Booking Hotels in Germany/Austria

[Pistol719]

Ladies and Gents,

Just wanted to throw this out there to see if any of you have any input....

My wife and I are going on our honeymoon this Christmas to Germany. We started looking into rooms and went ahead and booked one or two since apparently that time of year is a huge deal. I finally got e-mail responses back from two of the hotels and they mentioned that they went ahead and reserved our rooms for us and are holding until the day of arrival. The part that eluded me was the fact that I asked if they needed any CC information to hold my room. One said no it is not needed and the other did not need it but welcomed the information to take care of the room already. (the latter was a larger hotel, the first just a small family BnB) Both are pretty reputable from what I read and received a multitude of good reviews on a few different travel sites.

My question is, is this normal for hotels in Europe or Germany in particular to go ahead and reserve someone a room without taking a deposit? I am not too hop smart with travel in Europe as all my adventures thus far have taken me to most of the "questionable" places in Asia/Africa and Australia

I just do not want to get there and be SOL on somewhere to stay for us. Any help is appreciated

 

[azguy]

I was out there last month. I always put down a card to hold the rooms, but if they are legit hotels it's probably fine.

 

[scoober78]

Just a suggestion but...generally speaking I've found better places to stay when I was boots on ground than by internet months ahead of time.

My advice? If you are staying in a major metro area (Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich) reserve a room there...if you are roaming the countryside, eyeball the cool B&B where the cathedral bells will wake you up in the morning. Good luck. Have fun!

 

[Pistol719]

Just a suggestion but...generally speaking I've found better places to stay when I was boots on ground than by internet months ahead of time.

My advice? If you are staying in a major metro area (Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich) reserve a room there...if you are roaming the countryside, eyeball the cool B&B where the cathedral bells will wake you up in the morning. Good luck. Have fun!

Doin a little of both actually we'll be stayin a day or two in the major cities to the south but hitting a few of the smaller towns in between. I'll keep that in mind for the BnB though thanks!

 

[HooverPilot]

I've found in several trips throughout Germany and Scandinavia, a CC is not required to make reservations. They have a trust that you will cancel the reservation in a timely manner if you can't visit.

 

[BOMBSonHAWKEYES]

Honeymoon in Germany during the winter.... you must have a strong marriage.

 

[azguy]

+1 on the B&B or Gasthaus idea. We stayed at some places so deep in the forest/countryside you needed to take dirt roads to get there, mostly in Bavarian and the Black Forest. We booked day by day, no real itinerary. Bookings.com and Trip Advisor both have great apps, they wont steer you wrong. We were there for two weeks, different place every night, and loved each of them. Good luck to you guys.

 

[FlyinSpy]

I'm here in Germany (Stuttgart) right now on some AT, and just spent the weekend down in Garmsich climbing the Zugspitze (instead of going to Munich and drinking beer, which was at times a questionable decision...). I booked my room in Garmisch thru Expedia, which seems to have hotels large, small, and tiny all lined up. They (Expedia) wanted a credit card at booking. For the small places, cross-reference what Expedia offers with what TripAdvisor has in the way of reviews; while you have to take the reviews with a grain of salt, I've found that if you do your homework you can end up in nice places at good rates.

 

[villanelle]

It's somewhat standard. There are definitely places that do require it (like the hotel we stayed at this weekend in Berlin), but many don't. I usually email a week or so before the trip to confirm my reservation, though I've never had any issues so it probably isn't necessary.

Most Europeans book their holidays way in advance. And since Christmas market season is pretty popular, personally I wouldn't wait to reserve anything. I guess it all depends on how much of a gambler you are though, since finding places on the fly can be wonderful. I just wouldn't do it during Christmas season, or on my honeymoon probably.

If you don't need the service of a hotel, check out airbnb.com You can get great rooms for way less than hotels, and even gasthauses.

If you are heading to Garmish, there is an American military hotel there called Edelweiss. I haven't stayed there, but the general consensus seems to be that it is overpriced and not especially nice, so don't get sucked in by that. The reasons most people seem to go there is that it is apparently pretty kid-friendly and it is a taste of home for those here long term who miss 'Merica.

 

[Pistol719]

It's somewhat standard. There are definitely places that do require it (like the hotel we stayed at this weekend in Berlin), but many don't. I usually email a week or so before the trip to confirm my reservation, though I've never had any issues so it probably isn't necessary.

Most Europeans book their holidays way in advance. And since Christmas market season is pretty popular, personally I wouldn't wait to reserve anything. I guess it all depends on how much of a gambler you are though, since finding places on the fly can be wonderful. I just wouldn't do it during Christmas season, or on my honeymoon probably.

