Kempinski Hotel Berchtesgaden — Hotel in Berchtesgaden

This hotel is absolutely amazing for so many reasons. First of all the location is incredible overlooking the mountains, forest full of pine trees, very close to the town centre of Berchtesgaden and the famous Konigsee Lake. In terms of location, you could not really ask for better. Hotel is situated at the top of the mountain walking distance to the buses that take you up the famous Eagle’s nest, it is walking distance from the historical documentation centre that gives you a real good insight to the history of the town, World War II, Eagle’s Nest and the spot where (Berghof) used to be and the bunker systems. You can go for amazing hikes in the door step, visit lakes of Konigsee and Obersee while enjoying peace and quiet while having all the nature, history and luxury on your fingertips. Hotel has great info about the areas and also have an activity concierge which you can rent bikes from. Hotel is Dog friendly! They bring you lovely dog beds for your dogs, food and also bowls. They also have dog sitters and vets if you need one. They also have the housekeeping informed so if your dog is in the room, they do not bother you and come back again when your dog is out with you. They have a dog meadow and a dog area as well as you can have your dog with you in the bar and bar courtyard with you. Dogs are not allowed in the breakfast room or any of the restaurants or the in the spa or pool.

I would say it would be lovely if they had a little doggie splash pool somewhere. Also it would be great if we could take the dogs with us to the outside terrace of the breakfast room.

Hotel has Michelin star restaurant and another one. We have not eaten at the Michelin or the other one, but next time we will most certainly do.

Staff are very efficient as you would expect from Kempinski chains. Only issue we had was at the Bar area. We called at 8.20 and asked at reception until what time they serve normal food menu in the bar, they said until 9pm. And when we got there, the staff at the bar said the chef does not like his food to be served at the bar and refused to serve the restaurant menu which meant we had to eat burgers with chips. That was a shame. The way the gentleman at the bar explained this was not very polite either.

Spa has an indoor pool which is around 15-29 meters. But the bottom of the pool needs cleaning. It had black marks and some things floating. Maybe it is old.

The jacuzzi type outside pool overlooking the mountainous landscape with pine forest is magical. But it is a small size pool. So on a hot day, it is not that refreshing if you are after swimming in fresh air or would like to do laps in fresh air. I would say that is possibly the only downside of the pool facilities. For winter it can be great, but as the summers are getting hotter, this hotel could easily invest in this new larger outside pool.

Spa was good with various temperatured saunas, great steam room and a relaxation area with water beds. There is a gong in the water-bed lounge which was a nice sensory touch. There were lots of used towels lying around the empty beds. The locker system in the spa area was not explained clear very clearly and we had to wait to find a staff to come and show us how we can use the lockers. You have to give them your room card, for them to give you lockers. There is not any cold water cooler in the spa or cold water in the gym. There were used bottles of water around the gym. There is something lacking in the spa for this. It would be great to have a water cooler and or nice cold lemon water rather than small jugs.

Rooms are absolutely great. Bath is fantastic. We had a terrace room overlooking the mountains. It was very romantic and peaceful. Utterly loved it. Very spacious.

The hotel would be good for all. Including families as well as couples and fitness/hiking/history enthusiasts.

Hotel has an underground car park.

We will...

This was our fifth time staying at the Kempinski in Berchtesgaden over the past five years. We have been sorry to observe a consistent decline in quality. Based on our experiences during our most recent three day stay, we will definitely NOT be returning.

On our first entry into the rooms (we reserved two - our request for adjoining doors was not met), there was an insect crawling in the shower - completely repulsive, but we decided not to mention it to the staff. However, on day two, we woke up to another insect, this time in the bathtub. On informing reception, we were told that ‘something would be done about it’, but clearly we did not want pesticide to be sprayed in the room during our stay.

Dinner on the first evening was even more disappointing. The glass straw in one of our cocktails was remarkably dirty. We ordered a glass of wine, and our waitress poured out the final drops from the bottle. We were not offered the option to taste, and this pattern continued during subsequent meals.

The phenomenon of dirty cutlery continued throughout our stay - a tea cup in the hotel bar was stained with lipstick, and many plates stacked at the breakfast buffet were visibly dirty.

We booked our stay to celebrate a family birthday, and ordered flowers as a surprise at reception the previous evening. It turned out that a family friend had telephoned the hotel to order flowers as well, so there were two bouquets (both we pre-payment) intended.

