What's up in DUS area 13-15th March?
 

Looking for a soccer weekend in Dusseldorf area on 13-15th March 2015, and all hotels seem to be fully booked or crazy expensive. Is there a major event or something on those dates?

Been looking at Club Carlson, IHG and Hilton (which I would prefer to stay at) properties and many are not available or 200-400€ range. Usually one easily gets below 100€ on weekends here.

Dunno, maybe I should try and learn to do BRG for any of those 400€ rooms, I have never done a single BRG claim...

Is that when they have that boat trade fair there?

There are so many convenient rail connection to the city. Try looking at hotels in Essen or Bochum or Gelsenkirchen. Even Dortmund isn't that long of a train ride. Of course, Köln is an option as well.

The boat fair is right now and almost over. In march is a wine and liquor convention at the convention center. As soon as a convention is in town hotel prices sky rocket in Düsseldorf

What's up in DUS area 13-15th March?
 

Thank you. I was googleing but did not find such an overview. I am just surprised that such ProWein fair is so big that even if the fair starting on Monday, hotels are well booked already on Friday and Saturday. Peope coming over to have beer over weekend as pre-drinks :D

I found somewhat reasonable yes at Essen and Dortmund, but those are quite ugly places I guess. Would prefer in city, but you do not always win in life.
Perhaps I should extend the view and look for alternative non-chain accomodations as well if there are good ones below 100€

Dortmund yes, Essen not really. But both are not Paris..... Which hotels do you consider?

Sometimes I stay as far as Monchengladbach or Koln.

Actually I rebooked my HI Essen to HI Neuss to have more proximity to Dusseldorf and the other night at HIX Dortmund for the proximity of Westfalen stadium.
Not a big fan of HI/HIX but Hilton&CCarlson were crazy expensive. BTW I read a hotel review on HI Neuss and someone had their cars stolen from the street! Hope it is not that bad, I am usually pretty lax about safety:eek:

Essen is the most interesting city in the whole Ruhr district, and I'd rank it much higher than Düsseldorf which is IMHO highly overrated. It's a pity that people know so little about the city and judge from a reputation that derives from the coal mining era and is outdated by 30 years. They weren't Cultural Capital of Europe for nothing in 2010.
Here is my two cents worth about Essen, in case anyone is interested: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/f86bd/fd22/

Great tip about Essen, thanks!
The whole area of Ruhr still has a bad image. I too was earlier that Dusseldorf is boring ugly (those times I stayed at Köln area, hehehe ;) who told me that) not worth visiting, but I have found it nice. Sounds like I need to explore Essen next.

HI Neuss isn't great. It's not terrible, but if you don't have a car, there is pretty much nothing to walk to. The hotel is somewhat dated as well. I did walk (quite a ways) to the mall, and I felt 100% safe the entire time, it's mostly businesses around there.

I'll not stay there again unless I don't have much of a choice. Not because of the area or any safety issues, simply because I found the hotel to be somewhat dated.

It's funny, it always seems there is some kind of convention / trade show / etc in Germany every time I'm there...I always end up having to scramble for hotels because my overseas counterparts typically wait till the last minute to tell me what cities I need to be in on which dates.

Like you should in the whole region. A car-theft is possible, especially in the top-neighborhoods. Simple reason: People have better cars.... But normally this thefts aren´t too dangerous and run away if they see people. One colleague of me attacked some thefts with his Sushi-knife

Haha :)

Yes I will have a car so location is not problem after all. And I will a couple of heavyweight lifters in my travel group in case someone tries to steal our Fiat Panda or whatever they give us for the low money...

Only problem: They don`t steal it when you are present;)