If you don't need the service of a hotel, check out airbnb.com You can get great rooms for way less than hotels, and even gasthauses.

If you are heading to Garmish, there is an American military hotel there called Edelweiss. I haven't stayed there, but the general consensus seems to be that it is overpriced and not especially nice, so don't get sucked in by that. The reasons most people seem to go there is that it is apparently pretty kid-friendly and it is a taste of home for those here long term who miss 'Merica.

Haha yeah we seen that American resort. Def wasn't what we were looking for.... Looked awesome for sledding but if I wanted pizza and burgers I'd of stayed home .

Update though, we got our place ironed out in Garmish nice little BnB. And scouting a few others for the other random places we plan on being. I usually like to wing it when I'm oconus but I don't think the wife feels too kosher doing it. But basically we have been taking trip advisor,etc with a grain of salt and just getting in touch personally with the places we are interested in staying.

Finding places out of the bigger cities seems a lot more pleasant/easier. Probably going to suck it up and go mainstream for Munich.

@Flyinspy. How do you like Stuttgart? That's our first stop

 

[scoober78]

@Flyinspy. How do you like Stuttgart? That's our first stop

Porsche. 'Nuff said.

 

[villanelle]

Haha yeah we seen that American resort. Def wasn't what we were looking for.... Looked awesome for sledding but if I wanted pizza and burgers I'd of stayed home .

Update though, we got our place ironed out in Garmish nice little BnB. And scouting a few others for the other random places we plan on being. I usually like to wing it when I'm oconus but I don't think the wife feels too kosher doing it. But basically we have been taking trip advisor,etc with a grain of salt and just getting in touch personally with the places we are interested in staying.

Finding places out of the bigger cities seems a lot more pleasant/easier. Probably going to suck it up and go mainstream for Munich.

@Flyinspy. How do you like Stuttgart? That's our first stop

What is it that is bringing you to Stuttgart?

My unsolicited $.02 on Stuttgart is that as a tourist destination, it's not great. (There's a reason it isn't even listed in some German travel guides.) Don't get me wrong; I love living here for many reasons. But there's not a ton of fascinating tourist stuff in the immediate area. It does have a decent Christmas market, though when we were there last year I saw it through a haze of jet lag (layered over with a haze of Gluewine) so who knows what it was really like. But if I had 2 weeks in Europe, Stuttgart wouldn't be anywhere near my list of places to see. Berlin, Munich, Dresden (I haven't actually been but hear amazing things), perhaps some places to see more older ruins, and even a trip to Strausborg, France, which is super close to the Stuttgart area would all be much higher on the list.

 

[FlyinSpy]

My unsolicited $.02 on Stuttgart is that as a tourist destination, it's not great.

Concur. The city itself is kind of sterile, having been bombed into a giant pile of rubble at the end of WWII. (In fact, I hiked the other day to a huge mound outside the city where they dumped all the rubble, to the tune of 15 million cubic meters. Weird, post-apocalyptic feel at the top. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkenkopf ) The people are nice enough, and an almost 70 year heavy American presence ensures that there are plenty of English speakers everywhere. There's a few decent restaurants, but other than that I'd skip it. If you're into cars, the Porsche and Mercedes museums are pretty compelling, but if you're not then there's not too much else. Pleasant enough as a TDY location on Uncle Sugar's nickel, but I'd focus on other destinations nearby. Garmisch was very pleasant, especially if you're outdoorsy. Having dropped by there yesterday, I would advise that if you're planning on going to Neuschwanstein you go early (as in the first group of the day). I was there at 0800 with minimal people in line; the crowds were biblical by the time I left. And honestly, I think Busch Gardens was more authentic than this place...

Did get my rental SUV up to 200km/hr on the Autobahn yesterday, though, so I've got that going for me!

 

[Pistol719]

To kinda answer both your questions in one swoop, we wanted to hit the Christmas market in Stuttgart because we heard its one of the largest. But that's about all we see worth going thus far and judging by what you two say perhaps we will look in alternative places to check out since we are already hitting a few other markets like Nuremberg , etc. Thanks for the advice btw on Neuschwanstein. We wanted to check that

One other question
1. What's a decent rail company to use if we wanted to buy tickets to go elsewhere? Been looking at the Bahn but I noticed a few others

 

[villanelle]

The ICE (Inter City Express) trains are fairly popular. Figuring out non-local train travel has so far eluded me. There are deals to be had, but without going to a train station and working with an employee, they can be tough to find. IME, flying has almost always been cheaper than trains, unless one is willing to just go where the deals are, when there are deals. German Wings, a region carrier similar to Ryan Air but a little less ridiculous, flies out of the Stuttgart airport.