We recently spent three nights at the Radisson Blu in Stralsund. Overall, I would have to give this hotel top marks, but with a few comments.

The Good: The hotel itself is of high quality, and the staff, particularly Ina at the check-in desk, were just excellent all around. We have a one year old, so we are a little more demanding than the average customer, but the staff handled our requests with ease, be it a fan, water heater, getting baby food heated up, or some oatmeal for breakfast. I cannot say enough good things about the staff, both at the front desk and the restaurant . Even the cleaning staff was friendly as we passed them in the halls.

The breakfast, although pricy (get it in the room rate if you can) at €18/person was of high quality. We have been at other high end hotels in the past and noticed that the breakfast went down in quality on Saturday and Sunday mornings (when presumably there are more leisure travelers paying lower room rates). This was not the case here – the same items were available every morning.

The room itself was of good quality. Radisson pitches itself as a competitor to Mariott and Sofitel. Other Radissons that I have stayed at were of that caliber. However this one just wasn’t there. But this hotel is a bit of an oddball – it is a Radisson, but it is also geared for families with the attached HanseDom. If you are expecting the sobriety of a business class hotel, you will be let-down. However, if you are expecting a very high class family hotel, you will be well rewarded.

The hotel does have some faults with its facility. There seem to be two types of rooms – with and without balconies. The balcony rooms overlook the Hansedom – those without overlook a supermarket/mall. This in itself is not a problem – the mall has a green roof and is not an eyesore. However, there is a problem that the delivery trucks start rolling up before 5am and keep going for several hours, starting and idling their diesel motors, which makes the room rather noisy. At one point on Friday morning, there were 13 trucks parked outside.

Trucks by themselves would not be a problem, but the room has no circulation. Zero. If you want circulation, you need to open the windows (of which there are four). With the windows open (even with the blinds closed), there is adequate circulation, but the constant sounds of trucks starting and idling was impossible to sleep to. Closing the room sealed out the sound, but it became instantly stuffy and warm. There is also a little swamp between the hotel and the supermarket which ensures that there is a constant supply of mosquitoes in the room if the windows are open. I count at least 15 dead mosquitoes on the ceiling and walls (probably half of which I left there). We didn’t sleep well the first night. Pay for either a balcony room or make sure that you get a fan at check in. With a fan, we slept well the following two nights after letting the room cool down (by opening the windows) for a few hours in the evening.

The bathroom has a passing scent of sewage. It is not present most of the time, but when you use the sink, somehow some gas escapes the drain and you get a little whiff of it. It is not enough for me to say that you should not stay here, but management really should address why it is happening. It is not pleasant and should not happen at a four star hotel. The shower also needs better pressure. It took my wife over ten minutes to get the shampoo out of her hair, and her hair is only shoulder length. I understand that toiletries add quite a bit to the cost of running a hotel and I like the fact that hotels are now using larger bottles of soap and shampoo rather than the disposable ones that you usually find. However I would also expect a four star hotel to have a bottle for soap and a bottle for shampoo. The combined soap/shampoo bottle doesn’t work well for either. So, kudos for saving the environment, but please don’t be so cheap – give us real shampoo and real soap.

My final comment is about their phone – they seem to not pick it up when you call them (from outside – not problems calling from in the hotel). I needed to make a small change to my reservation and waited on hold for 20 minutes before I gave up and emailed them (they called me back in less than five minutes!). Then when we were driving to the hotel we took a wrong turn and called for directions. After waiting on hold for 10 minutes (from a foreign cell phone, no less), we gave up and found our way here ourselves. Again, a four star hotel should not have you on hold for so long before they pick up the phone.

Staying at the hotel also allows you to visit the HanseDom at a discount. What is really nice is that the hotel key and the HanseDom key are RFID based. The hotel key clips to your belt, the HanseDom key is actually a wrist strap that also works for payment inside of the park, so you don’t need to bring anything along that can get stolen. HanseDom charges are put onto your room bill, and the restaurant inside is very reasonably priced.

Overall, I would most certainly stay here again. The shortcomings of the hotel were more than counterbalanced by the can-do and friendly attitude of the staff.