Maritim Hotel, Bremen

The Maritim is not one of my favourite hotels. If I hear that I've been booked there, a wave of disappointment rolls over me and that's based on only two stays so far - but I'm sure there will be more. It's not that there's actually anything WRONG with the hotel, it's just that it's got an air of being tired, past it and just not up to scratch for the new millenium. It must have once been really quite grand but today it's about as up to date as Princess ...
...some love and attention. The Maritim must have once been really quite nice but now it just looks like it's forgotten how to enjoy itself.

When you arrive there's a drop-off point for taxis and a nice little garden and beer garden to the side although I've never seen anyone using it. As you enter either through a rotating door or a couple of automatic doors on either side, the first impression is of a massive lobby - far bigger surely ... more

The Maritim is not one of my favourite hotels. If I hear that I've been booked there, a wave of disappointment rolls over me and that's based on only two stays so far - but I'm sure there will be more. It's not that there's actually anything WRONG with the hotel, it's just that it's got an air of being tired, past it and just not up to scratch for the new millenium. It must have once been really quite grand but today it's about as up to date as Princess Anne at a wedding.

The location is fine - there's the park to one side, the congress centre to the other and it's only a couple of minutes walk to the railway station. A taxi from the airport will cost you around Euro15 if you cant figure out how to take the trams to the station plaza. It's not even a noisy place - although I admit when I saw my room was on the road side the first time I visited, I did worry that I might be kept awake all night. But no, it's quiet enough or perhaps the problem is it's just TOO quiet because you sense that nothing of any note would ever happen at the Maritim.

Its not even the price I object to - our company rate is around the € 90 mark which is not outrageously expensive. Its just the underwhelming sense that they could do so much better, they may even have DONE much better 15 years ago, but today the place really desperately needs some love and attention. The Maritim must have once been really quite nice but now it just looks like it's forgotten how to enjoy itself.

When you arrive there's a drop-off point for taxis and a nice little garden and beer garden to the side although I've never seen anyone using it. As you enter either through a rotating door or a couple of automatic doors on either side, the first impression is of a massive lobby - far bigger surely than it needs to be. There are two restaurants and a bar off the lobby with the long wooden reception about half way along. The staff are nice enough - no complaints - although on my first visit they hadn't got a room booked for me but it was a Sunday night and they were almost empty and I don't know to this day if it was their error or our secretary who got it wrong.

Check in is easy - they take your credit card to guarantee the room charges, issue you with a key and send you off to the lifts. These are set up with a system that should require you to swipe your room card to get them to work but I'm still unconvinced that it actually makes any difference. If you want to take the stairs, they are just around the corner from the lifts.

On my two visits I've had rooms that were entirely adequate but also entirely unexciting. They are a fairly standard size for a three or four star hotel and are clean if a bit worn. They have all the things you'd expect - a bed (although once only a single which I don't like at all), a bathroom with shower over the bath, loo, bidet and good sized vanity unit , there's plenty of wardrobe space, a place to put your suitcase, a TV with plenty of channels but nothing worth watching in English, a seating area with a small table - oddly two chairs in a room with a single bed (figure that one out), and there's a desk! There's a room safe, a mini bar and a hospitality tray that oddly focuses more on tea than coffee. In other words, all the features you'd expect but none that you'd particularly remember.

Some things are a bit mean - just the one towel for example, although I was able to hunt down a second in a wardrobe. The pillows are utterly insubstantial and if I had the patience to call housekeeping I could something more substantial. The soft furnishings just offend me - the pink satin quilted bedspread shouldn't be a feature in any accommodation that's not an old people's home. The curtains are chintzy beyond belief and the carpets are worn and pinky-beige in colour. All the woodwork is dark and gloomy and try as I might, I can't think of any period in the last 25 years when the décor could possibly have been considered fashionable. It's not 'retro' - it's just old-fashioned.

First time I stayed I tried to eat in the restaurant only to discover that what looked like a restaurant - e.g. menus on a board outside - was actually closed for a private party and I was politely asked to leave. I found the other restaurant at the far end of the hotel and had an uninspired and overpriced meal in which two courses and a diet coke put me dangerously close to my expenses limit without really filling me up. I've never bothered to try breakfast because, after the debacle with the other non-restaurant, I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to find it.

The hotel apparently has other facilities like a pool and conference rooms and a walkway that links it to the exhibition centre nearby but I've not used any of these. It also offers over-priced internet access thats quite resistable.

In summary, there's nothing wrong with this hotel but there are so many other hotels in Bremen that it really needs to try harder if it's going to ever fill its rooms. The company I visit in the city tends only to book the Maritim if the Intercity Hotel is already full - and considering that for the Intercity we pay 30% less, get free public transport, free wifi and breakfast included, its not hard to see why the Maritim usually has space. Having since stayed at the Mercure on the Bahnhofsplatz, I can at least say that the Maritim is better than that, but I'd rather avoid both. 

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