BoardingHouse Heidelberg

We (four adults) booked two rooms for two nights at BoardingWorld. We arrived at Heidelberg late in the day; I contacted the hotel by e-mail to explain this and ask about the late-checkin policy, and I was told this was not a problem and we could simply retrieve the room keycards from a safe just outside the entrance. When we arrived, the code I was given for the safe did not work, and there was nobody available at reception because of the time of day. I had to phone a hotel employee (who was fortunately still available). He gave me the safe emergency code, at first incorrectly, then finally correctly, and inside was an emergency key. The fact that we didn't have keycards —only an emergency key for the doors— meant we couldn't turn the room lights on, since they're the sort of hotel room where the lights only go on if you stick the keycards into a little slot on the wall inside the room. Nothing to be done about that. Both rooms reeked of cigarette smoke and had dirty floors. One of us is allergic to smoke and dust. Furthermore, one of the rooms had no functioning coffee machine, while the other one had no coffee machine at all. The fridge in one of the rooms was functional, but the freezer door was stuck, which was a problem because one of us had medication that needed to stay cold and we couldn't re-freeze our gel ice packs; I had previously explained the situation to the hotel and was told there were refrigerators and freezers in the rooms. I phoned the hotel employee again and asked for new rooms on account of the situation. He said he'd see what he could do and get back to me, which he did after a little while, saying there were no more rooms available and we'd have to make do with those. He advised us to complain the following morning at the hotel reception because there wasn't anyone there anymore at that time of day. The following day we went to the reception to complain abotu the situation and ask to be put in different rooms. The person at the reception was rude and refused to help us. After a brief discussion, I told him I wanted to cancel the hotel reservation and requested a refund. He gave me an e-mail address and instructed me to write there and explain the situation and my wishes. I did this the same day but had to wait two weeks for a reply. The person who replied asked me for a bank account so they could refund the price for one night; I had expected to get a full refund, which would have been the right thing to do given the miserable night we spent, but, thinking that was as much as I was going to get from them, I promptly gave them my bank details. The refund never arrived, not even I emailed them again two weeks later to ask about the refund status; I never even received a reply after this. Avoid this place at all cost. There's a wonderful little hotel called Hotel Exzellenz right across the street which I would highly recommend.

We had a brilliant stay at Boarding world! We only stayed one night but the beds were comfy, rooms clean and parking was free and secure. Location was ideal as just out of the centre which allowed for a nice walk. The only downside to the accommodation was there was no air con but they did supply and large fan and all the rooms had electric shutters to keep the rooms as cool as possible. On check out the receptionist gave us a free coffee cup and free body bag. These little extras were greatly appreciated and we have used them on our road trip through Europe. Would recommend Boarding world to all!

The room was big, modern and clean. It’s well located. The elevator wasn’t working and it was quite unpleasant to get to the fourth floor carrying our bags. There is no air conditioning in the room and it was a bit warm. There could have been better directions to where we could park the car, the parking lot was full and we drove a while to find a place with an available spot.