On the day of the birthday, one bouquet arrived. We waited until the late afternoon, but there was no second bouquet. Only after contacting reception did the second bouquet arrive. Our friend had also specified a card with personalised text - this was not given to us.

We ordered a birthday cake to celebrate the birthday. Instead of a cake, we were given a tiny pastry approximately the size of a normal dinner knife (this was intended for three people!!!), with a single, tiny candle. The candle was not lit, and we had to request this specifically.

On our final evening, we were informed by the waiter that our drinks during dinner would be on the house. Upon receiving our bill, however, the drinks had been charged to us.

We also requested a late checkout - this was not given, not even for one room, as we were told the hotel was fully booked the next day. We checked online, and rooms in the same category we had booked were still available to reserve the next day. After showing this at reception, we were told that the availability displayed online was a mistake.

On our day of departure, instead of being greeted courteously by the staff, the cleaning personell asked us “Now it’s free?” each time they saw us leaving our room.

Following this series of experiences, we request to speak to the general manager. We were informed that we would receive a call-back, but this never occurred.

Although the hotel officially has four restaurants, usually only one is open for proper dining. The two Michelin star restaurant is also open, but not appropriate for a daily evening meal unless you wish to eat 5-7 courses every day of your stay.

The staff in general are incredibly unhelpful, many of them even outright rude. The breakfast buffet is incredibly underwhelming, barely any bread on offer and only a limited selection of other foods. The hotel and its team are definitely no longer 5 star, let alone 5 star superior quality.

The staff are unhelpful, the cleanliness of rooms and gastronomy areas is not acceptable. The location is good and the hotel has plenty of potential, however due to the staff and management, this is not a 5 star superior hotel, and an embarrassment to the...

An underwhelming, at times frustrating experience, specially at their main restaurant and lobby bar. First of all, the staff has been for the most part fantastic (reception, ladies in red, valet, spa team, morning breakfast crew). The facilities, as it's to be expected, are great, highlight being the pool area. The rooms are starting to show some wear. Carpet starting to look tired, wood entry super scratched up, couple of cracks on the wall paint.

Now, the bad, their service at both the lobby courtyard and the main restaurant were bad. We arrived at around 1 starving after driving for 4+ hours. We knew we were early so we just wanted to eat lunch and relax as we waited for the 3pm check in time. We were promptly seated, however we waited for 20+ minutes with no water and no menus at the courtyard lobby bar, their only offering for lunch. After 20+ minutes a server finally came in, but at that point we were just frustrated and hungry and decided to leave the hotel and just take our business to town. Panorama, in town, is fantastic, great service and amazing food.

After lunch in town we came back to the hotel and tried to reserve one of the restaurants for dinner. They told us all was fully booked so our choice was to eat at the lobby bar/ courtyard. After our failed lunch attempt we decided not to chance it and went back to town for dinner. This would have normally not been a deal breaker for us, but we were very tired from the drive and we just wanted to get to the hotel, and relax for the rest of the evening.

Then, I proceeded to make a reservation for the main grill restaurant for the following day. We were only given two choices 8:30 and 6:30, but ok 8:30 will do. Fast-forward to the restaurant experience. Slow service, but the appetizer came and it was tasty. Then the mains came. My duo of pork was extremely sweet in one end and completely bland in the other end. I love sweet, but this was just sickly sweet. My husband's fish was the complete opposite, both fish and potatoes completely oversalted. We provided feedback on the food and we were offered a comp digestive, which was nice. However when you are spending $20+ on appetizers and $30+ on mains I want everything to be tasty and service to be efficient. Several times one server will take our order and another server will ask for our order again. Also our tasty appetizers when they arrived to the table we only received one of the two order, the server had to go back and see what had happened with our second appetizer.

Finally, we asked for the check. That took 30 minutes to be brought to the table. In conclusion, stay away from their food offerings not worth the price for food that is lacking (we did not enjoy our mains or our overall service experience in this restaurant). There is great food to be had in town.

This was our worst food experience in all of our last 10 days in Germany. We have been privileged in our life to be able to stay at several 5* establishments all over the world including other Kempinski properties, so we may be a bit more critical than most, and after this hotel experience we are unlikely to choose another Kempinski property when looking for 5* accomodations...