JOYN Serviced Living Cologne

- Excellent location in Ehrenfeld. So many nearby places to eat, shop, and meet others. 2 minute walk from the U-bahn stop. Felt very safe after dark and stayed lively late.- The hostess was very polite, helpful, and spoke English.- The internet speed here is quite good for a hotel/short term rental - around 70-100 mbps download.- Hosts are only present during working hours. Outside that, doors are locked and require a key card to enter the building. There's a check-in terminal outside where you can get a key on your own.But here's what you really need to know going in:- This place is hot. Hot, hot hot. There's no air conditioning here, and the sun shines right in. JOYN is only on floors 5 and up, as floors 1-4 belong to a different place which I believe is student housing. Heat rises. We measured temperatures in the room which were sometimes up to 20 degrees (F) hotter than it was outside. When we first walked into the room, it was like a wall of heat hit us and it was almost unbelievable how hot and stagnant the air was - and the curtains were closed all day.- We asked for a fan, and they gave us one, which we greatly appreciated.- The exterior shades (rolladen, as I think they are called in Germany) greatly helped reduce heat in the room. They can be controlled from the room...unless they can't be. They would often raise and lower on their own multiple times throughout the day, with no clearly discernible pattern. And usually when they would do this, they would be inoperable for several hours afterwards. It's as if they were being overridden from a central control. This made the room much, much hotter than it needed to be because when they are down the heat is dissipated outside instead of on your interior curtains.- Keeping your windows open here is essentially mandatory during your entire stay, otherwise you will surely perish from the heat. However, the windows don't stay open very well because they have a cable preventing them from fully opening. This is likely to prevent the windows from slamming open/closed from the wind, but it was annoying. The vertical opening method as is typical in European windows is possible, but doesn't afford as much airflow as you will want. Also, there's quite a bit of noise that comes from the outside, so a daytime nap is near impossible. Rooms are either facing a lively street or a park that's full of children who are having a very fun time playing and screaming as kids do.- Rooms were mostly clean, aside from some dead bugs under the windows. Bed was comfy. There was a desk to work at. The electrical plugs near the desk are extremely inconvenient to access, they require contorting your body into a very strange shape to plug in due to them being underneath the large window lip and also behind the TV mounting "wall".- Rooms had refrigerator, freezer, microwave, grill, stove top hot plate, two sinks, cutlery, and plates. One seat at the desk and a weird large and heavy chair near the door that was very inconvenient to move in case you want to sit and eat for two.- The doors don't lock from the inside. Any staff with a key card can get in whenever they want - and they did, when we were changing our clothes! Lovely little interaction there. Unfortunate, because rooms are only serviced once per week here, which is quite seldom, and it just happened to coincide with our check-in so we didn't get any service the entire stay as we stayed for just a week. It is what it is.- The elevators here are very small. Three people is a tight fit, and four is packed in like sardines. Luckily, this didn't really matter because we didn't see many other guests here during our stay.- There's shared laundry machines in the basement that cost 5 euro for a wash and dry cycle. You need to bring your own detergent. It uses the WeWash app. It was fine, you can get assigned machines with uncollected clothes in them, which is awkward.Ultimately, I wouldn't stay here again. I wouldn't recommend you stay here during summertime or fall if you are at all sensitive to heat or don't like sweating.

For 120€ per night, without parking, (Kaufland was given to us as the only option, costs 30€ per day!!) without breakfast, without cleaning (only takes place once a week) and with having to take out the garbage yourself, do the dishes, etc. simply a really lousy price-performance ratio!! Check-in is done via a machine, even after calling 10 times and ringing forever to announce changes and request a cancellation, no one answers! We sat in the foyer for a while and no one ever answers the phone, no matter how many times it rings. I have no idea what the job of the reception staff actually is... the room is modernly furnished, but it's so common that there are stains and streaks and dirt everywhere. If we had had an alternative we would never have come here... do one for yourself If possible, look for a different “hotel”

My room was clean and nice, but no AC and it was hot when I arrived.The lady at the reception is very nice.My shower broke on the 2nd day, and I could see that it had a lot of super glu so it was broken before at least once.I let the lady at the reception know and she gave me an extra room card on my floor to use the shower there during my stay.One con part that I didn’t like, you can’t lock your room from the inside.And on the day of my my checkout I had people knocking and opening my door at 9 am to fix the shower. Although I asked them to come back after my checkout at 11 am, they still came in and bothered me while I was working and in meetings. And they would just open the door on me which was not cool at all. Hence the 2 stars.

The manager threatened me with defamation charges when I tried to advocate against being abused by the hotel staff. The staff were constantly insulting me.

