Barcelo Cologne City Center, Cologne

My husband's company booked this hotel since they were in the SPOGA show and I tagged along to visit Germany. Our first room flooded after I took a bath. Standing water about a half inch covered the bathroom floor. When we inquired about our flooded bathroom, they said there was nothing they could do to fix it and the hotel was old. So we suggested they move us, which they did. Or rather, we moved ourselves, they did not offer to send someone up to help us move our luggage. In our next room, there were opened and half empty bottles of soda in our mini bar. They were left obviously by the person in the room a head of us. We also found a sweater left in the closet. A bit odd. You would have thought the maid service would have noticed these things. They had this fancy pant press on the wall, when we tried to use it, it was broken. When you showered, the temperature of the water would shift to boiling and scald you without warning, every time we showered the 3 days we were there this happened. It did not matter what time of day you were showering. This hotel is no where near the "sights" of Koln. It is a least a mile walk away from the Dom and the most popular museums which are all near the Dom. It is no where near the Rhine. When we looked at the fitness room and swimming pool, we laughed. The fitness room consists of 2 treadmills and 2 other miscellaneous machines, in a small room. The pool is closed- no information given. Door locked. Our maid service was always very, very late in the day even when we up and out at 9am- no service by 4pm in the day! Our last day there, I noticed that the scarf I wore on the first day was not where I left it. As it turned out we took everything out of our bags and scoured the room to no avail. It was clear it must have been removed by someone else. When we talked to the front desk, it was clear they were not surprised that housekeeping might have taken something from our room. We went to lunch and told them after we got back we would hope that they would have found my scarf or given us a solution as we were checking out. Over an hour later when we returned they had no solution for us. The manager told us we would have to go to the police if we suspected that housekeeping took the scarf. I explained to them that the scarf was not expensive ($20USD) but that my 8 year old daughter had given it to me for my birthday and this was the first time i wore it. They apologized. Since I was leaving forever, I suggested that I give them my name and address and a description of the scarf and if they were able to locate it, then they could send it to me. I think they took my information only to pacify me. As a result, they did nothing. Did not offer us anything, not even a free drink. Or compensation. They let us walk out of the hotel with no word.