Hotel Viktoria, Cologne

WHY DID WE BOOK THE HOTEL VIKTORIA - COLOGNE?

It all started earlier in the year upon receiving an unexpected wedding invitation - not in Cologne, but in Lubeck, three hundred miles to the north east. Having decided on taking the car, and to make an autumn break of it, we decided that we would split our German holiday in two: three days in Lubeck and a further three in Cologne.

During the last six years we have driven ...
...publicity material issued by the hotel and various booking sites rate this establishment as a four star one.

HOTEL DESCRIPTION / OUR PERCEPTION FROM HOTEL PUBLICITY

In all honesty, we did not read all of the hotel publicity - especially as it was booked through Travelres.com which only gave a very brief description of the hotel and room. The hotel's own website, in English, offers far more of the flavour of the place ... more

WHY DID WE BOOK THE HOTEL VIKTORIA - COLOGNE?

It all started earlier in the year upon receiving an unexpected wedding invitation - not in Cologne, but in Lubeck, three hundred miles to the north east. Having decided on taking the car, and to make an autumn break of it, we decided that we would split our German holiday in two: three days in Lubeck and a further three in Cologne.

During the last six years we have driven through Cologne over twenty times on our way to or from Poland, but have never stopped to actually see this magnificent city.

We spent several nights on the 'net looking for a suitable hotel, quickly coming to two conclusions: 1) that Cologne is a far from cheap place to stay, and that 2) the actual choice of accommodation in the city is not all that great, especially if, like us, you want to stay in the city centre and avoid using the car.

The Viktoria was chosen for a combination of reasons, amongst which, that it was advertised as being a mere 900 metres from the cathedral and city centre, had a car park and, for a four star hotel, looked like very good value in deed.

Please note that although Ciao show the Viktoria as being a three star hotel, all of the publicity material issued by the hotel and various booking sites rate this establishment as a four star one.

HOTEL DESCRIPTION / OUR PERCEPTION FROM HOTEL PUBLICITY

In all honesty, we did not read all of the hotel publicity - especially as it was booked through Travelres.com which only gave a very brief description of the hotel and room. The hotel's own website, in English, offers far more of the flavour of the place though and having acquainted myself with it, for the purposes of the review, I find several puzzling factors about the place answered - almost a month after checking out!

This is an historic building, originally erected in 1905 to house Wilhelm Heyer's museum of music history. The museum closed in 1986, three years later the building re-opened as a "protected monument" hotel, with 47 "architecturally varied" rooms.

Apart from the history of the building, the website shows many good photographs of the rooms, grand reception area and communal areas within the hotel.

However, it is what is NOT mentioned on the website that proved to be important here, and in conclusion to this section I can only say that the information actually offered is not helpful to potential guests and that certain facilities implied by a four star rating are woefully and totally absent here at the Viktoria.

HAVE WE STAYED THERE PREVIOUSLY?

No we had not, neither have we stayed anywhere else in Cologne.

BOOKING PROCESS 8 / 10

Thanks to Travelres.com, a site that we have used before to book accommodation in German hotels, particularly in Dresden, the booking itself was a piece of cake.

However, again, this site would have to be taken to task for omitting to mention certain missing facilities here which, I am absolutely sure, would put off many travellers, especially those who have had a long day's journey in order to reach Cologne and the Hotel Victoria - as indeed we had.

LOCATION 8 / 10

Geographically, it is difficult to fault the location, easy to find by road with or without the GPS on which it is featured. The Viktoria is central without being IN the centre, for our sight-seeing purposes it proved an excellent choice.

It is a mere 800 metres from Cologne's main railway station - one of, if not the, busiest station in Europe. The airport is around eight miles away.

The much more expensive international hotels grouped around the cathedral would have been far busier and noisier, as well as being much more expensive and impossible to park at. We were blessed with superb autumn weather and, in such weather, it is a very pleasant walk along the bank of the Rhine from the Viktoria to the city centre, no more than fifteen minutes away on foot.

The hotel is located in a quiet side street off of the main dual-carriageway that runs along the city side of the river. From our bedroom window we had a through the trees view of the river and the zoological gardens on the opposite bank.

There is, unfortunately, nothing in the local vicinity of any interest though, this is a prosperous, mostly residential area with some small offices, but no bars or restaurants - this may again prove a problem.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS 9 / 10

We had not enjoyed the hard 300 mile drive from Lubeck on the Sunday that we arrived in Cologne. The German motorway traffic had been appalling, what had been expected to be a four hour journey had taken nearly seven; we had not stopped for lunch and were both tired and hungry.

