Rote Wand Gourmet Hotel, a Member of Design Hotels

I do about 300 nights a year at Bonvoy properties and was blown away by my experience at this charming Alpine hotel. The location itself is like being in a postcard. The hotel is very clean and modern and offers all the luxury amenities you could ever want (multiple styles of saunas, pools, and a complete gym). The best part about the hotel is the fact that every meal comes with the stay. This isn’t normal hotel food, however. All meals are made with incredibly fresh local ingredients in their Michelin rated restaurant. Dinner is 5 courses and offers 4 meal types (meaning vegetarian and vegan friendly, too). Don’t worry, even if you miss the great lunch, they have afternoon cake time with several cake selections. The hotel is also a ten minute hike away from a beautiful 50 foot waterfall and like a 5 minute walk from a ski lift (with enclosed gondola cars). The chair lift system connects you to most of the entire area and is almost like a mountain metro. Finally, and most importantly, customer service and the people working at the hotel make the stay exceptional. We were given world class service by Dominic. He greeted us and got us checked in when we arrived (and also called us before we arrived to make sure we had dinner waiting for us as we arrived late in the evening). He gave great advice on things to do and was a genuinely kind and caring person. I have never been made to feel more welcomed or appreciated in all my stays. The whole staff was great and I cannot recommend this hotel enough. You won’t be disappointed. Thank you, Dominic and team for such a memorable stay!

Amazing hotel!!!! The facilities are excellent and very clean. I loved the spa area,is on of the best I have ever been but the best part of the hotel is the spot!!!Lech, a top notch place to relax and enjoy vacations!!! The restaurant and bar lounge are super cozy!

This place is dialed in to having the most relaxing, fun, and gourmet Alps experience. The location is gorgeous with easy access to skiing and to town (via shuttle). The food is wonderful, the beds so comfortable and cozy, the spa/sauna/pool clean and lovely. But the staff is exceptional. In addition to being incredibly helpful, they are polite, funny, interesting, kind, go above and beyond, and engaging. Everyone seems very happy to be there and to be part of your experience. Top notch. Top notch! Cannot wait to return.

Our second stay here. We show up, “We don’t have your reservation” that’s for 7 days that we had paid a huge deposit on. Not a great way to start, they figured it out eventually looking at us like we’re crashing some exclusive enclave. OK fine, they give us a room down in a hole w no view at all, many thousands of dollars buys this? This concern/care as a returning client? I mean no view - looking a wall of snow. Sign on our door ‘do not disturb’ Valentine’s Day, knock knock, ‘do you want room made up?’ No, thats what the card on the door handle says - no offer of fresh towels. Full on tip fatigue after every purchase for 7 days and nights - I get it, I waited tables for years, but at this daily price? We won’t be returning.

What was surprisingly disappointing after a nice experience last year? We stayed in a family lodge, cozy, incredible view and clean. We were so looking forward to a relaxing evening and a delicious dinner like last year…but -we were seated on a mini-table the size of a coffee table between two other families also trying to dine on coffee tables with their numerous dogs. No room for drinks, no room for mixing their salads, loud, everything but comfortable and relaxing after a 5 hour drive. -Silverware came in a large box, like Oktoberfest. Which was understandable during the height of Corona. In my opinion this is not gourmet standard- certainly not Falstaff standard. The Silverware box was half the size of the little table we were trying to eat on. The service personnel was piling bread and appetizers on top of the boxes on the coffee-tables in our vicinity, as there was no space on the tables. We simply didn’t’ get it as we reserved our vacation a year ago. Is the restaurant overbooked? Despite mentioning that we did not like the table, we were not offered a different option. To say the least my family and I were sad… -then the long awaited meal arrived (which I am not calling a dinner). The food was everything but a “gourmet” experience. Something went wrong in the kitchen: Risotto Soup was like glue, the Salmon and side had no taste at all, then the other extreme, my daughters onion ravioli was over flavoured and you could not eat it. -my husband then suspected what is different- the chef must have changed. -we mentioned our disappointment to our service- no response, no reaction, no visit from a manager. And yes the chef changed. We kindly and politely let them know that the food was not to our expectations. Yet no-one did anything. -So we wrote a concerned email…no response over two days. Note we are only staying for a week?! Other hotels we have experienced where something went wrong or not as you planned, left a note in your room or did some type of gesture. All we wanted was an apology. -So we decided to eat elsewhere the next night…but we ofcourse wanted to eat at the hotel we were staying at, so we gave it another try on day 3. -On the third night, I kindly asked to have our silverware set at the table…response was- the owner wants it this way since Corona. So I set the table for my family every night as I do at home… -As mentioned the lodge is cozy, but it should be noted that after all the not so nice meal experiences we start to notice other things -the bathrooms are in need of renovation, our bathroom had a leak coming from the ceiling above, no-one did anything - the spa steambath was smelly- last year the steam bath smelled of herbs -the indoor pool is too small for the number of guests -the spa area is not relaxing, a line up of lounge chairs -inexperienced staff, no team spirit -owners don’t really great their guests anymore, we missed the Austrian personal touch. -parking now costs 29 Euro per night-

The hotel and the staff are fantastic and the 2-bedroom suite we booked beautiful. So why aren´t I going back? The 4 things I look at are: Experience; Sleep; Shower; everything else; In summary, my disappointments are: - The majority non-German speaking / non-Austrian experience - The shower didn´t get fixed - The food options for anyone wanting a lighter evening meal are very limited Therefore my reasons for not going back are primarily personal "wants" from my holiday, rather than anything wrong with the hotel (other than the shower). Generally, the experience was excellent. However, the majority of the staff are non-German speaking (English is excellent, so communication is fine). So it is not an "Austrian" experience which was disappointing. Secondly, the room design is excellent in many ways. But the wardrobe is by the front door so everyone has to walk to the front door to get their underwear and trousers. If I turned the apartment light on, the wardrobe lights all had to be on. The "wardrobe" in the bedroom, used the glass window as its back, so when anyone sat on the terrace, they could see my pants. Sleep was excellent. Top marks. The shower went warm to cool every fraction of a second with the occasional very hot and very cold. I asked for this to be fixed 3 times, which it never was. The gym and spa are both excellent. The area for the massage therapy is a bit too medical in its design for my liking. The food is incredible. No doubt about this. But if all you want is something light - despite there being 3 restaurants - there are essentially no options, and you have to take the bus to town. In the summer, this is probably great after a long hike. But when we ski, we tend to eat out during the day and have something lighter in the evening. The response is that I shouldn´t have gone to a gourmet hotel. Fair point. But I like my food. Organic, locally sourced is important to me, and I thought I could get it that albeit in smaller portions here.