The Eurofurence Forum
Eurofurence Information => Feedback => Topic started by: Hurga on 26.08.2014, 18:02:37
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Hi all!
I really had a blast at Eurofurence again, but there's one thing which bugs me, and that's the cocktails. Not the pricing, mind you, but the quality. I had a Black Ice on the first day, and it tasted mostly like Cassis with water. Two others told me the same thing, so I raised the issue with Nightfox, and he later told me it has been addressed.
At the last day, I had a Jehova, and it wasn't very tasty either. It could have been me - I think I wasn't really sober anymore - but again, I didn't hear a lot of good things about the other cocktails from the furs at my table (except about one non-alcoholic one, go figure).
My question is: What did you think of the drinks? I'm interested to find out if there's a trend so that it needs to be addressed again with the hotel, or if my experiences have been just a bit of bad luck. - And I also missed the black beer (Köstritzer) from the Maritim...
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I concur. Had a Black Ice after the PPS - tasted like fruit juice. Tried again with a Bloody Mary on Sunday - that tasted like just tomato juice and lemon. In a 2dl glass. For 10 Euros. No decoration, no spices, no alcohol, I didn't even get tabasco or sth similar with it until I explicitly asked.
Naah, Cocktails are really something the Estrel should improve upon.
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Agreed. Had a spooge special on the first night, was quite disappointing, had another one of the other days, with the same result. It seemed like most the bar staff were used to just pouring beers, and not mixing drinks.
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same here, had a spooge and it just taste like juice, same with the Estrel Drive!
I am totally disappointed!
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Some rules for hotel feedback:
If you get a drink you don't like, demand a new drink RIGHT AWAY. If they don't give you one, go to the front desk with your drink, and complain to the shift manager. It's a four star hotel, you pay four-star prices, you have a right to four-star quality drinks. Retro-Actively complaining about incidents is understandable ... but unless you tell us the exact time and the name of the waiter, there is nothing we can do, and there is nothing the hotel management can do days after the fact. They have no interest in unhappy customers, but if they can't find the culprit, it's worthless.
Take your complaint to hotel@estrel.com ... if you still have the receipt for your drink, please look up the exact drink, time and day and let them know by email to hotel@estrel.com
Don't complain to us, please! We wholeheartedly agree with you, this is not acceptable. But we can't do anything for you days after the fact.
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I did not complain to the staff, as they actually looked like they were trying to do things right (and as the first EF there, they were overworked… they never believe us when we tell them: Stock up. xD). So the cocktails I tried were not exceptionally bad (what would make me complain)… just… not very good. After my second, I stopped getting any more the whole convention because they were simply too pricey.
But yes, I understand you Cheetah, if this is the same next year, I will have a little chat with the bar-people. :-)
Best wishes,
Token
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Cheetah, I don't know. It's not about getting money back or anything, this is about improving in the future. Why shouldn't Nightfox be able to mention this area could use improvements?
I've heard from many guests that the cocktails were a low point of the Estrel bar / restaurant offering due to rather large variations in quality.
I do not like to start trouble while drinking with friends, so I mostly stuck to beer and soft drinks after a while, and only took an Estrel Drive if I was really in the mood for a cocktail. There's 100 EUR or so that the Estrel lost from me alone over the course of the convention, compared to what I spent at the Maritim last year for drinks. Same again for my partner.
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My experience was so-so ... the Piano Bar served some really good cocktails - but these were the 10-11€ cocktails from the regular menu. The bartenders even made cocktails that were not on the menu when we asked :) The convention cocktails at the other bar were not that good. I've ordered a few, but there was barely any alcohol in it and they mostly tasted like juice with ice (the Jehove for example). They weren't that bad, but could be better for the price.
If you get a really bad cocktail it's of course better to talk to the bartenders right away, but most of the cocktails were simply "okay-ish" and not bad enough. I agree with Jumpy, someone could collect the feedback and maybe mention it to the hotel.
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I totally agree with Jumpy.
I saw several people complaining at the bar about cocktails over the entire con. That kept me from ordering a single one.
