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I stayed here recently on business and enjoyed my experience. The staff were friendly and helpful and the service excellent. I felt the rooms were a little basic considering the price and the funky renovation of this water tower. However I still enjoyed the hotel. Didn't have the opportunity to sample the bar or the restaurant but both looked good. Location is great, in the heart of Cologne but not too close to the bustling streets.

Stayed here for one night. Service was unfriendly and poor. Room service didn't answer despite me calling then half a dozen times. Front desk lost my room key and just a generally bad experience. Would not recommend the hotel at all.

We stayed in a Gallery Suite for x2 nights, we loved: the structure, public spaces and interiors, breakfast, service level. Things we didn't like: slightly tired business-like room interiors, mini-bar wasn't really stocked properly, rather hot room, bad water pressure in shower and we were given x2 single beds instead of a double as requested.

We booked this Hotel through Secret Escapes and were very excited by the prospect. However when we arrived there was no record of our booking. The staff were exceptionally kind, calm and efficient and managed to find us a room in there otherwise, apparently, full hotel. The hotel is quite an amazing structure and very different from any other hotel we have stayed in. The breakfast was exceptional. Unfortunately the Deluxe room we were expecting was worse than I would expect from an Ibis motel. Our room was not worthy of a 5 star hotel, it was tired, on the small side, there was poor water pressure in the bathroom rendering the shower unfit for purpose and poor flow of water from the taps in the sink, which did not drain well either. The room was exceedingly hot with no obvious method of controlling the temperature except by opening the window to it very generous capacity. (This I was grateful for, but really no safety lock on a third floor window?) Secret Escapes will be receiving a complaint!

The Hotel introduces itself proudly as a 5 Stars. I believe there are no honourary titles for hotels but each star must be conquered and kept every day. I noted the astonishement of other guests in Tripadvisor about the architecture. But how many architectural changes and amazing display of spaces and rooms can we experience in Europe ? : you go to Posznan-Pozen in Poland and you admire the old brawerei transformed in a multifunction mall centre. You go to Florence and see the Bizantine tower turned into a resort hotel. In France you have plenty of towers, manors, and castles turned into modern hotels. Yes , it has been a merry idea to refurbish the old Watersupply-Tower of K¿¿ln and to turn it into a hotel. However the red bricks inside and the circle corridors in the darkness of the celings gave the impression of a Gothic-Gotham athmosphere when entering. If you are claustrophobic the two tiny elevators (serving 11 floors plus the garage ! this means longer times to wait) are not the best place to stay. Then, as in the Dervish dance movement, you need turning everywhere on a circle in any place you are in this hotel. Do you seek the breakfast room ? You turn around pillars and corridors to find it . Do you look for he elevators ? : you need turning around the corridors until you find it. Do you look for the Bar ? Again you turn around the circle of pillars and corridors until you find it. The very young receptionists will not disturb your pleasure of discovery (so they belive no orientation chart is needed) and will let you experience the detective work on your own. The reception girl was a bit out-of-place: three basic mistakes, which are not acceptable for the proud "5 Star hotel": she mislaid the voucher (so that next time I will ask for a written and undersigned evidence that I had given her hand-to-hand at the moment of check-in); then she forgot to give me the garage exit ticket (after paying, so that I needed to leave te car in the midst of the exit and the parking bars to go back to her, she was not embarassed at all, showing she finds this situation of underperformance normal); she forgot to say at the check-in that the Tiefgarage (the indoor garage) would have costed almost as the breakfast : 25 euro per day. Therefore please be careful before accepting their nice invitation to park the car inside the indoor garage and decide it after listening to the price. this price beats all records I have ever experienced in my life: hotel indoor garages in New York, Venice Santa Lucia, Bern in Switzerland, London City, Amsterdam downtown are cheaper that Wasserturm of K¿¿ln. But , at the top, she asks you for a garantee of 50 euro for the room even if the room is already fully pre-paid . Why 50 euro ? They think it is needed for the minibar, telephone and other services . At the check-out, the receptionist will say vaguely that this guarantee should be cancelled automatically from your credit card. As money is money anyhow, by asking her supervisor it was said to us that some customers left without paying and this is the reason for this guarantee. Well, in this case, there is either solution: or they stop doing hotel services because the world is full of suspected Uncle Scrooge's three robbers or they accept that the five tiny bottles of minibar are included in the price (3 Gerolsteiner mineral water 20 cl : this means a real value of 1 euro each and two bottles of Cologne beer on 20 cl that is the real value of 1,50 euro each, which is not a reason of bankrupt if the dishonest guests the receptionist mentioned even flew away from the hotel). But I personally do not like the approach of the reception : the guest can be suspected to be unfair anyhow . So, you should ask also for a survey on the room at the check-out before leaving, and to prove that everything is in order. Another advice, if they ask for that guarantee of 50 euro, you pay this in cash (NO CREDIT CARD) and you oblige them to pay you back in cash at the