Grand Hotel de l'Europe Bad Gastein

The hotels really lives up to its slogan - something you did not expect (in a good way). A absolutely fantastic place, nice staff, and the hotel itself looks like one of those luxury hotells from the past. We stayed in the apartment hotells and there was everything you needed, balcony, small kitchen and even a dishwasher. There is also a nice restaurant and bar in the hotel called ginger & gin, and even though they serve late at night we didn't hear any noise from it during our stay.

Run-down, empty and glaucous hotel. Some floors are completely abandoned (floor -4 to -2). Terrible customer service. Bad food. Unclean rooms. Probably the worst hotel I've been to. Here is a little story about why the customer service is terrible: I called in the afternoon to ask if a check-in at midnight was fine, was told over the phone that it was not a problem. We arrived at 12:15 and no one was at the reception, no one in the restaurant, no one answering the phone so we had to sleep in our car that night after 2 hours of trying to find someone. The next morning, when asking for an explanation, a despicable man named Thomas who is supposedly managing this awfully neglected hotel, started shouting at us, insulting us and threatening us. We stayed calm but could not manage to reason with the man. Overall a dreadful experience and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Wonderful grand hotel, unfortunately mostly empty but with large, clean rooms with a nice view at a great price. The bar/restaurant is great with very nice staff.