Landidyll Park Hotel Bad Salzig, Boppard

WHY DID WE BOOK THE PARK HOTEL BAD SALZIG?

In a nutshell we required overnight accommodation in Germany for the night of 6th October 2008, we had planned a scenic return trip from Switzerland via the Rhine Gorge in central Germany.

For various reasons, mainly attributable, it has to be said, to my scrooge like ways, I was aware, before arriving there, that due to the incredibly high cost of accommodation in Switzerland, ...
...usual standard. And so, in reality, had it turned out not to be. Partly in order to make it up to my dear wife, I had decided to splash out on a rather more luxurious billet for our overnight stop in Germany on the way home.

Having had extensive, almost entirely positive, experience of hotels in Germany, thorough internet research of dozens of hotels in the "Romantic Rhine Valley" threw up this one, the four star Park Hotel ... more

WHY DID WE BOOK THE PARK HOTEL BAD SALZIG?

In a nutshell we required overnight accommodation in Germany for the night of 6th October 2008, we had planned a scenic return trip from Switzerland via the Rhine Gorge in central Germany.

For various reasons, mainly attributable, it has to be said, to my scrooge like ways, I was aware, before arriving there, that due to the incredibly high cost of accommodation in Switzerland, the Wildbach Hotel in Brienz would not be to our usual standard. And so, in reality, had it turned out not to be. Partly in order to make it up to my dear wife, I had decided to splash out on a rather more luxurious billet for our overnight stop in Germany on the way home.

Having had extensive, almost entirely positive, experience of hotels in Germany, thorough internet research of dozens of hotels in the "Romantic Rhine Valley" threw up this one, the four star Park Hotel in Bad Salzberg, as something a touch out of the ordinary and luxurious. This impression, both my wife and I had gained from reading hotel site reviews on this particular hotel. At a discounted internet booking rate of 99.50 Euros it was around 25% more expensive than our usually more than acceptable accommodation in Germany - we were looking forward to something a little special here……

HOTEL DESCRIPTION / OUR PERCEPTION FROM HOTEL PUBLICITY

……that impression being bolstered all the way by the Hotel's own internet presence. I suppose that we should, rather than being curious, have smelt a rat when looking at the individually "themed" rooms offered here - some decidedly odd - one of them is "Leyland" for goodness sake, featuring none other than iconic old red double deckers…..

……However, although a hotel of 100 years standing, it did all look very new and clean, the dining room also looked very attractive. The final icing on the cake was that all the published guest reviews were written in glowing terms about the food (and wine).

Once again, although the Park had an English "button" on the site, I failed to make it work and had to make do with the native German language, although I have to say this is becoming easier to understand as years go by and more experience is gained with hotel bookings!

Our 'net browsing concluded and not knowing the area at all, it seemed well worth a try, even if being the most expensive hotel that we have ever booked in Germany.

BOOKING PROCESS 9 / 10

As with our overnight stay at the Hotel Traube on the way down to Switzerland, we booked this one through the German hotel booking site www.hotels.de. This site actually has the advantage of giving a full English description to all hotels listed, it also provides a location map showing the Park to be very close to, but not on, the west Rhine bank.

As with previous bookings made through hotels.de, this one was made without problem.

LOCATION 5 / 10

There's location and then there's location! Had this hotel been situated in the outskirts of a city, the location would indeed have been agreeable enough - a solid 8 score being the result - had that been the case, but it clearly was not!

This is the scenically beautiful, enchanting even, Rhine Valley, we saw and passed so many superbly located hotels over the ten miles or so before our GPS delivered us to the door of the very disappointingly located Park Hotel. In order to arrive at the Park, we had been directed off of the main road (the yellow route 9 from Bingen to Koblenz), up through some intimidatingly narrow side streets to find the hotel located on a "Y" junction on the way out of town.

Situated opposite a pretty, but small, Park in a middle class residential area, this is a quiet location on the outskirts of Bad Salzig. Bad Salzig itself is a dormitory town about a mile south of Boppard, the main tourist centre in the area. Our problem with Bad Salzig was that there was absolutely nothing to see or do there, had the hotel been located on the Rhine waterfront it would at least have had scenic views and somewhere pleasant to stroll after dinner.

The Park Hotel in Bad Salzig is certainly not one to use unless you arrive by car, according to their web site it is located one kilometre from Boppard railway station - it felt much further than that driving there in the car.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS 6 / 10

Once again this was a case of wondering if we had arrived at the hotel photographed and described on the internet. Granted, it was a rainy October afternoon when we arrived, but quite honestly on the sunny morning that followed the Park looked no more impressive.

Car parking was grossly insufficient for the 30 rooms - the hotel was far from full and we parked where directed in the front garden under a sap dropping tree, a fact only discovered upon using the screen-wash the following day!

