PadelCity Dortmund: twelve courts, and the app is the only door

Twelve padel courts — six under a roof and six in the open — on a site near the Dortmund stadium that describes itself as a lifestyle location rather than a padel venue, and for once the marketing is roughly accurate. Alongside the courts there are three indoor football pitches, a MultiCourt with a parquet floor for basketball and anything else, a yoga area, workshop rooms, the interactive 'Lü' games and learning wall, and a restaurant with a large outdoor terrace.

The six-plus-six split is the fact to plan around, because it is also a price split: indoors costs €36 an hour before 16:00 and €42 after, outdoors €30 and €36, and at weekends and on public holidays it is a flat €42 indoors and €36 outdoors all day. Six euros an hour per court is not much on one court and is real money across six.

One operational detail catches people out. Padel here is bookable only through the PadelCity app — the venue says so plainly, Playtomic carries the football pitches but not the padel courts, and rackets are booked in the app too. Payment is PayPal, card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. If your group's habit is to turn up and ask, that does not work here.

Twelve doubles courts is forty-eight players on court and a ceiling around sixty-four — the largest padel session anywhere in this region. At that size the Americano is arithmetically impossible: forty-seven rounds against the six an hour gives at 21 points. Mexicano, one target, set once.

Almost nobody needs twelve courts, and the ladder below is the more useful half of this page. Book two courts for eight, three for twelve, and the price question becomes which six euros you are paying: three outdoor courts before 16:00 are €90, three indoor after 16:00 are €126.

Decide indoor or outdoor for the whole group rather than mixing. Splitting a rotation across the two means players walking between the hall and the open courts every round, and the two halves also cost different money on one invoice.

Everyone needs the app before the session, not at the gate. Send the link with the invitation — a group of twelve installing an app in the car park is fifteen minutes of a sixty-minute booking.