Finding the Victoria so easily had cheered us somewhat, as had parking the car in the car park to discover the front door and reception half a dozen paces around the corner. This is an impressive building, and on stepping through the front door looked to be every inch the four star hotel that we had been expecting.

CHECKING IN 8 / 10

This was 6.00pm on a Sunday evening, the young lady receptionist who checked us in was pleasant and efficient, we were handed the key to room 407, told how to find the lift and the hours of breakfast (6.30 - 10.00).

There was only one thing on my mind at that point though - and had been for the last four hours - getting a decent meal inside us. I am never at my best when hungry and her reply to my innocent question struck me like a bolt out of the blue:

"Can we get a meal in your restaurant now?"

"We have no restaurant!" was the curt reply, along with it a pamphlet was produced showing all the restaurants in the local area - there was though a further problem.

This being Sunday, in this very religious city, the great majority of the restaurants were shut! On the pamphlet she highlighted only three in the vicinity that were open, a burger bar, an expensive fish restaurant and a pizzeria, none of which we fancied sitting down to our main Sunday meal at.

I find it difficult to explain to you, standing here in the splendid surroundings of this four star hotel, just how utterly dejected I felt at that moment in time. Not strictly within the remit of this review, but tired and with empty stomachs, we had to walk into the centre of a large and unknown city in order to get a meal. At that point I hated both Cologne and particularly the Hotel Viktoria, we even discussed checking out in the morning and going somewhere else altogether.

ON THE WAY TO THE ROOM i.e. how easy is it to find your way around? How accessible is if for less able persons? What condition are the public rooms and passageways in? 8 / 10

The impressions formed later were rather more positive ones. Having been converted into a hotel in the late 1980's, all was quite new inside. The quality of the carpets and décor was good. The walls were hung with art, on the main upstairs landing the ceiling even had a mural painted on it.

As far as disabled access is concerned, whilst the building may be a century old, it is accessible for wheelchairs, although I am not sure if the lift actually made it down the half floor to the breakfast room.

The breakfast room itself was pleasant and airy enough - especially considering that it was a converted basement. The kitchen was actually tiny - probably explaining the lack of a restaurant, you would hardly believe that breakfast for 47 rooms could be catered for from such a small kitchen!

The impressive reception area is very well stocked with information leaflets on the city, free maps and newspapers also being available here, as were umbrellas available for loan - useful that, when wandering the streets in the rain looking for somewhere to eat.

THE ROOM 7 / 10

With a proper key you open the hefty door from the corridor and enter a room with a high "wow" factor. When I say 'high', you can take that literally, the ceiling appeared to be around twenty feet above our heads! Oddly, although I felt that I should have been very impressed with this extraordinarily grand room, I found something about its grandness and luxury rather superficial.

The sheer size of it was daunting and somewhat impersonal; most of our bungalow would have fitted inside room 407 at the Hotel Viktoria! You walked in through a door in the middle of the room. To the left was a large lounge area with a huge "L" shaped sofa and large coffee table. To the right was the equally enormous bedroom, so large and lofty that they had added an extraordinary canopy over the bed in a futile attempt to visually reduce the height of the room.

The lighting was comprehensive to say the least; table lamps, floor standing lamps, bedside lamps and a massive chandelier. Natural daylight was not short either, a window stretched floor to ceiling in the lounge area.

All the items that you would expect to find in a four star hotel bedroom were here though. An efficiently quiet air conditioning system, a well stocked mini-bar, a large(ish) screen television with dozens of channels including English and Polish (a first that in a German hotel!), telephone and modem points, although I believe the whole hotel was a wireless hot spot.

There was more cupboard, hanging and drawer space than in any hotel room that we have seen, along with a magnificent collection of mirrors and pictures - many of which were framed in the most extraordinarily extravagant way.

All in all I think that this room was so far over the top in terms of décor that it just did not feel at all homely, more like a TV movie set perhaps. Maybe some reading this review actually live in this style, although I have to say that no one that I have ever met does!

THE EN-SUITE 7 / 10

The en-suite was frankly out of character with both the room itself and the rest of this rather opulently decorated hotel. Most oddly it was entered through an extremely narrow door to the right of the bed - your shoulders almost brushing the door frame on both sides as you entered.

Totally devoid of any style or luxury touches, it was a model of Teutonic efficiency and hygiene - all white tiles, including the floor, white towels and big mirrors.

Again, the facilities expected were there, a (mighty powerful) shower over the bath and a small tray of complimentary soap, shower gel and shampoo - forgive me for not detailing them - but they were all in white wrappers merely with Hotel Viktoria printed in black on them.

