Hotel Seeblick

Since this hotel only had 3,5 I had to write a review to up the score. I stayed here one night with my mom on a 8day hiking holiday. I don’t get the bad reviews. The reception was nice and helpful. Rooms was clean and tidy with comfortable beds and a nice bathroom. What really sold me was a fully equipped gym with free weights machines, free bottled water and tv. After that they had a huge pool area downstairs with a heated pool under high ceiling. If that’s not enough for you they also had a tanning room and a big comfortable sauna. Breakfast was plentiful and well tasting. So was dinner. Well made but simple Bavarian food unfortunately at a higher price point than deserved but still good food. Also note that this is located in a very small village so complaining about the one and only hotel/restaurant when they have all these amenities is baffling to me. 5 stars to bump the overall rating…

The hotel is located across from the lake, but you are unable to see it from the rooms. The rooms themselves are clean and quiet, but very basic. No fluffy towels or nice bath products here. Very typical for a 3 star European hotel. The bathrooms are adequate, however, the showerheads need to be replaced as only half of the holes in them seem to work. The hairdryers have the switch on them that must be held down to activate, leading to sore hands if you have long hair. This is a nice option if you are backpacking in the region and want a clean place to say, but not the spot for a business retreat or spa weekend.

The location of this hotel leaves a lot to be desired - it’s really not near anything worthwhile. We stayed here because it was organized by the tour company we used for hiking King Ludwig’s Way, not because we thought it was a great place to stay. The rooms were mainly okay, although the phone didn’t work when we tried to call our kids’ room! The food on the restaurant (yes, we decided to eat here) wasn’t bad and the breakfast was okay too. All-in-all this hotel is, well, nothing more than okay!

With one exception on both counts, I have nothing really bad, or really good, to say about the Seeblick Hotel. The Seeblick is a nice hotel, clean and well-maintained, on the main street of Bernried, a short walk from the Starnbergersee. The rooms are small but well-kept. The bathroom is tiny but has been modernized with new tile, sink (with counter), toilet and combination bath-shower (but tissues are not supplied). The bed covers, unlike the typical light featherbed that one often finds in German hotels, were heavy, making it seem that one is sleeping under a ton of bricks. Our room was in the front of the hotel, facing the relatively busy main street of Bernried. If you do not enjoy sleeping to the cacophony of cars, trucks and motorcycles, you have two choices: stuff your ears with earplugs (as I did, because I could not stand the thought of repacking and unpacking my clothes) or ask for a room on the interior courtyard (which our friends did). On the really positive side, the Seeblick Restaurant is quite good, particularly for lunch or dinner. The breakfasts, which are free of charge, are adequate, but not great due principally to the limited selection of fruits and juices. On the negative side, the front desk is virtually nonexistent and not particularly competent and there is no internet connection available in the rooms (neither wired nor wireless). Let me give a couple of examples of our frustration with the front desk. I delivered two shirts and some underwear to the front desk to have these items laundered and ironed. My clothing disappeared into a black hole. I asked a couple of times about my laundry but no one seemed to know. After a day and a half, they finally located my laundry and promised to have it ready by the morning we were to check out. Then, one day an ironing board and iron suddenly and unexpectedly arrived in our room. We asked to have them removed. Nothing happened, so the next morning we put them outside our door.

We stayed at Hotel Seeblick for four nights from 3-7 June. On arrival, our double room seemed to have had smoke in it recently, although not very bad, just noticeable. So we asked reception if there were any alternatives. The Receptionist was unhelpful, and said there were no other rooms available. However, after some insistence from us, she reluctantly offered another room. On inspection this was not an improvement, so we stuck with the first room, which proved fine after the windows had been opened for a while. Much of our experience was then good, especially our meal on the first night, when the dining room staff were helpful and friendly, and the food was good. Breakfast was nice, and the dining room staff were always helpful and friendly. However, when it came to pay for our stay, the main problem started. We had booked for four nights, but when we asked to pay the night before we were due to check out, the Receptionist who had checked us in said we had changed our booking to five nights during our stay. In spite of saying this was not the case, the Receptionist who was very rude and unhelpful, refused to budge and demanded payment for five nights. It appeared that one of the reception staff had changed the booking erroneously, but the Receptionist refused to accept that the hotel had made a mistake. We asked for the manager, who was unavailable, so we declined to pay until the manager was able to speak to us. At that point, the Receptionist quite amazingly tried to strike a deal by asking for 80% payment of the last, unbooked fifth night, which we refused, and then she suggested 50% payment, and seemed to have difficulty accepting that we were mature sensible customers not prepared to haggle with her, and that we wanted the manager to resolve the matter. Eventually, the manager appeared the morning of our departure, and agreed that we were only liable for the four nights that we had booked, which we then paid. The other somewhat irritating fault with the hotel was the parking. When we arrived, it was explained that parking was on a first-come-first-served basis, and that spaces could not be reserved. However, this proved to be false, because every day many of the spaces had Reserved notices stuck on them, which were all for German names, and the cars that took these spaces were frequently with the local STA (Starnberg) number plates, suggesting that the hotel parking was actually being reserved and used by locals. We found this unprofessional by the hotel. The Hotel Seeblick is in a lovely location in Bernried, and has much to commend it. However, it let itself down badly in particular by allowing an arrogant, unsmiling and rude young female Receptionist treat us with disrespect, and instead of recognising that the hotel had made an error that the manager would need to resolve quickly for us if that was what was needed, tried to play games with us, perhaps suggesting a deliberate attempt to increase our bill unfairly. Whatever the reason fo

Large bedroom with minibar and safe, good easy to use shower. The housekeeping standards are excellent and the staff friendly. It would have been nice if the one free bottle of mineral water in the room had ben replaced when emptied though. As we were part of a group we had a set meal so difficult to comment too much on the food but what we did have was quite reasonable and well presented, breakfast quite adequate without being spectacular. Pleasant setting a short stroll from the lake itself. Nice swimming pool open from early till fairly late. Overall was pleasantly surprised.