Hotel Rigele Royal Superior

Rigele Royal is absolutely the best hotel I have ever stayed in. We stayed for a week in February in room 509 which is a 2 bedroom suite. We were two adults & 4 teenagers. The room was lovely & ideal for the 6 of us. The hotel is beautiful, with a modern alpine feel. We stayed half board & the food was excellent. They reserve the same table in the restaurant for us for breakfast & dinner for the week which was so convenient. The pool & spa area is probably the nicest we have ever used. But what really sets this hotel apart is the staff. They are exceptional. They are so friendly & nothing is too much bother for them. In particular our waiters Benjamin & Mario, the 2 super bar tenders & the super young man on reception. We have stayed in some excellent hotels across Europe & the US but Rigele Royal really stands above anything we have experienced before & we are very sad to leave it.

Everything falls into place, with a smile and kind attention on top. The room, welcoming and warm (you need it when it’s blustering cold outside), the afternoon snack (you need it after skiing), the wonderful spa, the gastronomic journeys. And above all, the staff with great spirits. Maybe the bathroom cubicle is a bit stern, but otherwise? You’ve come to the right place.

On the whole the hotel has great potential, our room was spacious & clean & the pool area is great, but there were a few things missing when it came to facilities, service (very hit & miss in both the restaurant & bar) and also quality/selection of food. It seems to me that the 'trying to be Michelin' restaurant Fritz & Friedrich (not included in the half board for hotel guests) is the priority and so if you are a paying guest at the hotel you get a very variable standard of food & service in the main restaurant whilst the diners (who probably aren't guests) get treated like royalty in Fritz & Friedrich! The dinners in the HB restaurant were of an average standard & the salad bar was probably the most basic I have experienced, which again is a shame as a quick win to provide more than just 4 types of salad. When we tried to book the F&F restaurant with reception, we were told that it was closing a day early & that someone would come back to us to see if we could dine there, but they never did. Admittedly, we were staying at the end of the season, but have never felt it so much as here - it was like everyone was too tired to care too much. We usually stay in Austria at the same time & have never felt like this from other hotels. Some of the staff were excellent, but unfortunately this does not make up for the 2 or 3 who are dismissive/mess up your orders. There seemed to be a distinct lack of management, so I do not lay any blame with the serving staff. The hotel website states 'We offer a playroom and lots of thoughtful details for the little ones – from festive events and children's cinema to ski courses' which is misleading as the playroom is tiny/really only suitable for under 5's & there was nothing else offered...in fact the light in the playroom (with no window) was off every time we walked past. We would expect much much more for the money that we paid.

For a hotel in this price category we have high expectations. -The hotel itself (rooms, location, facilities etc) are definitely perfect. -The staff and the service level varies: some staff members are very service minded, friendly and very helpful. But sometimes staff members responded in a 'grumpy' or 'lazy' way. For example: at breakfast we requested some specific bread (at 10 o'clock whilst breakfast is until 11) and the answer was that this was all they had available for the day. Huh?? Also in the restaurant there was often a shortage of products of ceramics and it took ages to refill. Also at the reception very different experiences, at some point we first checked who was sitting behind the counter, before we would ask a question.