Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SpaceAnemone]

The three hostels are all very central; which one one better really depends on what exactly you would like to do.

I'm particularly thinking terms of assessing the availability of shared social space that's private enough for us to cook, eat and play board games/mafia together without being too disturbed by other guests there (or us disturbing too many other people!) and without having to pay money (i.e. markup on food and drink) to sit in a bar/snack/cafe area.

[faust]

The three hostels are all very central; which one one better really depends on what exactly you would like to do.

I'm particularly thinking terms of assessing the availability of shared social space that's private enough for us to cook, eat and play board games/mafia together without being too disturbed by other guests there (or us disturbing too many other people!) and without having to pay money (i.e. markup on food and drink) to sit in a bar/snack/cafe area.

I hope my scouting will shed some light on that

M earlier remarks are just stuff I can say without actually looking at the place.

[gkrieg13]

Ok, this is what we talked about in our last meeting:

Location

We decided that we will stay in one of these 3 options.  We plan to vote on these options and then are trying to book one of them in the next week or so (at least that is what I remember, correct me if I'm wrong).

• https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/16863581?checkin=2017-08-09&checkout=2017-08-13&guests=8 . This will be known as Deluxe from now on. Overall price: 1208 Euro (Don't want to figure out that symbol right now)
• http://www.booking.com/hotel/de/hauptapartments-sirdin.de.html . This will be known as Sirdin from now on. Overall price: 970 Euro.  This one has some inconsistencies in the pictures, and in the description and Calamitas is emailing them to figure out which is correct.
• https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/13106021?checkin=2017-08-09&checkout=2017-08-13&guests=8&adults=8 . This will be known as Gasometer from now on.  Overall price: 1210 Euro

There are plusses and minuses to each one.  Deluxe is much closer to center than the other two, which are about 25 minutes by train away.  We figured that can add up to a sizable amount of time, especially if you go out more than once a day.

Another note, is that even the most expensive option at 1210 Euros is 37.8 Euro pppn.

One other option if we get 2 more people would be: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/3521369?guests=8&adults=8&s=XtKzoHfX&check_in=2017-08-09&check_out=2017-08-13 .  This one isn't financially feasible until then, just one to keep on the radar.

Miscellaneous
We were looking at travel cards, and it looks like a 4 day travel card (although I was thinking more about this and we would probably need a 5 day travel card if I'm not mistaken) is around 40 Euros.  On this site: https://www.berlin-welcomecard.de/en/buy-tickets .  The strange thing about this, and something we wanted to ask faust, was why the price for the passes for +Museum Island were more expensive.  Does that mean that the other passes don't travel to places on Museum Island?  Or are the museum entrance fees included if you get that welcome card.  Also, how big is the zone "Museum Island".  I think that sums up all those questions.

I was thinking about this more, and I might as well just make a poll in this thread where we pick our top option, and go with the one with the most votes, unless anyone is opposed to that.  I'll give everyone a couple of days to voice an concerns with that plan and then create a poll.

We also didn't plan a next time to skype, because people had to go.  I think we have all of the main things planned that we need to plan this far in advance, so I'm not sure we need another skype call until closer to the actual meetup.

[Joseph2302]

According to the description, Gasometer only has 5 beds (3 Queen size and 2 sofa). We need 6 beds.

Also the Air bnb ones don't include the 5% city tax.

[faust]

The strange thing about this, and something we wanted to ask faust, was why the price for the passes for +Museum Island were more expensive.  Does that mean that the other passes don't travel to places on Museum Island?  Or are the museum entrance fees included if you get that welcome card.  Also, how big is the zone "Museum Island".  I think that sums up all those questions.

The museum island is a very small area in central Berlin, and included in tariff zone A. I strongly assume that "72 h Berlin + Museum Island" means free entrance to all the museums located there.

[faust]

The strange thing about this, and something we wanted to ask faust, was why the price for the passes for +Museum Island were more expensive.  Does that mean that the other passes don't travel to places on Museum Island?  Or are the museum entrance fees included if you get that welcome card.  Also, how big is the zone "Museum Island".  I think that sums up all those questions.

The museum island is a very small area in central Berlin, and included in tariff zone A. I strongly assume that "72 h Berlin + Museum Island" means free entrance to all the museums located there.

Double checked this on their website, and yes, my assumption was correct.

[SpaceAnemone]

According to the description, Gasometer only has 5 beds (3 Queen size and 2 sofa). We need 6 beds.

Also the Air bnb ones don't include the 5% city tax.

If you remember, this was talked about, and we agreed it's enough because there are sofa beds in addition to the actual beds, and one person on a double sofa bed should be okay.

[Calamitas]

Okay, so let's accumulate all the pros and cons we talked about.

Sirdin
 - Decent common space
 - Cheaper than the other options
 - Enough single beds
 - Farther from central than DeLuxe (~20min by train to Brandenburg Gate)
 - Beds quite close to each other 
 - Unsure whether it includes a private room for gkrieg and kkrieg, so still a maybe until I check


DeLuxe
 - Central location (1km to Alexanderplatz, 1.7km to Berliner Dom, 3.2km to Brandenburg Gate)
 - Not as much common space for boardgames and mafia
 - Two people would be required to sleep on sofa beds
 
Gasometer
 - By far the most common space for board games and mafia (two sofas + big table)
 - One person would need to sleep on a sofa bed
 - Farther from central than DeLuxe (similar to Sirdin)

If something is wrong or if I have forgotten something I will edit the list.

