Our group to Poland decided to go to Berlin a day early this year to make our travel home day a little more bearable (it’s a two hour drive from Szczecin, Poland to the airport in Berlin). In doing so, we stayed two nights at the Best Western Premier Hotel MOA Berlin (yep, it’s a mouth full) and we were all impressed. Even though the curb appeal isn’t all that great (it sits over a grocery store and restaurant), it gets 4.4 out of 5 stars on Expedia for a reason… it’s nice on the inside!
My wife and I found the rooms to be clean, the bathroom spacious, and the bed comfortable. The windows of most of the rooms look in to the indoor courtyard of the hotel (the area you see in most of the pictures of the hotel), however they have an electronically controlled shade that makes the room basically pitch black, even in the middle of the day (a nice change from the room we had in Poland). We found the hotel to be very quite as well (except when Germany won the World Cup… but I mean, come on! THATS not every day), which was great for catching up on some much needed sleep.
The hotel is conveniently located just down the street from the Birkenstrasse U station, though Google Maps thought it would be more convenient to get there by bus from the Hauptbahnhof train station in downtown Berlin. With luggage, it maybe was a little easier (there is nothing worse than navigating stairs trying to deal with a lot of luggage at the same time), but it is about a 10 minute walk from the bus stop on Rathenower Strasse where Google Maps dropped us off. If you’ve got a light load, I might consider just taking the subway and shortening your walk. Speaking of buses and subways, the front desk of the hotel sells all day passes for public transportation at the same price you’ll find them elsewhere, which we found to be extremely convenient.
The only downsides to the hotel were the evening staff and lack of a decent breakfast option. The night shift seemed to be in need of some quality customer service training as they were quite rude. Luckily, the day shift didn’t suffer from the same shortcoming and were very helpful. The hotel does not include a free breakfast option, but rather offers a buffet for 18 euros. We are admittedly spoiled here in the US with free continental breakfasts, so paying for breakfast is nothing new… but 18 euros for a buffet is a bit of a stretch. All in all we found the restaurant in the hotel to be a complete ripoff. Luckily there are options very close by. One floor down is a Chinese restaurant that was as good as any buffet here in the US, and if you’re after breakfast, there is a bakery right beside the entrance to the U station just down the street. There are several other options for lunch and dinner in that same area, so don’t feel stuck at the hotel. Also, the bakery in the grocery store below the hotel was tasty and served us quite well.
–Dan Thompson