After having a disastrous start in Hamburg with the Holiday Inn Express St Pauli-Messe we booked this hotel online 5 minutes before checking in. The hotel was clean, the staff were friendly and spoke English well, the room was a good size and the place was good value for money. There were a few little touches we found that made it a great stay including leaving little packets of gummy bears on our pillows and having an area to sit in the foyer where you could use the internet for free. The area in the foyer had dishes of chocolate and candy you could help yourself to while using the free internet and they also provided a computer you could use for internet access.
A few people have mentioned they felt a bit unsafe in the area around the hotel. There was one block which felt a tiny bit unsafe but there were always lots of people around and both the hotel and the tourist information office said that it was fine. You just needed to be a bit streetwise and make sure you chose to walk along the main road to get to the station.
Overall I would recommend this hotel as it was close to both the bus and the train station (about 5 minutes walk) and there were quite a lot of places to eat nearby. It was also only about a 10 minute walk into the city. It was good value as well as being comfortable and clean.

I stayed at the Best Western St Raphael whilst visiting Hamburg with my mother. It is in the central district of St Georg only a few hundred meters from the central train station. It is actually slightly closer to the Beim Strohmhaus entrance of Berliner Tor U/S bahn station. I used to live in St Georg so I am fully aware of its reputation but the location of the hotel means you do not need to see the worst parts of the district. I wouldn't have taken my mother there if I didn't think it was safe!

+ Clean, well presented rooms
+ Central location
+ Friendly, helpful staff
+ Excellent public transport links only a short walk away

- Next to main road so can be a bit noisy
- St Georg isn't the nicest district in Hamburg
- Not many nice bars/restaurants within walking distance

I stayed here with my husband during a conference, whose sponsors chose the hotel. The lobby was small and visually confusing but the reception was very pleasant. The room was oddly decorated, part of a presumably creative design program that used up precious inches of space in a small room. There was just about enough horizontal space for what we needed to put on horizontal spaces. The bed, set at an odd angle, was comfortable with good pillows. The tiny bathroom had the most cramped shower stall I've ever seen but we did fit into it and both the temperature and water pressure were good. The breakfast buffet is lavish and abundant, served in pleasant rooms but it costs 22 Euros so if you don't want to gorge yourself, you might find a less costly normal-sized breakfast elsewhere.. Bath amenities: hand towels, bath towels, liquid soap (mislabeled shampoo, which it also was), shower cap. A previous writer complained about noise from the subway but it was audible only in the bathroom and hardly audible at that---at least on the 4th floor. The hotel is two long blocks from the Hauptbahnhof (main RR station) and one long block from one end of the block-long central bus station. It's within a 15-20 minute walking distance of major sights (e.g. town hall, Alster arcades, Chile Haus and the warehouse district near it, and even closer to the Kunsthalle (art museum) and the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe (art, and also other things museum).

Hotel has a good location, nearby there is train station and a lot of shops. There are a few minuses whic could be annoying.
Pluses:
Free internet
Rooms are clean
Good beds
Nice brakfast
The reception people are firnedly.
Minuses:
You have to carry your siutcase 6-8 steps to get to the elevator (i could not find a ramp or an alternative entrence) :(
Most of the rooms are small - but for business needs and 1 person they are adequate.
They have bigger and nicer rooms so don't hesitate to ask.

I am a non somker, amd I don't mind a skomers room as long as it is well ventilated, however a somkers room that they gave me was not, so I had to change.

Parking is free on the street ouside after 18:00 until 8:00 otherways you can use the hotel parking for a price.