It is totally out of question (at least for me) to argue with the waiter while hanging around with friends and having fun. So when the Estrel wants to serve me drinks they have to improve. It is not only a question of the quality of the drinks when talking about "four star" and the prices. There should also be an implicit understanding that there should not be a reason for complains in the first place. The general service of the hotel and the restaurants did fulfill this (my) expectation. The bar did not.
About the prices itself: Maybe they should let do their controlling some math. Those prices might be correct when you expect some business men having their single drink a night. But asking 7€ / 0,2l for some generic wine (equivalent pricing for beer) keeps me from partying there.
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I agree with Jumpy as well. I won't go and complain about a cocktail, which is a matter of taste and which I don't consider myself an expert on, as long as it isn't outright awful. Especially not when I'm half-drunk already and want to have fun with friends instead.
I can just say that if the quality of the cocktails doesn't improve (and it doesn't take magic to improve the quality) I'll go and get my booze elsewhere next time. And if I do that anyway, it'll include the beer. That would be a loss of 150 EUR for the hotel, if I remember the numbers from the Maritim correctly. And I think this is going to add up, if I get the other voices right.
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I only used the Atrium Bar and only had a single Blackice on the Monday night (which was okay-ish, but nothing to get excited about), but the quantity of woodruff syrup in the Berliner Weisse increased during the length of the con.
Generally from what random attendees have told me, the Piano Bar seems to have been the better one of the two, with friendlier waitstaff and better drinks.
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The convention cocktails at the other bar were not that good. I've ordered a few, but there was barely any alcohol in it and they mostly tasted like juice with ice (the Jehove for example).
Then I guess mine had your missing alcohol.
2 white russian with barely some cream in all that vodka.
Even after ordering the second one with extra cream.
(It should have about just as much milk and cream as it has kalhua and vodka.)
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Generally from what random attendees have told me, the Piano Bar seems to have been the better one of the two, with friendlier waitstaff and better drinks.
Or maybe they weren't quite so hammered by the onslaught of attendees trying to buy drinks :)
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Cheetah, I don't know. It's not about getting money back or anything, this is about improving in the future. Why shouldn't Nightfox be able to mention this area could use improvements?
We did mention it during our debriefing, and what I said here is exactly what they told us - they said, it's absolutely NOT their policy to intentionally water down drinks, and if that happens, they need to know when it happened, or they can't even begin to investigate what went wrong, and why.
I've heard from many guests that the cocktails were a low point of the Estrel bar / restaurant offering due to rather large variations in quality.
Yup, me too. Unfortunately, if we tell them "we heard from many guests", that's not enough information for them to work with to be useful. They said, they usually get only very few complaints, and that at Eurofurence, they got even less than they usually do - so they were pretty surprised we brought this topic up. They thought they were doing exceptionally well. Thus my suggestion, give more direct feedback, this is way more valuable than us going "someone heard a friend say, that a lot of other people had bad drinks ..."
I do not like to start trouble while drinking with friends, so I mostly stuck to beer and soft drinks after a while, and only took an Estrel Drive if I was really in the mood for a cocktail. There's 100 EUR or so that the Estrel lost from me alone over the course of the convention, compared to what I spent at the Maritim last year for drinks. Same again for my partner.
We told them in very clear words, that our attendees expect premium drinks for premium prices, and that they'd better make sure that's the case. Not much more we can do without evidence.
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Well, I don't have evidence, and I didn't even have evidence back then - maybe the cocktails are ok at the Estrel, but they were so much better than average at the Maritim? Should we have a couple of people vote on the taste? Whom?
In the end, it'll be just the free market economy: If people feel the quality is not ok, they won't buy.
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Well, I don't have evidence, and I didn't even have evidence back then - maybe the cocktails are ok at the Estrel, but they were so much better than average at the Maritim? Should we have a couple of people vote on the taste? Whom?
In the end, it'll be just the free market economy: If people feel the quality is not ok, they won't buy.