After two stays, 1x 2 nights, 1x 4 nights, the bottom line is that I am dissatisfied. I had to plug the unbearably loud ventilation, which other guests here also describe, with a kitchen rag. When it comes to ventilation, as a guest you also have to accept that fire protection etc. in a listed building is not possible without compromises.But I find the hygiene and cleaning standards fatal. The shower drain is full of hair, the toothbrush cups from the previous guest are dirty, as is the toilet, food remains on the kitchen cutlery, dirty glasses, the refrigerator stinks and the refrigerator compartment is rotting. And since I checked in at 10 p.m. and the reception is only open at certain times, I don't even get a chance to report these problems.

The ventilation, which you couldn't turn off, was unbearably loud. My whole room was rustling day and night, restful sleep was out of the question. The friendly staff said they couldn't do that.The rooms are otherwise ok. The location is great.

Fantastic for long stays. The rooms are good. WiFi too. The staff is very friendly. The location is extraordinary. Many activities (bars, restaurants, pharmacies) nearby

My room category was Comfort Double Room. I stayed for 30 days. The hotel has everything near ( big supermarkets, big shops, train station, bus station and underground station).The receptionists of the hotel were very nice and kind.The room had a well interior and the kitchen supplies were clean. The only thing that I was not satisfied during my stay on September was when it rained. Because of the moist and humidity, there were many silverfishes on the wall. The room got cleaned once a week.Overall I enjoyed my stay.

The accommodation can be reached quickly from the main train station with just one change and there are many shops and restaurants in the area (but this also leads to noise pollution at night as the windows are not so well soundproofed).At first glance the room is nice and spacious, but I don't find the concrete ceiling particularly comfortable, the wall around the sink and toilet in the bathroom is not tiled and is therefore dirty (because it cannot be wiped clean) and the kitchen including cutlery/glasses was not that clean , as one would wish.The room has a ventilation system running all the time (not air conditioning!) but you can't turn it off and the hallways are very warm and stuffy.

I found my stay at Joyn to be okay, but there is some room for improvement. For longer stays, the rooms are fairly priced and generous for their furnishings and size.The facilities are good and of a higher, average standard. Unfortunately, you notice that this project involved a large number of rooms and that the craftsmen worked on quantity instead of quality. Painter's edges, end strips, tile edges... everything seems okay at first glance, but upon closer inspection you can see the quick "shoo-shoo" work. The kitchen is adequately equipped and is a welcome and useful extra, especially for longer stays.The biggest point of criticism is the temperature! There is no fresh air or air conditioning. The windows can only be partially opened due to wire rope barriers. The entire building from basement to upper floor and stairwell are stuffy and overheated. Every day I had to let 20-30 liters of water run down the drain several times because even after a short time all the cold water in the pipe was heated to hand warmth. Even in a 3-week cold phase, the building did not cool down in any way - as all the corridors are inside without windows for ventilation. Here, in my opinion, there is fundamental need for change.The underground car park is very fair at €3.50/day and the location is okay. It would be desirable to have direct access to the accommodation - I am sure that this would certainly have been possible given the location and orientation of the building. But probably would have cost some construction work in the basement. The condition of the underground car park is a bit old, but still okay. The parking spaces are surprisingly wide. Unfortunately, apart from the elevators to the adjacent Kaufland (and only during opening hours), there is not a single elevator and the stairwells are, as is typical for Cologne, a hygienic war zone. Due to the lack of access, you have to carry or walk quite a bit both in the morning and in the evening to bring your luggage to the accommodation or to get to the car.The service desk is always friendly and helpful - I have positive memories of all the employees here and I received competent help with any questions I had. However, I find the opening times a bit poor - especially if you are in Cologne for work and always leave early and come back late. Fortunately, most things can be handled by email or telephone.The room service is friendly and works well. The cleaners always come on the same day and at similar times. The linen change was satisfactory - sometimes there was the wrong towel or one too many, but that doesn't bother me personally. Once one of the towels was dirty and the employee should definitely have recognized that when hanging it up - but here you can let the service desk know and you'll get a new one. The surfaces are always cleaned satisfactorily. It is only vacuumed very superficially, and even after weeks there is still the same lint in corners and on the radiator. This can be done better! There doesn't seem to be any regular, deep cleaning here either. There are some small stains on the bathroom door and a few other places that have probably been there for a while.The common areas are less frequented and are stylishly furnished. Security is ensured as you can only enter each area with an access card. Without it you can't even get into the foyer.Overall I'm satisfied, but there's still a lot to do to get 5 stars.