Axel Hotel

Für mich und meinen Partner immer das Hotel der Wahl. Die Lage ist perfekt um Berlin zu Fuß und per U-​Bahn zu erkunden.
Zugegeben, schwarze Wände sind nicht jedermanns Geschmack, trotzdem finde ich die Zimmer hell und geräumig genug. Einzig ein Schrank fehlt.
Die Zimmer habe ich bisher immer sauber und ordentlich vorgefunden, der Service ist sehr freundlich und zuvorkommend.
Den Spa-​Bereich habe ich noch nicht benutzt.

I book a room at the Axel for my 40^th birthday and had 3 other friends book rooms there at the same time too. It all started out great and the hotel was nice. Our Junior Suites were a nice size, had great bathrooms and the blackout curtains were very helpful. Everyone was very accommodating especially Paul, Davey and Don in the lounge.
I had two issues. The first was one of the front desk guys would listen in on our conversations in the lobby before we would go out and then message us on Grindr about them. At first I had no idea who this was and was wondering how someone had known what I was doing when I only talked to my friends about these things but then figured it out. The funny thing is he would never even say hi or even look at us when we were downstairs but was very chatty online and knew all about what we were doing and had done. CREEPY! The second issue is that the day after I checked out and was back home unpacking my luggage, I realized that I had left $ 500 worth of clothes in a drawer in the wardrobe. I immediately called the hotel and asked if they could ship me my clothes and I would pay for it. The guy at the front desk said he would check with housekeeping and get back to me the next day. He took my email and phone number but there was no response back at all. I tipped housekeeping well when I left but I guess they didn’t care about that or my clothes. It would have been quite obvious that I had left my clothes on accident since it was packed full. The fact that they did not respond back to me or that housekeeping didn’t even turn anything in is really maddening and piss poor customer service, especially after we booked 4 rooms there and spent a good amount of money in the lounge too. I know it is my fault I left my stuff but they could have returned it since it was a lot.
I doubt I will stay here again after these incidents which is too bad because I liked the hotel.

A tasteful, ultra modern hotel aimed at the gay market, though badged as ‘hetero-​friendly’. Almost all the walls are black, except for those that are mirrors, which can make finding your way around feel a little weird on the first day. Nice comfortable rooms with plenty of space and a huge walk in shower. However, beware that the shower is entirely housed in glass, so whoever you might share a room with can see you in the shower! Also, most of the artwork is rather homo-​erotic.
Very friendly English speaking reception staff and bar staff. I found that the bar on the ground floor was the perfect meeting place for a drink before heading out for the evening.
Cross the road in front of the hotel and less than 5 minutes walk brings you to Wittemburg Platz with its U-​Bahn station and the famous KaDeWe store.
Rooftop spa is a nice place for an afternoon relax including the outdoor hot tub. However, beware, the floor can be extremely slippery with wet feet. There is a rooftop bar which would be a nice place to relax in the warmer summer months, however as I visited in January it was closed.
Good, fast wifi thought the hotel. I’ll definitely return. A nice place to stay, though it’s just a tad too expensive for what it is.

It was my first experience in such a hotel (hetero friendly). Axel is a gay hotel so as you could expect is very openminded. The room was small even the one I booked was a superior room. The room had a funny smell which wasn’t really pleasant shall we say. As well there is a lot of black in the hotel so is a quite dark hotel, rooms have a lot of dark and open shower, so if you need privacy this is not the sort of hotel to share a room with a friend. The shower was for sure designed for a crowd since is really spacious. The staff weren’t the most polite either, a bit «precious» and unprofessional. The hotel has a spa area which is nice. And is on the top floor, where they as well have a roof terrace and bar.

Location was great, building and facilities were nice. Room has little storage space and no closet space. Key card didn’t work (even when key card was «fixed» once), safe malfunctioned more than once, stain on bed sheets when I entered the room. Hotel staff worked to address problems but didn’t seem sympathetic to my escalating frustrations with the overall experience. Never have I had as many problems with a hotel room, nor been met with a staff that didn’t try to overcompensate for a bad experience. I’ll try other hotels in the area before I’ll use Axel again.

Great location and the rooms are clean. Very nice staff. Stayed for 10 days. No problems.

Reasonably priced hotel in Schoenberg. However, rooms tiny, bizarrely designed, no window in toilet, no grab-​bars in tub. Breakfast and other food at Hamburger Mary’s is unspeakable. Desk personnel range from very good down to incompetent! Wi-​fi works. Laundry efficient but expensive.
Charmless place. Decent sauna and hot-​tub.
I would recommend with minor reservations. Excellent Turkish bakery across street for breakfast.

