Hotel Schweizerhof Luzern

I chose this hotel for a significant wedding anniversary and overall we had a good time. With only two exceptions, all the staff we met were friendly and helpful (which made the two exceptions stick in my mind, which is a shame). We were upgraded on arrival (to a room overlooking the lake), but there was some confusion about the room we had been given: it was not the room type I had specifically booked and had emailed them in advance to definitely confirm that we would get that room (a triple). After some unnecessary hassle, they brought in another bed. To resolve this. OK. The food is exceptional and the first night's evening meal was one of the best on our entire trip. Eating outside on the terrace had far more atmosphere than inside in their somewhat stultifying restaurant which reminded me of The Grand Budapest Hotel - and friendlier waitresses. They made a cake for our anniversary, which was jolly nice of them, and put it in a tin for us to bring home.

The bathroom was large, with a bath and VERY small shower cubicle, as if it had been installed as an afterthought? There were two washbasins but not enough room on either side for your own toiletries. I dragged over a strange little table to stand my toiletries bag on. The main problem with the bathroom which I reported to reception when checking out, is that there were nowhere near enough hooks or rails for all the towels and towelling robes once you had used them. You had to drape them over the bath which seems and looks terrible in such a spiffy establishment. And every day when housekeeping made the room up, they arranged three little bathmats on the floor of the bathroom in precise places where they just got in the way, especially in the way of the door! Regarding breakfast, do not make the mistake which we made the first morning. If you go into the massive, cavernous, buffet room and select ANY thing (even a piece of toast) you will automatically be charged an outrageous 35 Swiss Francs per person! The trick is to sit down first and wait to be served, then look at the menu and just choose what you're actually going to eat. Then you get charged per item which is about half the price. Compare that 35 Swiss Francs with the next (excellent) hotel across the border in Germany, where an identical breakfast buffet cost only FIVE Euros per head. The overall impression is that this is a luxury hotel in the old style (incidentally there is only one teeny tiny passenger lift and a very long walk to your room) which tries really hard with little fussy details like bath mats and chocolates in the room each evening, but somehow misses important things like replacing the orange juice in the minibar (I had to ask three times).

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