IntercityHotels are a quite interesting joined venture of the German Rail System (Deutsche Bundesbahn, which was a fully state-driven company at that time) and the Steigenberger Hotels, which are typically driving quite upper class hotels. The goal of the franchise is to provide reliable accomodation and meeting space close to long-distance train stations. Thought the brand has been found in 1987 and is quite well-known, I haven’t been sleeping an IntercityHotel for ages. Thus, I was quite curious about the brand when I had a one night stay in Nuremberg (Nürnberg) in July 2020.

 

IntercityHotel Nuremberg – Location

The location of the hotel is quite ideal: from the West Wing of Nuremberg Main Station, you just have to cross a street and have a maybe 100 meter walk to the entrance of the hotel. This implies excellent public traffic connections.

The street features some more hotels. The train station offers all touristic infrastructure, including a grocery discounter (Lidl), which is also opening on Sundays in contrast to the general German Sunday shop closures. The train station also features simple restaurants. It is also just a short walk away from Nuremberg’s picturesque Old Town.

 

Intercity Hotel Nuremberg – Room

I paid for a standard room (prepaid / non-refundable) 73.95 EUR. My original booking taken in May 2020 for my July 2020 stay included a breakfast buffet at 13 EUR, but the hotel never charged that for me and therefor cashed in 9 Euro at check-in for their Covid-19 reduced service. The room door was sealed to proof disinfection, which was a nice way to state that. Two room doors are next to each other on diagonal walls. The living space felt compact and rather budget. The first thing I saw was the ridiculous interior layout of the suitcase rest: placing my (quite small) suitcase there and opening it inevitably made the suitcase hit the TV screen which was place right above it. I commented that on check out with “You will have to buy a lot of TV sets in this hotel in the future”.

Apart from that, I could not really become friends with that room, also due to numerous technical issues. The worst thing was likely that the window closing sensor was not working and thus the air conditioning was blocked. Recent renovations, which felt to have happened, have been done in an absolutely imprecise way. I really felt sorry for the hotel that power plugs did not exactly fit into the wall-bar, the spot lights over the small work desk were not fixed correctly as well. The insulation of the bathroom door was loose. On top of that, the windows just were not sound-proof enough to kill the noise from the rail tracks, which ran right below the window. Nice view on German rail traffic… But with some side issues. Worst of all was likely the bed. Even though I was really tired, I could not get more sleep than two hours. The only pillow was by far too weak, so that I used my blanket instead, but the comparably thin mattress, which was just placed on a wooden board was simply uncomfortable.

The bathroom, however, was quite nice. There were no issues – if you count the bathroom door to the living space area.

 

IntercityHotel Nuremberg – Breakfast / Food

Breakfast at IntercityHotel Nuremberg was a quite below average experience as well: the selection was reasonable, with the items separately packed – I liked that they used a lot of glasses and paper, so that it was quite ecological-friendly. The service person felt very unmotivated and reserved. More than that, just when she felt that people do not care about her, she went to the reception for a chat, taking off her mask right behind the breakfast area – which you could also describe as area right in front of the elevators or area with most people traffic. The way the buffet was set up would have allowed a one-direction concept (i.e. all people move into one direction so that they do not face each other), but there was no signage or similar attempt to ensure that.

 

IntercityHotel Nuremberg – Services

The welcoming at the reception was a bit strange – as it took several minutes to have somebody at the reception desk for check-in. Even though I arrived in the morning, the room was already available, which was quite nice. IntercityHotels offer you a free public transport ticket for your whole stay (which I feel is a great service). I expected that the hotel is promoting that as an exceptional feature during the check-in process – but instead, I had to ask twice at check-in before I got the ticket. Really sad, as I feel that this is really a nice feature. Check-out was much more friendly, though. We also had a chat about the ridiculous TV set positioning. The receptionist felt to be aware of the technical issues in their hotel.

I claimed the air conditioning issue at the reception desk. They stated to care for it, but finally, nobody checked my room, which is of course poor. The WiFi connection was absolutely fine. The hotel does not feature a gym or a similar facility. By the way, I really loved the reception area, which has a very welcoming layout.

 

IntercityHotel Nuremberg – My View

This Nuremberg stay was truly disappointing. I was really looking forward to that brand – but finally there were more memories on the negative side. So sad, as the reception area is no nice, the hotel location is great and the free public transport ticket is a great feature. A series of technical issues in the room and the mixed breakfast experience just were too bad. There are a lot of really good reviews of other IntercityHotel places, so I might just have had bad luck – but that’s just what a hotel review is about: describing the experience you made at a certain occasion. Overall, due to the good reasons to stay at the IntercityHotel, the review just makes it to the average ranges.

 

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