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Yep - also electricity, wifi and bedlinen. Visitor's tax would only apply for Villa Katharina.

Sorry I've been on phone-internet until today and I still haven't learned to use it conveniently.

Yeah, the owner answered and we can have the pool villa from Saturday til Saturday  10.08.-17.08.2013.
For 18 people it's 3.755,00 eur (incl. everything) - 1500 eur have to be payed in advance. If nothing's wrong with the date I'm about to book it in the next few days.

I could imagine that the house owners might have a problem with "unofficial" guests - at least when we try to rent those first class villas. Chances to break stuff are higher when the place is overcrowded. Not to mention that we get a problem with chairs and kitchen space.

But currently I still don't see a big space problem - compared to the last two Mittens, interest was always higher than actual booking rate.

Just wait until people ask to bring the kids 
But I'm pretty sure we can avoid the whole couple-discussion (and also Tamara has got an account here + worked on games, so she's an AGSer) - it's still a long time until August.

Yay, more cars! As far as I know there aren't any official restrictions. Of course inviting all your local soccer club mates would gather some resistance But bringing partners/bf/gf/wifes/husbands whatsoever is perfectly alright.

@mOds: The weather is pretty unpredictable, it could be steaming hot or we might not see the sun in the whole week

--edit: there might be the rule that you should be old enough to travel on your own, but that won't apply for most of us

Should I count this as a definite interest?

I'll send the payment information via pm, once I get a reservation confirmation and having paid the booking fee.

Hehe, alright. I'm still waiting for the answer of my reservation request though.
And yep, the closest airport is Berlin Schönefeld (SXF). It's so close that setting up a shuttle service should be no problem.

Hehe, well there's also a real english version of that page, which I've linked to the first post. It says:

Other charges 5 â,¬ per person and day 2011, 6 â,¬ per persons and day 2012
(This includes: Bed linens, hand towels, electricity, WLAN, water, cleaning)

Extra reserve able: Sauna 1 â,¬, Whirlpool 1 â,¬, Bicycle 2 â,¬ (Price per person and day)
Bookable only for all persons and for the entire period of stay

On the german page, they say 6 eur per day includes everything, but for 18 people it's still 756 eur extra charges.
So all in all the pool villa costs 170 gbp

The booking fee for the pool villa is 500 euro and Villa Katharina is around 1000 euro.

Btw. funny math at the pool villa: free bikes cost 2 euro per person and day 
http://www.homeaway.co.uk/p768088
Also with all additional costs listed at the bottom of the page, the stay at the pool villa is 4007 euro, so there's no real price difference except that it's closer to Berlin

@cat and AGA: That sounds awesome.


--edit: on the german page the additional costs for the pool villa are lower, although the booking fee is way higher (1200 euro). I'm excited what I get to read in the owner's mail

[buy]

Nah, I'll simply start a kickstarter project, so we can buy the place
--
But yeah, that's a problem I'm well aware of. For renting a popular place that's the price to pay - again: it's peak season and it's the capital.

As long as we don't drop below 10 people I think we'll be fine with both of them. At Villa Katharina we can also cancel the carriage house if there aren't enough attendees. The pool villa on the other hand is much cheaper and also affordable with 12-14 people.

Since Berlin (and Cologne too) are pretty popular travel destinations, we'd rather book in the next couple of days and see who's coming. Otherwise we'd have to rent a spot somewhere deep in the woods or you all have to camp in my backyard

Alright - request for the second villa is out.

@cat Done

Awesome, how could I miss that?! I must have assumed that those 7 bedrooms would be double sleeps. I'll ask them right away.

edit: the 9th is already taken - Saturday to Saturday would still work out though.

@Ghost: would that also be possible for you?

The only problem with that other villa is that it's small: it fits only 14 people and about 22 are interested And from the interior I can almost tell you that the owner is not cool with overbooking it.

Villa Cat is just the biggest place around Berlin, except we ditch the whole Villa idea and rent two apartment floors (or that mill place)

@AGA If it's just about the 22nd, I'll gladly pick Jen up from the Airport on the 23rd.
Just to be safe I'll ask the owner for dates in July as well, although it will be hard for me to switch holidays in that month.

Doesn't the custom dialog gui module feature this? I'm pretty sure I've included Monkeys workarounds. If I recall correctly the module takes a screenshot of the area, blends your background into it and assigns it to the GUI. I think it just doesn't feature proper character tinting if there's one behind the GUI.

[23.-30.08.2013]

Hey all (and happy new year btw)!

I've just tried to book the villa (this Sunday to be specific), but oh noes: that date has already been taken. So if it wasn't booked by anyone of you, I'm afraid we need to discuss the date once more.
The owner told me that the only free Friday to Friday spot is this one: 23.-30.08.2013 The price is 4000 â,¬ including bed sheets, linen, towels and electricity. We also need to pay 1,50â,¬ visitor's tax per day and person. So it'll be around 233 Euro in total for a group of 18.

Is this still okay for you?

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/?title=Mittens

[09.08.2013]

Alright, let's make a little progress here.

How about 09.08.2013 to 16.08.2013 plus possible post mittens activity directly in Berlin (weekend at a youth hostel) ?
Is everyone happy with Villa Katharina?


PS:
In case you want to visit Gamescom in Cologne you just need to survive two more days until it starts and there's an excellent train connection between Berlin and Cologne.

He's gone... again? aww... Anyone knows what happened to him?

Anyhow, you can find his mail address in the readme of his latest MAGS entry.