Hotel De Kroon

Definitely A Contender For "World's Worst WiFi"!!

This is a stylishly-modern hotel in an elegantly refurbished, central, townhouse, close to the market square and within easy walking distance of the railway station. Rooms are spacious, interestingly-furnished and immaculately kept. The public areas, including the trendy bar/restaurant, are decidely arty in their decor and overall this is a good hotel.

It's not without its faults though.

When I arrived, early evening, there was only one member of staff on duty who was trying to serve in the restaurant, run the bar and look after reception. Check-in was a case of pretty much getting my room key thrown at me - which led to my first problem. I couldn't find my room! Not that the building is so rambling that the rooms are difficult to find but rather that the doors don't have any numbers on them!! (pics #2 and #3 ;))

So it was back down to reception to redisturb the barman/waiter who grumpily informed me that the room numbers are: "On the floor in front of the door." Yep, so they were. Woven into the pyjama-ishly striped carpet, at what I assume was a huge expense, are the room numbers, each in front of its own door. Well, call me old-fashioned if you like but...who looks at their feet when trying to open a door??

Anyway, that done I was initially impressed with my modishly minimalist room and, having had a quick splash, unpacked what I needed to unpack then went to set up my laptop. This proved to be yet another triumph of impractacility over designer-looks. What would be a nice big worksurface had no place to pull a chair up at except for at the end where it was impossible to tuck my legs comfortably. This required my own personal redesign of the fittings (ie moving the bed out of the way).

Then I found that I needed a password to access their internet.

Back downstairs again! This time the chef was on duty behind reception. He happily gave me the password and off upstairs I trotted thinking all my problems should now be solved and I can now relax, check my email etc and then plan my first evening in Oldenzaal.

Nope! The password didn't work.

Here we go again, probably wearing out the carpeted room number by now, back to the harried waiter/barman who gave me an alternative password, this time the hotel's T-mobile login details.

This did work and so finally that was me organised...temporarily.

There were no more hassles that evening and I had a pleasant night out exploring the town (well the first couple of bars anyway). The following day's breakfast and general service was excellent but the internet was to be the bugbear for my two days. I had both the hotel's own Wi-Fi and it's T-mobile log-ins but neither connection was consistent. The hotel's Wi-Fi kept cutting in and out and the T-mobile service would only work if no-one else was logged into it. This meant I was constantly having to swap between them and got quite paranoid about saving everything everytime I wrote more than half-a-dozen words - Grrr!!

Unique Quality: The Wi-Fi did annoy me but the main redeeming feature was the breakfast which really was excellent. The selection of cold meats (including the hotel's home-cured carpaccio), cheeses, yoghurts, fruit, breads, pastries (sweet and savoury), juices, cereals and excellent coffee made for a great start to each day. The woman serving (although it was a buffet) was friendly and kept my coffee topped-up even when I sat for a couple of hours with my laptop after eating and nothing (apart from the still dodgy connection) was a problem.

So on-balance the breakfast made up for the sins of the internet and I liked the town, and especially the pub, and the hotel was ideally located for both!

• Opinion of Price: about average
• Related to: Food and Dining, Luxury Travel, Arts and Culture

Hotel De Kroon Photo: Hotel Frontage

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