Welcome Kongress Hotel Bamberg

We have been coming to this hotel for years for its location,service and great breakfast. The prices have gone up, the quality of service down and breakfast is awful. The rooms are still nice and it's still a good location in Bamberg.

Our key criteria for choosing a hotel in Bamberg were: ease of road access (not desire to get caught up in the city centre traffic), safe car parking (we had our bikes on the back of the car) and an air conditioned room. The Kongresshotel met these requirements totally. English speaking reception staff were helpful and friendly and completed the checki-in process quickly. On arrival at our room we realised that the bathroom had a shower over a bath which these days is not our favourite choice - definitely prefer the safety of a walk-in shower. So we went straight back to reception to see if there were any rooms with walk-in showers. Unfortunately we were advised they did not have any. I have to admit this is might fault for not checking prior to booking! The suite was a reasonable size with a separate seating area; one settee and a one armchair. Neither were particularly comfortable but adequate for the limited time we would be on the room. The free- minibar was well stocked with soft drinks and two beers and was replenished daily - didn't expect that. The aircon worked reasonable well but I think it might have struggled if the weather had been any warmer. The room was a little tired in terms of decoration but perfectly clean. We owe an apology to the cleaning lady; the path outside the hotel (next to the river) is fine grit. Despite wiping our shoes on the entrance doormat, we clearly walked some of the grit into the lounge area of the room! So we soon learnt to take off our shoes and leave by the door. A shoe tray by the door might be a welcome addition? The breakfast buffet had plenty of choice and there were plenty of tables available....until we got to our last morning. Oh, were we in for a shock. We came down for breakfast at about 0900 expecting to see the usual near empty room only to find it was absolutely heaving with people - I guess multiple conferences on at the same time? There were even additional tables laid out in the reception area. After spending 5 minutes trying to find a table we gave up and decided to come back 45 minutes later. We did eventually get one but it was still very crowded. We did wonder at the time it there should have been a segregated area for hotel guests but I guess it's not practical to do that and could result in some tables being under utilised. While we were staying as 'tourists', this hotel makes a perfect location for meeting and conferences. Multiple large rooms available which appeared to be well kitted out (obviously we didn't go in but just looked through the door) and plenty of space to meet/chat outside of the conference rooms.