REVIEW | Hotel Elephant Weimar

October 2024. During a week-long whistle-stop tour of Germany, we visit Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt, Weimar in Thuringia, Coburg in Upper Franconia (Bavaria) and Kassel in Hesse. Smaller cities, yes. But each with their own significance. Untouched by overtourism. We’re avoiding using the white trains of DB Fernverkehr, Deutsche Bahn‘s long-distance section and opt to use the red trains of DB Regio and other regional operators.

In Weimar we opted for a slightly more upscale hotel, as there where some available in the city. As Weimar caters to more upscale tourists due to its reputation of ‘cultural capital’ of Germany.

We booked at Hotel Elephant, a Marriott Collection hotel. It’s located in a classic grand building on the market square. It has a nice big lobby divided into 2 parts. The first is the entrance room with the reception desk, the stairs and elevator upstairs and the entrance to the bar. Behind it is a bigger space with a glassed roof offering some nooks with more lounge style seating. At the far end is the in-house restaurant Anna, which in the evening serves upscale food and in the morning a buffet.

Upon arrival at noon the room wasn’t ready yet but they kindly stored our bags and offered to call us when the room was ready. We declined the call offer as we would be roaming the city.

After our visit in the city we had a proper check-in and got to our room on the third floor, once again overlooking the interior courtyard. In contrast to our previous night in the Radisson Blu in Dessau the room was rather small. Timothy remarked that you immediately stepped into the room, unlike the hallway you get in most hotel rooms.

While it was not the biggest room it did contain 2 comfortable single beds pushed together, with light controls, a European and USB-A power socket.

Opposite the beds was a closet on one side of the bathroom door, with a desk and a wall mounted flat screen tv on the other side.

In the room there was a Nespresso cup machine for coffee as well as some complimentary water.

The bathroom was of a nice size with a walk-in shower on one side, the toilet at the other side and the wash basin in the middle. Once again the products offered the full range of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand wash and body lotion. They were by the white company of London and had a nice smell.

As a quirky gesture they had some hangers to hang on the door to indicate you where deaf or a dog was in the room to alert staff servicing the room to be aware of it. It’s a first to see, but maybe this should be a standard offering.

There were also two negative points in the room. The air-conditioning controls where rather complicated and I didn’t manage to turn the temperature lower as the room was quite warm,

Luckily we could just open up a window to let in some cool air but on a hot summers day this is annoying. They also equipped the rooms with a master switch to turn all the lights off, however it doesn’t really do that. The lights on the side of the bed stay on as well as the light in the bathroom, defying the purpose of the master switch.

The hotel also offers limited wellness facilities with a sauna and relaxation room and also a small gym facility with a few machines and even offers an open air parking lot accessible from the street behind the hotel.

In the morning the breakfast buffet was elaborate with both a big spread and an a la carte menu for made to order items. They also had a make your own nut spread contraption which was an original thing to have. Tea and coffee where brought to the table while water, juices and sparkling wine where available on the buffet.