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[Cheetah]

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.

[Jumpy]

[...] 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.

[Tekumseh]

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.

[ysegrim]

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?)

[Tekumseh]

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...

[nobs]

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...]

[carter]

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.

[Ralesk]

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

[ysegrim]

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 ...

[Alpha_Ki]

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!

[Luxen]

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.

[Ralesk]

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.

[Santa fox]

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.

[Tsanawo]

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.

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. 

[Jorinda]

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.)