[Calamitas]

Also, a better link for the gasometer one is the following:
http://www.booking.com/hotel/de/huge-apartment-at-gasometer-17.en-gb.html

[Calamitas]

I think it is best if we have some discussion about the places and then a vote afterwards.

[gkrieg13]

The strange thing about this, and something we wanted to ask faust, was why the price for the passes for +Museum Island were more expensive.  Does that mean that the other passes don't travel to places on Museum Island?  Or are the museum entrance fees included if you get that welcome card.  Also, how big is the zone "Museum Island".  I think that sums up all those questions.

The museum island is a very small area in central Berlin, and included in tariff zone A. I strongly assume that "72 h Berlin + Museum Island" means free entrance to all the museums located there.

Double checked this on their website, and yes, my assumption was correct.

Thank you for doing that!  For some reason I couldn't figure it out.

[gkrieg13]

Well kkrieg and I want to advocate for the place in the central location. The common space definitely looks big enough for whatever we want to do, and being that central (really just one metro stop from the museums is a big deal to us. 25 minutes isn't too far away, but it is a lot further away from center if you leave the apartment 2 times in one day. Deluxe could potentially save 1hr 40min per day.

[Calamitas]

I just compared travel times for all the top sights of Berlin according to the website below for the DeLuxe appartment and the Gasometer one. If I haven't screwed up completely the results were totally different than the ones I expected.
http://www.visitberlin.de/en/article/berlins-top-10-attractions

According to Google maps, this spreadsheet shows the time needed to reach the different places via train usage from the given appartments. In case of Deluxe I have used Brückenstraße, Berlin as location because there is no exact address on airbnb. The used point is quite central within the circle shown at the airbnb site though.



Update: Serdin and the missing sights included
Update2: Averages included

[gkrieg13]

Wow.  Well I'm glad you did that.  That actually changes a lot of things.

[Calamitas]

With the new information I would say that Deluxe and Gasometer are quite close in terms of location while Serdin is a bit worse.

[gkrieg13]

With the new information I would say that Deluxe and Gasometer are quite close in terms of location while Serdin is a bit worse.

Could you do an average?

[Calamitas]

With the new information I would say that Deluxe and Gasometer are quite close in terms of location while Serdin is a bit worse.

Could you do an average?

Done

[gkrieg13]

Hmmmmm.  4 minutes is like nothing on average.  To me, this means that I don't really care location-wise which one we end up in. 

[Calamitas]

Hmmmmm.  4 minutes is like nothing on average.  To me, this means that I don't really care location-wise which one we end up in.

Yep, same goes for me.

[Joseph2302]

Interesting. I was supporting Deluxe as #1 as I thought it was the most "in town" place. But looks like location of all of them is pretty similar.

[gkrieg13]

Interesting. I was supporting Deluxe as #1 as I thought it was the most "in town" place. But looks like location of all of them is pretty similar.

Deluxe might still be closer to restaurants and stuff.  Faust might know better which one is best location-wise, but it seems that if you want to go to the top 10 tourist locations, it doesn't actually matter which one we pick.

[Calamitas]

I am currently leaning towards Gasometer as my number 1.

I just like the living room in there, the sofas and the table are really big and we would be able to host faust and eevee and other people in there without problems.
Location-wise, I don't think that there is a significant difference because our main activities will be touristy and the travel times don't vary much there.
Even if restaurants and stuff are closer to a certain accommodation it shouldn't matter too much because the potential time loss would be quite small (<20min assumably).

The problem with that place is that someone would be required to sleep on the sofa (I personally wouldn't like that) but it is probably still better than having the beds as close together as in Sirdin or having two people on sofas as in deluxe.

Edit: Spelling :-D

[faust]

someone would be required to sleep on the safe

That does sound uncomfortable 

[Calamitas]

someone would be required to sleep on the safe

That does sound uncomfortable 

[SpaceAnemone]

Hi from a trip to Wales that I'm on with five of my friends :-) My experience here is telling me that a very important item for our wishlist should be getting more than one or two keys to our chosen apartment. We have two between six here, and it's not really enough to let us all go off and be independent...

Also, thanks for the travel timings, Calamitas! I think the numbers are a bit skewed because most of the interesting central stuff is close to each other and doable in one trip (like the Bundestag dome, the Brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial and potsdamer platz, or museums and the TV tower), or are short bus hops from each other, so it's over-counting the travel time. Also, did you check whether the non-central places you listed are within the zones of our suggested travel pass?

We may get a clearer idea by putting together a rough example itinerary and then looking at the commuting times for that. I didn't even visit the two non-central places on your list a year ago because there was so much other interesting stuff that traveling out that way didn't seem necessary. We did go to an Easter event in a castle place for an afternoon that was right on the edge of the travel pass coverage.. that was really fun, actually, but I really don't have enough signal to look on Google maps to see if I can find what it was called :-(