omission, because not everyone drinks coffee, like me, for example).

The bathroom is dark for my taste, but quite comfortable: 2 washbasins, a bathtub and a separate toilet with a bidet. There are all the necessary accessories present.

The view from the room is over the surroundings of Bensberg and the quiet road. The room was quiet, warm and very comfortable.

SPA
The hotel’s spa includes the following infrastructure, which is free to visit for hotel guests:

– an excellent pool (warm and very beautiful, where it is pleasant to swim endlessly and enjoy the night sky)

sauna area (Finnish, bio, steam room) for boys and girls

sauna area for girls only (separately)

SPA is definitely a strong place of the hotel, which is loved by a very large number of guests.

But, unfortunately, here the biggest disadvantages begin, which the hotel cannot cope with during a full load:

– there are very few places around the pool, so the guests are first placed on attached beach chairs, and when they end, they simply leave the SPA without finding a place

– at the SPA reception we were given 2 medium white towels per person (their length is insufficient even for use on a sun lounger or in a sauna)

– the bio sauna was cold (guests are perplexed when they go there, and then move to a regular sauna, where there are a lot of people because of this)

Location
The hotel is located on a mountain, the center and all life is located below. We gladly walked around the town, which was very quiet, and did not meet a couple of people (they are such days off in Germany). Back uphill to the hotel it was fun to climb, but all the fatigue passed when we saw how grand the hotel looks from the street.

Breakfast.
I’ve managed to book a hotel at a very good price on the Hotels website right after Black Friday, but, unfortunately, breakfast was not included in the price of the room.

In the morning we went down for breakfast, which cost 35 eur per person. I must say right away that the price of breakfast seemed quite high, although we understood that in a hotel of this level it could not be cheap. But we expected clearly more from such a breakfast, and we did not have the best impression of it.

Breakfast takes place in a very interesting room. There is around the painting, high ceilings, stucco molding and other attributes of a real castle.

But, unfortunately, inside the breakfast room it was quite crowded and uncomfortable: we got seats on the aisle. Probably because of this, for the first time in a long time visiting hotels, there was not my favorite feeling of thrill from breakfast.

Beautiful appliances and tablecloths add a sense of a good mood. Hotel guests try to dress beautifully; among the contingent, couples of different ages predominate.

The selection of breakfast dishes is not so big, the dishes are mostly deliciously prepared. There is good sparkling wine and fruit, but no interesting sweet pastries for coffee / tea.

The service is good, but the ordered omelet (not the most delicious) we had to wait long enough.

Check-out from the hotel was quick: we paid for breakfast and city tax.

Despite these drawbacks, which, I hope, are associated with high hotel occupancy (as we understood almost 100%), we were satisfied with our visit and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting hotel in the suburbs of Cologne in a beautiful natural place.

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