Well, if you ordered a cocktail, and it's missing key ingredients, that's a bit more grave then just a vote on the taste. Thing is, I'm not worried about the F&B profits of the hotel, that's their own problem. But I want my own attendees to be happy, and direct feedback is more likely to induce change than a virtual loss of income in an overcrowded house.
I've had a few cocktails, and they were absolutely in order, so I guess it depends on who was preparing the drink and which bar you ordered at.
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[...] maybe the cocktails are ok at the Estrel, but they were so much better than average at the Maritim? [...]
I can compare to several Steigenberger, InterCityHotel, Fleming's, Hilton and around 30 other hotels (most of them 4 stars just like the Estrel) I've spent every Monday through Thursday night in for the ten years from 2002 to 2012.
I haven't seen such a variation in quality anywhere.
In one word: Nuh-uh.
Then of course these other bars weren't being overrun like the Estrel was by us.
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Well... I don't have the recipe for the BlackIce. But I loved it in Suhl... still liked it in the Maritim but the one I got here was just meh. (it was a bit of grapefruit, then alcoholic desinfectant (aka vodka) and then something bitter that just lingered on).
The Jehovas I got after that were okayish but nothing too special.
Conclusion: we need the hairless master back :)
I can imagine that they were shocked by the critique coming in after nearly nobdy complained at the bar... but then it seems furries are much nicer than the average business people wanting to get a drink in the evening and dont want to ruin their mood by complaining at the barkeeper.
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I thought it was common knowledge by around Thursday that the cocktails at the piano bar were pretty good and those from the other bar were ... not. Which is why it was such a pity that the former closed at Midnight. (And that you could not get any drinks at all after 3am or so, which was especially annoying after their witchhunt for cooling boxes, even those the hotel had demanded people to bring for prescribed drugs. Which, on the other hand, made their lament about running our of beer glasses rather amusing ... what did they think people would do?)
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I thought it was common knowledge by around Thursday that the cocktails at the piano bar were pretty good and those from the other bar were ... not. [...]
No, it wasn't. Nobody ever told me *g* But then I only had 3 or 4 drinks during the whole con...
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I can imagine that they were shocked by the critique coming in after nearly nobdy complained at the bar... but then it seems furries are much nicer than the average business people wanting to get a drink in the evening and dont want to ruin their mood by complaining at the barkeeper.
I saw several people complaining over the con. And I did not stay at the bar often or for a long time ... now do the statistics. Maybe they do not count as a real complaint when they can solve it after the first approach. I don't think this is a good approach. See my earlier posting.
[edit: should not write english that late...]
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My personal experience about the atrium bar:
Mojito very thin and without any brown sugar added.
The Estrel Drive was sometimes very good and sometimes it was like a cheap vitamin juice with added food coloring.
The Virgin Mojito (don't remember the name) was awesome.
The cocktails with the lowered price felt like they were more ice than the cocktail itself.
Long Island Ice tea once was good and once was a bit below average.
And the really bad thing that happened to me at Wednesday afternoon:
I ordered a big coke and a few seconds after touching the glass with my lips I had an instant lip herpes infection.
This is the thing I cannot understand as this sounds like they didn't clean their glasses really well all the time.
I really hope this was a "one time oopsie" - a REALLY bad one but still only something that didn't happen more than once.
[EDIT] Added information that it was the atrium bar every single time.
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I ordered a big coke and a few seconds after touching the glass with my lips I had an instant lip herpes infection.
This is the thing I cannot understand as this sounds like they didn't clean their glasses really well all the time.
I really hope this was a "one time oopsie" - a REALLY bad one but still only something that didn't happen more than once.
Looking at the cleaning process while waiting for my Berliner Weisse didn't make me want to use their glasses much, tbh.
Question: Is it normal that a coke (for 3.80€, was it?) is a glass filled to the top with ice, and the gaps sorta filled with coke? I'm not really well experienced with hotels and soft drinks, but that seemed horrible to me.
