Sonata City Hotel

Walking distance from the train station so very conveniently located and not too far to drag our luggage. It was quirky in that there were no keys you had to input your last name into a kiosk and then it gave you a code for the front door and a different one for your room. We were on the fourth floor. No elevator and a curved staircase. No front desk. Breakfast not included but lots of restaurants and ATM in walking distance. Very clean. Good water pressure in shower. Great view from our window.

Unfortunately our stay with this place was quite troubling. I read the reviews from the past before coming, and figured the building being too hot wouldn’t be an issue in October, nor would I need early check in, an elevator etc. However it ended up being much worse than I thought. There was a line to get into the hotel when we got there as no one could figure out the check in. There are not staff on site at all to assist. Once we figured out check in, we got to our room to discover it was in fact extremely warm. This made sleeping well almost impossible. But what made sleeping even harder was finding toe nails in our bed. I’m not confident they changed the bedding at all. Also, our tv was shattered. The room is not much bigger than the bed itself. I emailed my concerns to them and no one replied. This place sincerely needs to be looked at by the city of Köln

Centrally located which was great for getting to all the tourist places but so noisy as everyone makes they’re way around. A lot of street dwellers contribute to this, by playing loud music! This place is self check in, so if your not confident with your IT skills and prefer to engage with a human, this may not be the place for you. There’s no early check in or bag drop, we had to use the lockers at the station. There’s no lift, so our room on top floor was an endurance with a 20kg bag. Within the building it was noisy, from other residents, to the point I had to shout to turn the volume down in the TV! The room was comfy and beds cosy. The fridge and coffee facilities great. The shower cubicle was tiny and whilst trying to close the bifolding doors, I knocked the hot water tap to full blast and then managed to poach my skin! I’m not a big person either. There was a guy working in a small room on the ground floor, helping if he was there, but there is no 24 hour reception.