Grand Hotel Beau Rivage — Hotel in Interlaken

A magnificent building in a great setting, with efficient and friendly staff, and we enjoyed our stay, but it is not a 5* hotel. Some aspects are 4, some 3, and some are - sadly - 0, so it is a sham to promote it as a 5 hotel, and the company needs to do a lot of work, to bring it up to standard. For such hotels the devil is in the detail, and in some of these, the hotel falls down. The main issues are:

1. There are insufficient staff working in the hotel, so no permanent bar staff, no proper concierge/porters, just a sales point for adventure trips. There are insufficient cleaning staff, so that sometimes rooms were not serviced by 4.30 in the afternoon. The reception staff are excellent, though not equally knowledgeable about what can be done in the area, and command of English varies - drawbacks to a hotel claiming to be 5*
2. As a consequence of this and the pressure the cleaning staff is under, or a lack of proper training, or both, the room we occupied was never properly serviced - after the first day bathroom consumables were never regularly replaced. The small 'cream' cartons supplied for the coffee maker in the bedroom were never replaced after the first day, so we bought our own small carton of milk. Some of this was spilled on the fridge floor on the second day, and the spill stayed with us for the rest of our stay. There were cobwebs in the corner of the room, which also stayed with us the whole week. Again, we know that we would only have to call housekeeping to have this rectified, but it was amusing to follow through the process to its conclusion at the end of our week
3. There is no card in the room for reporting faults, and it must have been obvious to the cleaning staff that two of the light fittings had one or more bulbs not working, but they were never replaced. Again, I am sure if we had phoned reception the things would have been put right, but it was interesting to watch progress or lack of it, over our week's stay.
4. The hotel has not been refurbished for many years, and this shows in public areas and in aspects of the bedroom/bathroom layout and fittings. The unit in our bedroom looked cheap plastic covered chipboard, that would have looked fine in a 2* hotel, but was neither of the standard of furniture expected in a 5* hotel, nor properly designed to be of practical use to a holidaying couple staying for a week - not enough storage space. The same can be said of the bathroom, which also looked like it was done 20 years ago, and had not been touched since.
5. The standard of the furniture and furnishings around the hotel were not of the standard expected in a 3* hotel, and absolutely were not those of a 5* hotel: the chairs in the dining room had been overpainted, but this was chipped and looking shabby on many of them. Also, the curtains/drapes were cheap and cheerful - unlined, thin material.
6. The food offered at dinner was always well-cooked, but the menus were simple, and the food was not very imaginatively presented - again, something that one would not expect from a five star hotel.

Finally, the ambience of the hotel was very poor. In a dining room that must seat potentially 120 diners, we were never accompanied at dinner by more than about ten other diners, except on the one evening when many locals came for the barbecue evening. Similarly, for three evenings before dinner, my wife and i were the ONLY guests in the bar, and there were never more than 6 people in the bar at the same time, on any evening. If the hotel were not part of a group, my impression would have been of a grand old lady in decline, and soon to die/close. This seems to me to be because the hotel needs a lot of investment to upgrade it, and this is...

This is without fail the dirtiest, dated, scruffy, understaffed and awful hotel I have ever been in, including the worst dusty African ones. The owners should be ashamed of themselves.

We booked 6 nights, drove from the UK via the also 5 star Brenners Hotel in Baden-Baden and arrived in a rainstorm.

First impressions: the check in person was cold and mrchanical, the check in area looks like a poor hotel in Morocco. Even at this point I felt this wasn't going to work.

We were not shown to our rooms, just sent on our way, no staff around.

The room:

Very stained carpets and wall coverings, very tired, dated and worn furniture of abysmal quality. Spiders and cobwebs around the ceilings. Two child width single beds pushed together. Lighting so dim you needed a torch to read by. Bath robe - ripped so could not do up.

How this was ever rated as 5 star I cannot possibly imagine. Its a 1970s time warp with matching wear, I kid you not.

Bathroom: smelt of stale urine, a 3cm long silverfish sitting in the bath (Silverfish is a louse-like insect that lives in damp places, they scuttle around at speed) . Very worn yellowed and was unpleasant looking grout. We were afraid to access with bare feet.

We did not use the restaurant after looking for another hotel nearby, I read reviews that certain guests in the Beau Rivage from some countries went along dipping their fingers in the buffet breakfast offerings to sample the tastes. We ate at The Victoria Jungfrau instead which was fantastic in every area.

The bar area:

Dimly lit and we had to find a staff member to get drinks. Drinks were appalling.

At this point (45 mins after check in) we had made a firm decision - leave the next morning.

The hotel seemed to cater for bussed in far eastern and Indian tour groups - I feel sorry for them, this place is worst than any third world cheap hotel I have been to. It is not 5 stars, more like 2 stars.

We were refunded all but 1.5 nights of our booking on leaving - a bill of £330 CHF for one night with room and 2 drinks, no food.

We decamped to The Victoria Jungfrau Hotel which only had suites available at 1700 CHF a night, for 5 nights. It was so worth it, we wanted to enjoy our road trip no matter what afher 3 years of covid restrictions. There is simply no comparison beteen the real 5 star Jungfrau and the dirty, worn disaster that is the Beau Rivage.

The Rivage has a great building, and location but it is so, so dirty, tired and unpleasant, it needs millions spent to bring it up...

As a fellow hotelier visiting Interlaken, I chose to stop by the Hotel Beau Rivage — a property with a long-standing reputation for luxury and elegance in Switzerland. Given its historic value and high visibility in the Swiss hospitality scene, I expected a level of service and attention to detail worthy of its brand legacy.||Unfortunately, my recent visit left me deeply disappointed.||Upon using the men’s restroom, I found all three WCs in an unacceptable condition. I had to clean one before using it — a situation that should never occur in a luxury property. The soap dispenser, although branded to reflect quality, was diluted with water, clearly a cost-cutting or careless act that completely contradicts guest expectations.||I sat at the bar and ordered a lemonade with ginger and lemon, and kindly asked the bartender for a bit of honey. His response — that honey is only available at breakfast and the bar doesn’t keep any — was delivered in a cold, dismissive tone. At that moment, the hospitality I expected as a guest simply wasn’t there. It was transactional at best, and completely lacking in warmth.||As hoteliers, we all understand that guests do not judge a brand by advertisements or Instagram posts. They judge it by how they are made to feel in those everyday moments — a drink at the bar, a clean restroom, or a helpful gesture. These small details are what uphold the reputation a brand has spent decades building.||I strongly urge the leadership of Beau Rivage to focus on daily operational excellence, invest in staff training, and ensure that those representing the brand — especially in guest-facing roles — embody true Swiss hospitality. A greater emphasis on hiring locally trained “Swiss” professionals with foundational hospitality values could significantly elevate the experience.||I say this not as a critic, but as a fellow hotelier who respects the industry and cares deeply about preserving the standards that make Swiss hospitality globally respected.||There is still great potential at Beau Rivage. I hope the team treats this feedback as an opportunity to recalibrate and continue delivering the excellence this brand once stood for.||Warm...