On the plus side: when I just ordered a gin-tonic with unspecified gin, they gave me the cheapest one, and it was nice — I'm fairly sure on this part of the iron curtain I would have been sold the most expensive one :P
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carter, ralesk, and the others: Can you add at which bar/restaurant you made bad (or good) experiences? My personal hypothesis is that one did pretty well, but the other did not ...
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I tried... I really tried... and they failed whatever I ordered if they had to do more than just open a bottle - so mostly I had "Kalte Muschi" and alk free beer.
I had an Jehova once - it was tasty but there was no alcohol in there. I ask for a little "more umpf" when ordering but I got told that they would charge the little extra so I just took a normal one.
What disapointed me most was
- the dry wine I ordered. I got a glass of red wine from the one bottle they stored next to the coffee mashine and that wasn't dry at all - had four people tasted it and all said the same.
- the Caipirinha I just gave back since it was just white sugar, lemons, cheap window cleaner instead of Cachaca and ice cubes. They took it without asking and someone started using a shaker then - the second one tasted much better but still far away from what I expect for that price (21,- Euro for a Caipi and a Coke with rum... rip off!).
I gave them a chance to not ruin one of the simplest cocktails: black russian. They kind of failed on that as well - they used a shaker but the ice was to warm and it was washy (and still a rip off - 11 Euro for two cl!).
They need to do a better job on that or just get more of the "Kalte Muschi" next year!
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The service was fast and friendly. But the cocktails were really sub-standard and overpriced: Small, tasteless, little alcohol, no decoration... Maritim had done a lot better!
They could have had so much more business, if they had either improved the quality or lowered the prices.
This way, after three disappointing cocktails, I resorted to the "safe" options: beer and Kalte Muschi.
Edit: I only tried the atrium bar, can't say anything about the Piano Bar.
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carter, ralesk, and the others: Can you add at which bar/restaurant you made bad (or good) experiences? My personal hypothesis is that one did pretty well, but the other did not ...
The one closer to the main stage room (I think that's the Atrium bar?). Didn't even know there was another one until I read this thread.
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I did order cocktails, or at least longdrinks, from the first day, and even though they were rather simple, I could definately feel the quality kinda wandering downards towards the last few days, though, I got what I ordered so I can't complain, even more so when seeing +15 people lining up at the bar and seeing 5 people struggle to keep up with demand. Still not sure why they seemed to run out of large beers, though.
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The issue with the large beers is a simple matter of the glasses running out. You can only store so many large glasses at a bar and if people don't bring them back... ;)
I went to the bar at some point and ordered a large beer, the bartender said; sorry, no can't do. I'm out of glasses.
I then went out and collected some glasses for them, et voila, large beer for me. :D
Okay true, BBF and I were hoarding them in the video command centre, but hey... ::) ::)
So for next year, people please return your glasses to the bar if possible. This means everyone can keep enjoying large beers. ;D ;D
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Question: Is it normal that a coke (for 3.80€, was it?) is a glass filled to the top with ice, and the gaps sorta filled with coke? I'm not really well experienced with hotels and soft drinks, but that seemed horrible to me.
I was in the queue for the atrium bar, and when I saw that they did this for all thue guests in front of me, I decided not to buy a drink there.
Usually, I'd expect 3-4 ice cubes in a soft drink, not a glass full of ice with some drink in between.
(I did not complain at that time, because I thought that's just the way this bar serves drinks, not a specific behaviour of one barkeeper.)
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Bt. I am still wondered why they used to have Coke out of Bottles instead a Keg system (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keg) they work flawless for Softdrinks also (worked with that in a 2 star Hotel). No offence to the estrel here but i think it would helped it they did.
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I had multiple drinks at the bar, and well, sure for the price, quality was just average :
- Mojito ( before the con ) -> Just way to hard, lot's of alcool, no taste ...
- Long Island -> Okay level, not the best I had, not the worse :)
- Spooge special -> Was nice taste wise, but total abuse by the quantity of ice cube they put in there. Personally I think they did well by mixing it in advance, to ensure a stable quality. With less ice in it, would have been a really good option :)
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My feedback ( and yes, I know it is a 4 star hotel with according prices etc. )
- Cocktails were not tasty, had too much ice and too little booze in them.