Ein schwules Hotel in Berlin — eigentlich eine schöné Idee. Wer es nicht weit in den schwulen Kiez rund um den Nolendorfplatz haben will, hat es vom Axel-​Hotel aus tatsächlich nicht weit. Auch der Kudamm ist ruckzuck zu erreichen. Top-​Lage!
Die Zimmer sollen offenbar Darkroom-​Atmosphäre verbreiten. Zumindest war das Fenster nicht viel mehr als ein Schlitz, die Beleuchtung spärlich und die Wände schwarz gestrichen. Wer hier mehrere Tage verbringen muss, könnte depressiv werden. Unhygienisch und billig wirken die Holzverkleidungen im Zimmer.
Wer automatisch davon ausgeht, dass Homoletten in Stil– und Design-​Fragen immer ganz vorne dabei sind, wird im Frühstücksraum und im Bistro eines Besseren belehrt. Schon klar: Die bunt-​schrille Aufmachung soll vermutlich Berlins Gay-​Szene abbilden. Tatsächlich kommt hier aber eher Party-​Keller-​Atmosphäre auf. Aber gut, wer den Jumbo-​Center auf Grand Canaria für das Nonplusultra hält, wird auch die öffentlichen Bereiche im Axel-​Hotel verkraften.
Nett, zuvorkommend und unkompliziert war der Service. Dass sich der Koch für ein Päuschen zwischendurch in den Frühstücksraum in eine Ecke flezt, macht mir zwar nicht den Tag kaputt, hinterlässt aber einen unprofessionellen Eindruck.

Me alojé con mi novia dos noches y quedamos encantados. Las habitaciones son pequeñas y sin armario, si vas más tiempo que una escapada mejor coge una Junior Suite.

Rooms here, while being small are pretty chic. I wouldn’t recommend paying 125plus Euro here, but I’ve definitely stayed in worse for more.
I went to the spa and wash shocked at the lack of service. I don’t mean people attending to me… I mean, a working shower or even TOWELS! There were none.
Overall, given the location I would say it’s definitely worth checking out, but if paying a premium, there may be other options… unless of course you want the gay experience :)

Axel is in the heart of gay scene and in reasonable proximity to airport and train station. While the hotel was a good value, we found it lacking in guest service. The front desk was consistently indifferent to questions and requests. As experienced travelers, we have learned to read between the lines when planning trips via online research and our experience here simply did not meet expectations. The rooms at Axel, while chic in design, are tight with little storage space and no closet. Bathrooms (ours, at least) are very nice but clearly designed for couples. We paid a premium for the New Year’s event held in the hotel and it was very disappointing, hosted by a broken down drag queen that was running another gig around the corner at the same time.
Free wifi but for ONE device only and connection is very slow. I am sure Axel is the perfect location and accommodation for many… just not for us.

This was a hotel with attitude that did not earn it. It is more like a wanna sex club with black halls and rooms. The cleaning person only cleaned one out two days stay and smelled so bad it lingered in the room. They returned my laundry request unclean because I left it outside my room inside of delivering it to the front desk. They were less than helpful with guidance about the city. It is connected to a hamburger Mary’s that has no business. I expect this hotel not to last and with this level of service it should not but here’s the review anyway

Nice hotel. Kind service. BFast was ok. Quite clean. Very close to Ubhan station.
Very small SPA. Too expensive for what it gives.

I wish to write a better review than Jamie D.‘s with her stupid «had we known the community it caters to» bullshit.
However, I have stayed at the Axel Hotel Buenos Aires and this is NOT a twin to that hotel or its experience. The hotel layout is odd. There seems to be more room than is needed after the hotels and when you finally get to the rooms. Once you get to the rooms they are laid out as Paul M stated «like a bathhouse». Well I don’t know what community he is part of but suffice to say I saw none of such action.
Jaime D does state quite rightly that the showers are indiscreet but the wall for the shower, though glass was red glass and didn’t allow for a clear shot while you were showering because that glass wall faced the door to the room which was closed.
We had to wait a half hour to get into our room though we arrived long after check in. We were encouraged to take a seat at the bar and we did and we drank. In the guide it will tell you you get a welcome drink complimentary but sure enough it showed up at an elevated price on our bill.
The room was small. The hotel spa & fitness center was a shadow of the large (2 pools!) recreation and fitness area of the Argentina hotel. For the gays, & frankly, I think everyone, the hotel was convenient to everything with a centrally connected train station, just a short block away.
The staff are super friendly and helpful for gays looking for places to go though their idea of «not wild» and your Non-​Berlin idea of «not wild» may be very, very different. This is not a nightlife for the innocent.
I may stay here again if I was ever in town but only if the price was right. Everyone else had friends staying at the much acclaimed Soho House and that seemed well worth the price point.

