[ UPDATE 17th April 2015 ]
I made a complaint to Booking.com about this whole episode and they made me a refund for the two rooms for the extra part that we paid. i.e. 28 EUR per room that we paid extra at the new hotel. I do not know if Booking.com did it on their own or if they did something with the hotel. It good to see that there is some care in customer service by Booking.com. I think I can trust that website again.
Original Story continues below.
=========================================================================
This blog post is a public service announcement to warn others out there about this hotel:
Hotel Garni
Seebachstüble
Seebachstr. 43, 79822 Titisee-Neustadt
Seebachstr. 43, 79822 Titisee-Neustadt
These guys are a FRAUD! They take your reservation on
Booking.com and then totally change it when you reach! We booked 2 rooms, for
one night for 4 adults, for 80 EUR each, breakfast included, for the night of 4th April 2015.
When we reached the hotel, firstly there was no one there at
the reception, with a simple note on the door of a number to call. We found
this really strange.
Then a lady came by said “Hello” and then disappeared into
another room, without saying anything. Just “Hello! This lady actually made a phone
call inside that room. When she came out she told us that we are not staying
there but at another place and that a woman will come by in a car and take us
there. We asked her why aren’t we staying in this Hotel which we had booked for
us, and she said that her manager handles the booking and they only get the
information but no updates as to why and who is booked where. She also told us
that we are staying at another place and that someone is coming to take us
there. Another lady came with her car and then drove us to another building
with an apartment about 2 kilometres away.
At the apartment building, our friends had to take the
stairs because the lift could not take the load of 4 people, in spite of being
big enough. While getting to the apartment, the lift got stuck on the way up, between
the 1st and 2nd floor. She then opened the doors with her
hands, closed them again and then we got off at the 2nd floor. We
had to climb to the 3rd floor. We needed a lift or room on
ground/first floor because my wife is pregnant. We even mentioned this in our
notes on Booking.com.
They gave us an apartment, with small kitchen etc. that was meant
for a family of 2 adults and 2 children, and not 2 rooms like we had booked. It
had bunk beds!! They expected two adults to sleep in bunk beds! How are we to
fit in that? This apartment was also not worth 160 EUR, which is what I believe
they would have charged us!
Also, for breakfast they expected us to go to the other
hotel 2kms away. We had no car, and they planned to subject my wife to walking
2kms for breakfast! Useless people.
The useless, unprofessional manager refused to even come and
speak to us in person and later stopped picking his phone. When we refused to
stay in the alternate apartment they just left us at another hotel. At the
other hotel we had to pay for more expensive rooms.
So please, do not ever book with this hotel at all. Do not
subject yourself to this kind of torture.
Please help spread the word.
On a side note, in my opinion Titisee is not worth visiting
at all, at least not in Winter. The lake view is nice but there is nothing to do
at all, even if the lake is not frozen. Maybe it is better in the summer, with more activities.
The famous Black Forest cake is also largely over rated.
There was no non-alcoholic version of the cake that we could find and therefore
my wife could not even get a taste of the cake!
Fancy some shopping?