- For an environment like this, I'm not to happy to have seen pre-mixed cocktails.
I'd be glad if the hotel and its bar stuff could improve a lot on this situation. :-)
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Personally I think they did well by mixing it in advance, to ensure a stable quality.
It does ensure a stable quality. But it also set the visible standards to "Get one of our cocktails made fresh, or one of your cheaper specials from a plastic keg". That premixed stuff in a plastic container might be useful, but it makes the cocktail look cheap and lacks style. But well, that's a First World Problem.
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Personally I think they did well by mixing it in advance, to ensure a stable quality.
It does ensure a stable quality. But it also set the visible standards to "Get one of our cocktails made fresh, or one of your cheaper specials from a plastic keg". That premixed stuff in a plastic container might be useful, but it makes the cocktail look cheap and lacks style. But well, that's a First World Problem.
Sadly not always...the Estrel Drive for example - in the evening it was pre mixed...any other time it wasn't - the difference in taste was enormous
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The issue with the large beers is a simple matter of the glasses running out. You can only store so many large glasses at a bar and if people don't bring them back... ;)
Semi-true. At many points, there were half litre glasses available, but still they (the Atrium bar) refused to serve them. To my understanding, the staff simply did what they were told by their manager (who didn't seem to enjoy the con quite as much), as one of them was about to start serving a large, but was told off by said manager.
Was solved by going to the piano bar instead. Mr Donkey was a really nice chap and knew what we (who went there) wanted. :-)
I kept to beer at the con (of reasons), so cannot say much about the cocktails.
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Question: Is it normal that a coke (for 3.80€, was it?) is a glass filled to the top with ice, and the gaps sorta filled with coke? I'm not really well experienced with hotels and soft drinks, but that seemed horrible to me.
Yes, at almost every venue I've drunk at.
Which is why you learn to say "Coke please, no ice" and rehearse it until the last two words roll off your tongue automatically :)
The vast majority are OK with this. A few charge a little extra, others refuse outright -- to the latter, I change my order to a tap water, which most alcohol-serving bars will usually provide for free ^.^
Simples! ;D
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Tap water is common to be free in the UK but over here it's common to get mineral water and for it to have a (low) price.
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While I heard from many that the cocktails were watered down and / or badly made, the two alcoholic drinks for me for this year, a black ice and a pina collada (both from the Atrium bar) were done okay enough to my (inexperienced) tastes even tho I found the pina collada to be a bit too steep at 11 Euros for a "okay enough" cocktail.
The thing that got me grumbly every time without fail was the Atrium bars policy on softdrink sizes, tho:
For the first coke I ordered there on Monday I was asked "normal size coke or 0.5 liters?". Afterwards every other time I asked for a big coke I was told there weren't enough glasses. Even if I could see 20+ of the big beer glasses right in front of me.
I mean okay, I'd get if there's a policy not to sell coke in big glasses because you can make an euro more for beer in the same glass, but why then even offer it at all?
One of the "best" occurrences when that whole thing happened for me was on Tuesday, when I asked for a big coke and was told in those exact (if translated) words "We don't have a big softdrink size" in a not too friendly tone. The guy behind the bar did flip over to an equally unfriendly "we are out of glasses" (which again I could see was not true, especially since I just bought in a 0.5l glass myself, but eh).
I would've complained to the hotel then and there but I was expected elsewhere at the time so I just chalked it up to a onetime incident and went on.
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One of the "best" occurrences when that whole thing happened for me was on Tuesday, when I asked for a big coke and was told in those exact (if translated) words "We don't have a big softdrink size" in a not too friendly tone. The guy behind the bar did flip over to an equally unfriendly "we are out of glasses" (which again I could see was not true, especially since I just bought in a 0.5l glass myself, but eh).
I would've complained to the hotel then and there but I was expected elsewhere at the time so I just chalked it up to a onetime incident and went on.
This matches my experience with that bar pretty well. A lot of the staff (Especially the manager) seemed sour and were quite often rude.
