The first night we stayed here, we were in room 2. All seemed OK on initial inspections. The staff seemed pleasant. We went to make ourselves a drink and freshen up. We'd been up since 3am for an early flight. There's a kettle (that's corded, so you have to unplug it every time to fill it up, so take water to it, and a coffee machine. Neither of the appliances worked. We pulled the big table theyre on, out the way to find they weren't plugged in. Not a big deal, right? Well, the electric socket was hanging out of the wall. We plugged the units in, very carefully and made a coffee. Coffee made, went to put some milk in it, no milk. We left the tea and coffee as we both have milk. The air conditioning in the room was set to 24°c and we searched everywhere for a day to adjust it. We ended up going to reception and asking. They keep the remotes to the air con. You cannot adjust it yourself from the room! We borrowed a remote and turned the air con down. We left the room for our day out thinking all was well. On returning later that day, we realised the air conditioning was off. We questioned it with reception the next day (reception is left unattended from 6pm onwards so if you have any issues, all there is is an emergency phone number) and was told the air conditioning has been turned off in all rooms now because the heating was on. To advertise the room as "Air conditioning AND heating".....it seems its air conditioning (the you can't control) OR heating. The room must have been 20°c + all night. We thought we'd have a cold shower, to try and bring our temperature down before bed. My wife had her shower, walked across the bedroom floor bare foot and got a small shard of glass stuck in her foot! I went for a shower, turned the shower up full pressure, and apparently this activates a neat feature that forces the shower head out of its holder and smashes you straight in the head. The smell from the bathroom in room 2 was also, terrible. Not quite sure what it was. The toilet was cracked in room 2, but didn't affect use. The shower trap was cracked and loose, not fun if you step on it! We couldn't open the windows because the room faces onto a very busy street. Lots of bars, lots of people, lots of traffic. We were woken up at 11pm, 12am, and 12:30am by noises, car alarms from outside and the heat. Guests coming back late, also seemed to come in and congregate in the hallways to talk. I think if reception were manned, they could remind staff that to be a bit more respectful for others staying. Needless to say, the next morning, we asked to move rooms. Next day we were asked to check out room 9. This is on the second floor. Little bit higher away from the street. The bathroom didn't smell, but that was set to change. The room seemed a big improvement. It was already a lot cooler (although the air con didn't work). Knowing that it probably wasn't going to work, we left the windows open all day while we were out to keep the room cool. On returning that evening, everything seemed better. The street outside was a lot quieter in general. The room was cooler. We went to bed with a lot more positive attitude. We put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on our door, to remind guests of other people staying. We didn't get woken up....until 7am. 7am came around, and there was such loud banging and thudding. We were aware that there had been building work going on in the property the previous day. As we'd seen builders going up and down the stairs with materials. Hoping this wasn't the case, we laid in bed for 5-10 mins, hoping it was just a nosey guest, getting ready for their days adventures. 15-20 mins went by and the noises weren't stopping. Imagine someone pushing a heavy dining room table on a hard wooden floor, across the ceiling you're laid under. That. 7am. I went down to reception asking if someone could come up and listen to the noise in our room. We were told that the rooms above us are privately owned flats and there's nothing they can do about it. They've asked the landlords to tell their builders to not do noisy work until 10am, but if they're not sticking to it, all they can do is complain to the people that own the flats. Whilst I was complaining to reception, we could hear power tools being used. Drilling at 7:25am, on your holiday. We assumed that the whole building was a hotel! Not split up into some privately owned rooms and some guest rooms. I asked if this was going to be happening tomorrow and they said it *shouldn't* be because its a Saturday. At the point of writing this, we still have 2 more nights to stay here, and we aren't looking forward to it! We've had 6 hours sleep both nights. Not at all a relaxing holiday. Room 9, although is a lot better than room 2, is still far from perfect. The finishings in all the rooms seem half done at best. So many things are hanging off. There's an access panel on the bathroom, hanging off. The toilet water supply, hanging off. The shower mixer taps, the trims around them, hanging off, allowing water into the wall. The bathroom also smelt of sewage after a day of use. We paid for our room before we stayed. I would STRONGLY recommend paying after you've experienced it. As I told Reception, if we hadn't have already paid, we wouldn't be staying for another 2 nights. On our final night, we stayed for our 2nd time in room 9, our 3rd night in the hotel. A Friday night. And it was a repeat of Wednesday night. Very loud street. Very loud quests coming back between midnight and 1am. Police sirens outside the room controlling the rowdy crowds. 4am we got to sleep on the Friday. To wake up at 8am for our day tour we had pre planned. We went to reception before breakfast and again stated our issues. We were apologised to. And that's about as far as it goes. Enough was enough. We had 1 more night in Krakow, and it wasn't going to be in this hotel. I had spent my time wide awake wisely and had found a beautiful hotel in the Old Town of Krakow. They had a 24 hour reception best, responded quickly to my emails at 2am and got me booked in ready for our stay. We got back from our day tour, got back to the hotel and left quickly. We couldn't wait. We told Reception we weren't staying. We asked if there could be a full, or even partial refund for the night we wouldn't be staying. "We can't authorise that. We'll have to ask our management. We have your email address." And needless to say ladies and gentlemen, I attached all the pictures above to them and emailed them myself, and I've been ignored. If you want to get potentially electrocuted by dangerous plug sockets, glass in your feet from rooms not cleaned properly, you like to hear loud noise until 2am, rooms you cannot control the heat on, and bathrooms smelling of sewage and drains, and to be charged full price for all of this you've found the best place in Krakow. If you want clean, quiet, beautiful rooms with 24 hour reception, air con that works and you can control 24/7, free sauna, quiet location, close to town and lots of bars and restaurants without hearing a single one of them, then stay at Amber Design Residence in the old town.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.