Carathotel Düsseldorf City in Dusseldorf

Location is their best selling point, being on Oststrasse, a short direct walk to the Ubahn station. About 20 mins walk to Altstadt. There's a huge Edeka (supermarket) and a lovely breakfast place (Oehme) just round the corner.

The check-in is self service, automated at a station with an ipad. Which also means it's highly unlikely to get an early check-in nor choice of room preference (eg 1 double bed or 2 single beds for a double room), with everything pre-programmed.

The room and bathroom are fairly spacious by Europe standards. Generally clean though I think it's about time they change the shower heads in the standing shower, which appear old, rusty and keeps leaking too. Limited amenities so BYO toothbrush and toothpaste. The bed and pillows are too soft for my liking and the hair dryer power is weak. Room lighting tend to be dim. They don't have a phone in the room so if you run out of amenities (tissue paper in my case) you have to go down to the reception personally to request for it. I like that they provide a bottle of water at the start of the stay and you can bring it to the front desk for free refills.

The window can be opened slightly ajar but the table in front of it is so wide I had to climb onto it to reach the window. Housekeeping service is extremely lacking. I asked for the tissue box in the room to be refilled twice and it was never done. For a 5-night stay, they did not change the bed linens at all. The deal breaker came one of the nights, where my door was not fully closed after housekeeping cleaned the room when I was out! I noticed there's also no security camera along the walkway so if something was lost, they would not have been able to check. Luckily nothing was lost but this is unacceptable.

A pricey stay for such a standard.