Unfortunately I stayed at this hotel with five straight guys. If I’d been with five gay guys and in town for partying, this would have been a great place to be!
The place is definitely forward-​thinking, and it was a kind of interesting atmosphere. Like it’s got an older, classy feel to it but with a modern skankiness on top. The walls are all painted black. There’s a lot of gold and white accenting.
The rooms were uncomfortable for a group of backpackers, as there is no wall between the shower and bed… and lots of mirrors. Let’s just say that I would have loved this place back when I was in a relationship, and the rooms would fit right in in Vegas.
Beware if you’re not someone with an open mind when it comes to alternative sexualities, as their slogan is «hetero friendly». (Which I absolutely loved… I’m sad I didn’t buy a t-​shirt!) Also, they had an additional option besides the usual «clean» and «do not disturb» placards you place on the door handles: «PLEASE disturb». Hahaha, love it.
For what we needed — a place to sleep that was easily accessible from the rest of Berlin — it served its purpose. Had we known the community it caters to, we probably would have chosen another hotel. (Hotels .com wasn’t very clear on this point.)

Ich muss geschäftlich nach Berlin und meine Chefin hat mich damit beauftragt, eine Herberge für uns zu suchen. Nun, zum Glück haben wir es heutzutage nicht mehr so schwer wie Maria und Josef und dank Expedia und den Tipps von ein paar Freunden habe ich schnell eine Liste von Hotels zur Auswahl.
Das Motto des Axel Hotels — «Wir sind ein Heterofreundliches Schwulenhotel!» — hat sofort meine Aufmerksamkeit erregt und ich entscheide mich, das nun einmal auf die Probe stellen. Gesagt getan… ich rufe an und will eine Reservierung für uns beide machen. Mit der jungen Dame von der Reservierung bin ich gleich per Du, was anscheinend ein wichtiger Teil des Brandings dieser Hotelkette ist… jung, cool, und hipp!
Nun, das wäre ja auch alles soweit okay, wenn denn auch nur auch noch für die Servicekomponente stimmen würde. (Ich muss gleich hinzufügen, dass ich lange Zeit in der 5-​Sterne Hotellerie gearbeitet habe und ich deshalb guten Service praktisch mit der Muttermilch aufgesogen habe!) Aber leider ließ der Service hier echt zu wünschen übrig:
1.) Ich kann keine Reservierung übers Telefon machen, sondern muss meine Reisedaten per Email schicken… so’n Blödsinn!
2.) Meine Reservierungsbestätigung sieht grauslig aus… total
unprofessionell.
3.) Als ich dann anrufe, um eine neue Reservierungsbestätigung zu bekommen, wird mein Wunsch irgendwie als total übertrieben abgestempelt und es bedurfte noch zwei weiterer Anrufe, bis ich eine halbwegs adrette Bestätigung hatte.
4.) Als ich dann nach meiner Ankunft noch einen Wunsch hatte und ich deswegen die Rezeption anrief, ging niemand ans Telefon… ich meine NIEMAND! Wie kann das denn sein? Ich habe es viermal versucht…
Zum Hotel selber kann ich nur sagen: Geschmacksache. Laut Tripadvisor haben über 300 Leute dieses Hotel als total toll befunden… aber das kann man dann wohl dem hohen Entertainment-​Wert dieses Hotels zuschreiben (ich sage nur Spa-​Bereich) und nicht der Ausstattung oder dem Service.
Apropos Ausstattung, da scheiden sich ja sowieso die Geister, aber für meine Verhältnisse war das ganze Hotel zu… zu… zu wannabe cool! In der Tat, wer die W-​Hotels dieser Welt mag, der wird wohl auch das Axel Hotel mögen, denn der Stil ist schon sehr ähnlich…und damit bin ich dann auch bei meinem abschließende Urteil angelangt: modern und trendy, aber nicht wirklich durchdacht.