The electricians had gone to town with the lighting here again, there was enough heat generated by the battery of over mirror lights to heat your average three bedroom semi.

DID WE GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP? 6 / 10

Yes, and then no. The first night, on the Sunday, after that journey and three kilometre hike for dinner, I think I could have slept soundly on the front steps to Cologne Cathedral…..sorry I forgot, it doesn't have any - disabled access and all that - but I think you will know what I mean.

The bed was very comfortable and the hotel internally very well sound proofed.

However, in giving us what I suspect was one of the best rooms in the hotel, with the aforementioned river view, they had also allocated us plenty of road and river noise. Oh yes, for those who are not familiar with Cologne and the Rhine, this is an extremely busy commercial river, the early morning fog horns reminding you of that fact. The main road too is a busy one leading into the very heart of the city, just to add to that were the traffic lights situated almost outside the hotel, so the traffic noise was not constant with vehicles braking and then pulling away……

……the cathedral precincts are pedestrianised, yes it would actually have been quieter there!

The second two nights, even having been walking all day long, I did not get a good night's sleep, on hindsight we should have transferred to what would have been a much quieter room at the back, the view was not all that good - especially in the fog!

FACILITIES ON OFFER - No score here, different grades / prices of hotel understandably have different facilities.

This was my main complaint about the Hotel Viktoria - and there are no points awarded here on which to mark it down! The lack of a restaurant or proper bar in a four star hotel is, as far as I am concerned, simply not acceptable.

For those of you looking for swimming pools, health spas and saunas, give the Viktoria a miss, you simply will not find them here.

BREAKFAST / OTHER MEALS, FOOD & DRINKS 3 / 10

Breakfast yes, there are no other food or drinks served at all. If you are really desperate of course there is always the bag of nuts in the mini-bar.

Breakfast was hardly the "sumptuous feast" promised by the hotels website. A typical continental, all you can eat, buffet, it was acceptable in terms of quality and variety. A good range of cereals and fresh fruit salads were complimented by a disappointing (by German standards) selection of breads. The meats, cheeses and salads were decidedly ordinary compared to many offered in hotels of this calibre elsewhere in Germany.

Indeed, it went even further downhill when you approached the hot food tray, barely luke warm, mostly over salted and seemingly cooked several hours previously, not very sumptuous at all in fact.

Liquid refreshments offered were far better - a wide choice of teas, limitless supplies of very good flasked coffee and fresh fruit juices partially redeemed other shortcomings in the only meal of the day here at the Viktoria.

OVERALL VALUE FOR MONEY 6 / 10

A very tricky one to quantify this. Compared to many other hotels in Cologne, on the face of it the Hotel Viktoria offers fine value for money. At full rack rate our enormous double room would have been 120 Euros, approximately equivalent to £84.00 per night. Through Travelres.com we actually paid about £15 less than that, which represented acceptable value for money.

However, we had three nights previously left the superb Ringhotel Freiderikenhof in Lubeck, which had not only been slightly less expensive, but had offered vastly better facilities too.

Without a bar or restaurant, this could never qualify in my book as a three, let alone four, star hotel. Assessed in all honesty for what it is, i.e. a rather posh Bed and Breakfast then I think the value offered here becomes far more questionable.

HOW LIKELY AM I / ARE WE, TO USE THIS HOTEL AGAIN?

Whilst the Viktoria has some saving graces, prime amongst them an extremely helpful team of receptionists, I feel that we are unlikely to use it again.

We will return to Cologne undoubtedly. On this occasion we had been extraordinarily lucky with the weather - had it been raining constantly, that first night would have been the only one spent in this hotel. Had it been located in an area where there was at least somewhere to eat that may be different, but as far as I am concerned walking for miles trying to find somewhere open to serve a meal on a Sunday night is a most off-putting experience.

RICHADA'S HOTEL RATING 70 / 100 - 70 %

In order to put that score into some kind of perspective, here are my current hotel rankings - all reviewed and scored using identical criteria:

Ringhotel Friederikenhof - Lubeck - Germany - 92%

Innkeeper's Lodge, Chester Northeast - 83%

Innkeeper's Lodge, Stockport - 83 %

Innkeeper's Lodge, Hull - 81%

Hotel Drei Schwanen - Hohenstein-Ernstthal - Germany - 72%

Hotel Viktoria, Cologne - 70%

Hotel Piast, Boleslawiec (Poland) - 64%

Chadwick Hotel, St Annes - 63 %

CONTACT DETAILS:

Hotel Viktoria
Worringer St. 23
D-50668 - Koln Zentrum
Germany
Tel: +49 221 973 7240 Fax: +49 221 72 7067 

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