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Just my 2¢ from previous cocktail bar work.
I'm assuming the bars were given a spec sheet for the EF bespoke drinks? (Hopefully more than one) Otherwise it's very understandable for a bar team that's probably less than used to mixing cocktails, to struggle with ones that aren't even on their usual menu.
Further, I assume that at some point at least the bar managers were met with for a quick mix & taste session on the drinks? Again otherwise they have no point of reference to work with, making it hard to quality control through briefing their staff or handling quality complaints.
If no to both/either of the above, I'd STRONGLY suggest something like this be done next year to give the bar staff a fighting chance and the attendees a fair shot at getting the drink they ordered.
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mmm, the guys at the bar of the Maritime had no problems doing it right from the start, as unfriendly as they may have been (imo I didnt really had a bad feeling about them, just maybe not as friendly as the people from the Ringberg, but thats all subjective)
in the case of the Estrel, imo that show a not so good level of professionalism and the problem lies on the bar manager shoulder because the waiters/waiteress are only doing what he tells them
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Just chipping in that this was also an issue for me and again, did affect the hotel's takings from us. The special cocktails never felt like they had any alcohol in them whatsoever and had too much ice on several occasions. The Pina Colada was the only full price cocktail I bought and it was a big disappointment: certainly plenty of alcohol but poor taste, poorly mixed (very different taste from top to bottom), poor presentation, lots of ice - just not what you would expect from a 4 star hotel bar at all. I did not bring these things up at the con because I had scarce time to socialise with people I almost never get to see and did not want to head off to the bar to kick up a fuss, and felt it would be ok to mention in the feedback..hope that's okay.
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About the same experience at the bar near the fursuit lounge (Atrium bar I guess).
I saw the unfancy discount version of a Mojito at a friend and wondered if that's not supposed to have mint leafs and brown sugar, was not overwhelmed by the event cocktails (at least the non-alcohol parts) coming premixed form big plastic canisters, and my one and only Pina Colada was not from a canister and shaken alright, yet poured over ice cubes in a table glass (with a slice of pineapple so you know what it's supposed to be) and despite trying not to drink it too fast the glass remained like a third full of ice cubes.
I'm sure you CAN do your cocktails that way, but I won't pay 11 Euros for that.
The bar crew also seemed unable to realize who is waiting to place an order for forever already and serve those first (or just ask who was next) and instead mostly focused on whomever their gaze met first, and the two times I explicitly asked for a glass that is clean on the outside because I did not want it to soak into my suit and tipped some too (before they made it) (the answers were "I'm sure we can do that" and "of course") the glass they handed me was spilled with drink on the outside.
No, I did not try to run after them when I found out and go irate raptor on them. Neither do I know if any of that was laziness of the keeper in question or lack of skill or bar policy or hotel policy, nor did I feel like putting up stress. But I did and do think this should be addressed afterwards, so they can improve whatever the reasons are for next year.
As that was far from the minor glitches and slow service due to high load which cannot be prevented.
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To make it short adding my 2 drinks after this already lengthy and repeating thread:
Was two times at the atrium bar, on Tuesday around 10 (?), Sunday about same time.
Status: Not to overcrowded, but definitely busy.
Had Virgin Mojito (whatever they call it) both times (Ginger Ale instead of alcohol), so no comment on the content of that.
Got Lime quarters, mint, brown sugar, all squashed, all fine
As Mojito consists of a whole lot of ice, a "to much" that was not a concern either.
Was served fast, personale seemed in a hurry, drink was mixed quite hasty.
One single perfunctionary turn with the rod was a not really enough to squash the lime or mint.
Mojito is supposed to be done with crushed ice but they used a single block the size of the glass (No time to make crush ice? Or not enough traffic so that it would melt away before being used? Don't know). As the ice is supposed to melt over time and to be used with the excess sugar (and the over again pressed lime and mint), there was not much of a trade-off for the money spent, some sips with the straw and it was gone, which normally is not a problem, due to the ice melting and being drunk also. Well, I gave up stirring and trying to melt the block after about half an hour. There was also no stirr&squish-thingie, just the straw, which made it also not very effective.