The general surroundings were neat, if unspectacular, an impression that continued upon approaching the reception desk, located up a short flight of stairs outside the front door.

CHECKING IN 6 / 10

The receptionist who greeted us was hardly the most welcoming of hosts, more coldly efficient than any we have encountered during our German travels. To our surprise she escorted us (no help with the luggage was offered) to an annexe, none had been referred to on any site visited, located on the other side of the hotel garden.

From entering the front door to being deposited in our room had taken a matter of perhaps two minutes. Few explanations of the facilities were given and we had to ask for the meal times.

ON THE WAY TO THE ROOM i.e. how easy is it to find your way around? How accessible is if for less able persons? What condition are the public rooms and passageways in? 5 / 10

Once again it struck us quite strongly here that German hotels really are only suitable for those like ourselves - i.e. the fully able bodied. The annexe was approached via a full flight of outside stone steps, even for us laden with luggage they were slippery - for elderly or disabled they would be lethally dangerous.

As already mentioned, there were steps also up to the front door, even more to the restaurant if that was how you might approach the Park.

The public passageways of the annexe were clean and modern, light and spacious. The very shiny floor tiles however were slippery as those walking in from outside walked both damp and leaves onto them, if I allowed my factory floor to be that slippery I may well be liable for prosecution under health and safety laws here.

In order to have a meal, or just a drink at the bar, a walk down those slippery steps and across the garden has to be taken. If it is pouring with rain - as it was - you have to dress up in overcoat merely to go to dinner or breakfast, not ideal, especially at the prices charged here. If we stayed here again I would undoubtedly request a hotel - rather than annexe - room.

THE ROOM 3 / 10

Once the receptionist had beaten her hasty retreat, my wife and I were left standing in the middle of this huge room looking at each other, almost, in horror! I find it hard to find the words to describe the total tackiness, the bad taste, the sheer naffness of the décor and furniture here. Regrettably the pictures published below do not fully convey the horror of the gaudy colour scheme or tarty cheapness of this hotel room.

We looked aghast at the murals covering the wall behind the bed and the dreadful "clouds" on the ceiling. The murals appeared to be someone's childish idea of a biblical times river scene…..again words are failing me here.

Those who know me will all describe me as a "blue" person - I dress in blue, used to have a blue car, blue is my favourite colour. This room was almost sufficient to expunge any likening for the colour blue……

……superficially it was actually a very well appointed room, containing gadgets that I have not seen in a hotel room before - such as a CD / DVD entertainment system linked to the television. It looked impressive in a gadgety way, but sounded unimpressive…..why am I not surprised?

Oddly in this enormous room the television itself was a tiny portable - the brackets remaining conspicuously on the wall where, presumably, a large, flat screen, one had been removed.

Below our feet and just to put the finishing touch to the grotesque ambiance of our room was the orange shag pile carpet. My wife is rather too young to remember them, but memories of those 1970's "Emmanuelle" soft porn films for whatever reason sprung to mind…….we were left giggling all the way back to England about shag pile carpets - little things and all that!

Regrettably all of the superficial "flash" could not fail to disguise a basic lack of both quality and functionality. Both doors to the en-suite and the room were noticeably low quality flat panel ones lacking even the basic refinement of a proper door-frame! Not being one for admiring myself in the mirror the lack of such a feature in the room is of little consequence personally…..but at 100 Euro per night my wife seemed to view it as an omission!

Nor, for those who like to partake in a tipple or two, was there a mini-bar.

The large, free standing, wooden wardrobe, king sized bed and leather tub and desk chairs all looked somewhat Lilliputian and lost in this room. The two bed side tables and desk stand - completely taken up with the entertainment system - were supplemented by a coffee table.

In a room this size, one would expect to find some area suitable to work at, especially as the Park bills itself as a conference venue - here no such facility was provided.

To the left of the bed was a large, double opening window overlooking the garden, to the right the door into the en-suite.

THE EN-SUITE 3 / 10

The en-suite was really no better planned than the room itself. The décor and lighting was still far too "loud" for our taste. Particularly disconcerting was the fact that there was neither obscure glass, nor a curtain of any sort, covering the two bathroom windows - heaven knows who may have been watching, or filming even, one's ablutions or from where. I am not known for narrow-mindedness, but even I draw the line at bathing in public.

The shower was unusable due to the fact that it was an over-bath one and had no form of screen or curtain - use of the shower would have flooded both en-suite and carpeted bedroom.

We avoided flooding the room with the shower - that was an all too obvious trap……

……unfortunately, less obvious until I had actually used it, was flooding the floor with WASTE water from the bidet! The leaking pipe underneath the basin did not become obvious until pulling the plug on it - at which point water spurted out in all directions underneath it. Not the usual German plumbing efficiency on display here!

