Leonardo Boutique Hotel Salzburg Gablerbräu — Hotel in Salzburg

First the positives: location is good, everything is walkable from here. When I arrived and got to my room on the 2nd floor, I could hear guests from the bar area near the reception because of the poor design of the hotel (more on this later) - I was promptly moved to another room on the 5th floor (apparently a superior although I couldn’t detect much difference between the two) so top marks for service here. The room itself was very quiet, I couldn’t hear neighbours or noise from outside. However, there were a few issues that meant my stay was not as enjoyable as it could have been. Firstly, the Nespresso machine leaked everywhere the first morning I used it. I notified the staff before leaving but it was not replaced during the day: it was taken away on the evening but this meant I had no machine for two out of the four mornings I was there. The second issue I had was the room was far too stuffy. I did raise this the second evening and was shown how this might be addressed with the settings but it still didn’t cool the room down much: when I mentioned it in the morning I was told that when the outside temperature is below 16c they turn the a/c off. I don’t know if this is a hotel thing or Salzburg thing, but it’s definitely saving the hotel money but makes the room very uncomfortable, especially the bathroom. I woke up a couple of nights sweaty and gross. And even though the temperature was 19/20 on a couple of days I was there, it was not turned back on. Thirdly, the room had sloping windows and blinds that needed a stick to open and close. This was not in the room when I arrived so I had to stand on the bed/a stool to close them. There is no phone on the room so you have to go all the way down to address these things or wait until the following day. I got a stick on my third evening, but even with this, it was very hard to open and close the blinds. Which leads me to an overall point about the rooms: bad design. The room had silly things like dim lighting, only one plug socket on one side of the bed, and different lights being controlled by different switches on each side of the bed. Annoying if you’re travelling as a couple or on your own. The blinds were not black out and the little window in the room had no blind so I had to block this with pillows. So if you like dark for sleep, bring a sleep mask. The bathroom had a vanity mirror but it was not very manoeuvrable and placed high up so awkward for a shorter person like me to use. As usual, nowhere to put your toiletries in the shower except the floor. The hotel has, like others, a “green” initiative (read: cost-saving) to skip room cleaning but you don’t get any benefit as a guest for doing so (no free drink at the bar for example) and instead don’t get water/clean crockery on the day you skip so I wouldn’t bother doing this. And finally a couple of things like a broken light bulb in the bedroom, and a dirty glass that brought down the whole quality of the stay. Overall, this stay wasn’t a total disaster (staff were polite and friendly but not really equipped to deal with feedback when I said my stay wasn’t particularly enjoyable so far following Nespresso disaster, no blind pole and too hot room) but there was enough that it made it a decidedly mid experience that compared poorly to other places I...

Do NOT book this hotel! After weeks of carefully planning we back in June of 2021, we selected and booked this hotel for our trip to Salzburg for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, in June of 2022. We booked their Top Floor Suite, another Suite and a 3rd room for our family of 8 adults for this celebration. Two months before our trip, I reached out to the hotel requesting some restaurant recommendations, which they quickly replied to. No concerns, all going well. Now, just 30 days before our trip is to happen, they email me out of the blue suddenly saying they have a staff shortage due to "the 2022 Festival Season" and can no longer accommodate our reservation. WHAT? They want to move our reservation to much less nice "sister" hotel a full kilometer away from the original location, claiming we'll have "unchanged conditions." No... this is significantly changed conditions! The sister hotel is nothing like the hotel we booked, and not in a walkable location for my party. They didn't even offer a reduction in cost or ANYTHING. I responded IMMEDIATELY and now more than 2 full days later have received no follow up from them to answer my questions. For reference, here is the exact email they sent me:

"Due to the current shortage of staff, no one can work for the Star Inn Hotel Salzburg Gablerbräu Bookings will be accepted until the end of the 2022 festival season.

Unfortunately, we cannot receive you in our Star Inn Hotel Premium Salzburg Gablerbräu. We are happy to offer you to rebook the affected reservations to our sister hotel, Star Inn Hotel Salzburg Zentrum. Of course, under unchanged conditions.

We are very sorry and hope that our offer is acceptable to you and we are waiting for your short feedback within 5 days. We will then reconfirm each booking individually. If we don’t receive your feedback in 5 days, we assume that you want to cancel your booking."

This is not a "offer" and now they've totally ghosted us! We're only 30 days from our planned trip, all the other hotels we're originally considered are now booked and the options I'm finding in my initial search are between DOUBLE to TRIPLE our planned cost. It's not simple to to just book another hotel room... we're a party of 8 adults.

If this is how they treat people, don't put your faith in this hotel and don't take the risk of...

The hotel benefits from an excellent location—just steps from the old town and surrounded by a great selection of restaurants and bars. The breakfast offer is very good, with plenty of choice to start the day well, and the rooms are comfortable and well presented.

However, the service offering falls short of expectations. There are no bathroom amenities beyond basic soap and towels, and there is no luggage service. Check-in felt particularly impersonal: we were simply asked to fill in a form and then handed the key with minimal welcome or information. Housekeeping is only provided upon request, which was not communicated in advance.

Unfortunately, the poor service became most clear when we encountered severe building noise during our stay. Construction work directly below us, on the ground-floor of the hotel block began at midnight on our second night, with concrete breaking continuing into the early hours. As there is no in-room phone, I went to reception in person, but staff were unhelpful and unwilling to intervene. I ultimately had to speak directly to the workers myself to stop the noise, which resumed again at 6:30 a.m. The daytime staff seemed unaware and unconcerned. They told me they couldn’t do anything about it so no action was taken. The disturbance continued again early the next morning.

In summary: a fantastic location and comfortable rooms with a good breakfast, but service standards and guest support are seriously lacking. With improvements to service attitude and guest care, the hotel could be excellent—unfortunately, that was not our experience...