Am Solegarten

We stayed in this hotel last year. The staff is friendly, the breakfast very good and the location fabulous.. across the road is the park followed by the salt spa. (Solemar) They are busy upgrading their facilities and are doing a great job. The on-site beautician and masseur are also highly recommended. The only negative was that they forgot to give us our vouchers when we arrived.. it was soon sorted out when we mentioned it.

Bad Dürkheim is a Spa town - this will not be news to anyone reading this review. But the hotel seems to be a little unsure of what this means. First, you are told even before you arrive that you have to check in first at the main hotel. What the message does not tell you is that the room you will stay in is half a mile down the street, and you'll be dragging your suitcases by yourself. To get to the reception is designed as a fitness test. Let's see whether you can wrestle your suitcases up seven steps - there is no ramp. But OK, maybe survivable for most (although there are actually people who go to spa resorts because they need serious rehab). You stay two nights, and immediately upon arrival you ask for a massage for the lady. Nothing available either day (we are talking Wednesday and Thursday in a normal, non-holiday week). Some phone calls are made, and a slot becomes available right after breakfast (which said lady declined). If this is supposed to eb a joke, it is not funny. Offering spa services that are booked solid in the least busy of times may be a great financial model for the hotel owners, but this is no a spa hotel, sorry. Then we drag our suitcases to the apartment room half a mile away, arrive there, and the key does not work. We got lucky that room service happened to be there and offered to drive back and forth to get us a new card (the programming had failed, and this seemed to be a not-so-rare event from what the room service was saying. Not to mention a single receptionist who was so overloaded with the cumbersome check-in routine for one couple that a second hotel guest arriving shortly after us stood there for about 15 minutes waiting. Nothing wrong with the room, but the sign saying please restore the kitchen to the state you found it in, including cleaning the dishes and taking out the trash, or else be charged 100 euros - interesting ideas of a vacation these folks have. The room was good (although the bathroom shower partition does not work and ends up flooding the bathroom), the breakfast very good, but overall a disappointment given the not exactly cheap rate. We would not stay here again, and cannot recommend this business.

This hotel is very tired. The room I stayed in had a window with a broken shutter that had been broken for some time which allowed a light outside that lit the building up at night to shine through the window. Expect to get white towels one day and striped towels on another. Also there is a stale water smell in the bathroom. This is not in my opinion worth the price that is demanded. Wifi is patchy at best and doesn't work in all rooms or the seating area near reception. In the restaurant it does however work. The breakfast is very good and the girls who are there are very friendly and polite. However, the new Nescafé machine for coffee does not make a good coffee. It was better when they had the coffee on tap from an urn.