9 Euro for a not even alcoholic drink (a small one) is quite a sum I think, especially as its the same price as the adult Mojito goes, I'd expected some price off.
Let's see how do fare next year.
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Yeah, wasn't too great for me either. In a simple rum and coke they put so much rum in that I couldn't taste the coke. Now, normally I don't complain about getting TOO much alcohol, but... It was too strong for me to drink it, I had to give it to my friend and keep to the non-alcoholic estrel drive, or beers ): The Mojito I bought was too strong as well; not enough of the mint or the sweet kick from the cane sugar.
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I had Pina Colada several times during the con and they were amazing <3
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After someone told me that the cocktails were good this year, I tried a Black Ice, and it was just as disappointing as last year. I just gave up on cocktails after that experience and bought my own booze - that was well noticeable in my wallet.
A lot of furs told me that the standard cocktails mixed by the older guy in the Beach Bar were very good, but I didn't feel like trying it anymore.
I miss the Maritim bar crew...
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I always left out the Atrium-Bar and instead went to either Piano-Bar or the Beergarden. At both places the cocktails I had (standard, no special offer-ones) were quite okay. Not fancy, but definetly not bad. And the crew there seemed to have more fun doing their job as well.
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After someone told me that the cocktails were good this year, I tried a Black Ice, and it was just as disappointing as last year.
where did you get it? hotel Atrium bar or the beergarten bar?
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where did you get it? hotel Atrium bar or the beergarten bar?
At the Atrium bar. - I'm not sure if the beergarten bar had Black Ice, I just remember standard cocktails on the menu... but I didn't have a closer look, because I was through with cocktails anyway.
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I had Jehova on two different occasions, and I can't really compare it to what it should be, but I enjoyed it both times. The second time it was during the day or so, it was more colourful for sure (and mmm, mango), but the night-time version wasn't bad either.
For the most part, I just had Berliner Weisse. The normal beers were... bad. Not their fault (or maybe, because they stock a not really good kind of beer). But I certainly had more fun drinking 29ct. beer from Netto than the generic beers at the bar. The Alte is okay.
I had one gin-tonic, it was good — but then, there's nothing to ruin on a Bombay Sapphire and tonic...
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At the Atrium bar. - I'm not sure if the beergarten bar had Black Ice, I just remember standard cocktails on the menu... but I didn't have a closer look, because I was through with cocktails anyway.
just avoid the Atrium bar, the EF cocktails are premixed in big jar. everytime I tried one there it was watered down and tasted not so good.
in the beergarten bar, the guy was doing them live and they tasted as they should, though the later you go, the stronger they get :D
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I tried again this year - non-alcoholic Estrel Drive still dang good. Mojito - still not enough mint or lime coming through. But when I ordered a Sex on the Beach, it was awesome! :) These were both at the Atrium bar.
And the half rum&coke I took over from my friends was good, too - this one bought at the small bar near the main stage.
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What me annoyed was that the glasses were sometimes small, but this also happened with the ice chocolate ... The price never changed though...
I mostly had Pina Colada and Estrel Drive, those Drinks were both tasty. ^^
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I had some outside. They were pretty good.
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I was disappointed that the constructive feedback we gave here from last year did not have such a great result.
Most of all, I found there was again a great difference in quality of drinks, and I was very disappointed they stuck with their prices for that.
When the next drink is such a gamble that can be as good as the last one, but also much worse, or made differently, or in a smaller glass, I am very hesitant to order one. Especially with prices like that. If the prices are moderate I can at least shrug it off when something is not great.
But with their pirces and random quality I ended up having only 5 or 6 cocktails over the entire 7 days, and otherswise stuck with cheaper drinks (beer, soda, kalte Muschi). That amount of cocktails I had at a single good night in the Maritim, so it is really their loss!
If they cannot go down with the prices because hotel policy, I hope they can give a discount on con badge, like Confuzzled did (20% off at the bar there). That also made you feel welcome and in a good happy mood and eager to spend more there. :)