DID WE GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP? 9 / 10

This room was definitely at its best after the lights were switched off - although I swear that those side tables and the desk actually glowed that hideous blue in the dark.

Yes we did sleep well enough, the room was quiet, as were the surroundings allowing us to sleep with the window tilted inwards. The laundry was clean, soft, fresh and white. The bed comfortable, the only complaint here being the flattest, softest pillows that we have ever encountered - no matter, we just used the cushions from the tub chair to supplement them!

FACILITIES ON OFFER - No score here, different grades / prices of hotel understandably have different facilities.

I have this horrible suspicion that this is one of those hotels that on paper manages to tick all the boxes, but in reality the facilities are probably as much a let down as the room itself. From the website, not our own experience, I can tell you that the Park offers a fully equipped wellness centre, including sauna and solarium, it also offers bike hire, laundry service, secretary service and has wireless internet connection throughout……useful if there happened to be somewhere to place your laptop in the room!

One thing that I did notice was that pets are "accepted"……..yes that may be the case but would they accept being in a room like this……

……although they would appreciate the shag pile more than we did!

BREAKFAST / OTHER MEALS, FOOD & DRINKS 7 / 10

As with any other German hotel that we have stayed in, the food was superb; not only the evening meal, which we paid an exorbitant 69.20 Euro for, but also breakfast which was included in our room rate.

Even here there were "issues" I'm afraid!

We took, as is our habit, an early evening meal, having booked a table for two in the restaurant for 6.30pm. We were shown to our reserved table in the far dark corner of the bar by the receptionist, who was now doubling as our waitress.

Whilst the candle lit ambiance was not unpleasant here, we were sat all alone in an area that clearly was NOT the restaurant, all the other diners were being seated in the conservatory next door. We soon realised that the bar area acted as a corridor through from the kitchen - it turned out to be a very "busy" meal, even with only the two of us seated here.

Highlight of the meal actually turned out to be the house white wine - a local (Boppard) Riesling, a couple of bottles of which we picked up for a fraction of the cost in a supermarket before returning home the following day.

By the time dinner finished we were feeling utterly segregated, why had we been separated in this way from all the other diners? It has certainly never happened to us anywhere before and felt surprisingly uncomfortable……

……when the breakfast server attempted to seat us at the same (dark) bar table the next morning I had had enough. English / Polish or not, this time we stood up for ourselves, insisting on sitting in the conservatory restaurant with all of the other guests! Once located by the window we enjoyed an excellent buffet breakfast with one of the best ranges of cereals, cold meat cuts, cheeses, salads and breads that I have seen anywhere.

OVERALL VALUE FOR MONEY 2 / 10

Do you really need me to elaborate here?

Overall, the Park Hotel, Bad Salzig, was very poor value for money. The ingredients that we look for in a good hotel were simply missing here. This hundred year old hotel should have had real character; unfortunately any character that it may have once possessed has been eradicated, to be totally pimped rather than modernised.

It is located close to some stunning scenery, all of its competitors are located IN that same stunning scenery, it seems that its owners have attempted to create an attraction out of the hotel itself, and in our eyes at least, have failed - miserably.

HOW LIKELY AM I / ARE WE, TO USE THIS HOTEL AGAIN?

My wife and I are quite unanimous on this: NEVER AGAIN!

This is a hotel that we have since alternated between giggling and having nightmares about. Quite weather it was worth 168.70 Euro - around £150 at the then exchange rate - in order to have a story to dine out on I'm not sure.

RICHADA'S HOTEL RATING 55 / 100

In order to put that score into some kind of perspective, here are my current hotel rankings - all reviewed and scored using identical criteria:

Ringhotel Friederikenhof - Lubeck - Germany - 92%
Hotel Traube - Offenburg - Germany - 88%
Amber Hotel - Chemnitz - Germany - 86%
Swallow Bower Hotel - Chadderton - 83%
Grand Hotel, Torquay - 83%
Innkeeper's Lodge, Chester Northeast - 83%
Innkeeper's Lodge, Stockport - 83 %
Innkeeper's Lodge, Hull - 81%
Preston Swallow Hotel - Samlesbury, Lancashire - 74%
Hotel Drei Schwanen - Hohenstein-Ernstthal - Germany - 72%
Hotel Viktoria, Cologne - 70%
Innkeeper's Lodge, St Albans - 65%
Hotel Piast, Boleslawiec (Poland) - 64%
Chadwick Hotel, St Annes - 63 %

PARK HOTEL - Bad Salzig - Nr Boppard - Germany - 55%

Innkeeper's Lodge, Lichfield - 39%

CONTACT DETAILS:

Park Hotel
Romerstrasse 38
56154 Boppard
Germany 

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