Welcome Hotel

For some reason my room was not serviced during my stay

We stayed here for four nights in one of the 'executive suites'.

The good:
- The room setup worked well for us. Having two on suite bedrooms and a kitchen living area gives a lot of flexibility when staying as a family.
- There are a good number of activities close to the hotel such as a playground, beach, and the Roman ruins in Xanten.
- The hotel restaurant serves good food and the breakfast buffet has a good amount of choice.

The not so good:
- The downstairs lobby has been renovated nicely but the condition of the rooms is inadequate. Carpets are stained, blinds were stained, curtains had rips some of the furniture looked like it belonged in a charity shop. Some of the kitchen unit particle board was disintegrating because it's probably 20 years old. Decor just looks super dated.
- Generally, I did not get the feeling that the staff was very service orientated. Some examples:
1) We have 2 year old twins and whenever we go to a restaurant the waiting staff will ask if we need high chairs and get them for us. Not here, every morning I had to walk around the restaurant collecting chairs for the kids. Why?
2) On our first day the maintenance guys randomly showed up to our room saying they were there to unclog the drain. We had not asked for them to come round. So it looks like the hotel provided us with a room which they knew has an issue but they did not tell us and then act like it is normal that the drain needs to be regularly unclogged. Making it worse was that when the maintenance guys were done they literally said. 'well we are done, we will see if housekeeping can come to clean up today but we are not sure. Otherwise it will be tomorrow. You've got two bathrooms so it's fine.' in the end housekeeping did not come at all. All very strange.
3) You have to ask reception if you want housekeeping to clean your room. Again strange, I think this should be opt out rather than opt in. Surely one the reasons to stay in a hotel is that someone comes to clean for you every day
- I thought staying on the Rhine would be a more peaceful experience. Watching the barges is sort of interesting for a bit but ultimately they are not things of beauty and they also produce constant background noise.
- Final point, and this has been mentioned by other reviews the 8 Euro parking charge is kind of BS. Realistically the vast majority of people coming to stay in the hotel are coming by car unless they are doing some kind of cycling tour. Really it's just an 8 Euro supplement on every room. Not sure about the pricing but I can imagine that this would easily add 10% for many of the guests. There are also charges for extra coffee pods. If stay somewhere 4-5 nights it'd be nice to have these replenished daily for free. They also charge extra if you need cutlery when staying in a room with a kitchen. All this feels a bit too much like a budget airline.

Conclusion: while this hotel is not expensive I am not convinced that it provides good value.