Beausite Interlaken — Hotel in Unterseen

Me and my wife stayed at Hotel Beausite, Interlaken from 1st October to 14th October 2013. We felt totally at home during our stay and the entire staff treated us like family. Every day the reception staff (Ivonne, Sabastian and Brigette) would gave us directions to the desired place of our visit including print outs of travel mode/schedule. They even helped us in booking tours desired by us to Europa Park from Basel (highlight of our trip) and Black Forest tour from Zurich. One can enjoy all cities of Switzerland by staying at Interlaken, the most beautiful city. All you need is a Swiss Saver Pass for the number of days of your visit. The pass covers all travel by Trains, Bus, Boats, Cable Cars at many places and entry to many Museums/ Palaces. No major city is more than 1-2 hours of train travel away.

The hotel is just 4 - 5 minutes of beautiful walk from Interlaken West Station and one does not require any taxi to tow the baggage to hotel. Or if you are tired, you can take bus no. 21 from the station which stops right in front of the hotel (this bus stop is named as ‘Unterseen’ and is just next halt from station). The hotel is overlooking beautiful mountains and is in a sparsely populated area. The market and the city area too are only 5-6 minutes of walking distance.

Coming back to the hotel, the breakfast is unmatched in 3 star hotel category. Though the hotel promises only cold cuts, there are number of hot entries including 3 items in vegetarian category (viz. steamed rice, mixed vegetable curry and noodles soup), eggs (boiled and scrambled), milk, juices, cheese and salads, cold cuts of meats, variety of corn flakes, variety of breads, butter, jams and Fruit Salad. The Sunday breakfast (they call it brunch) is sumptuous with additional Rosittee, hot sausages and red kidney beans curry, cold salmon, Apple struddle (2 kinds), variety of drinks and wines. Breakfast review without the mention of Marta and Antonio, very hard working and pleasing staff, would be incomplete.

One thing which no other hotel does as included in room rates is afternoon coffee, tea and cake pieces from 2 to 6 pm, which is very refreshing after a tiring but enjoyable day, before going back to the room.

The rooms are good sized with modern bathrooms and tea/ coffee maker, with good housekeeping. The bed mattresses have divided opinion. While my wife, with chronic back problem, liked them, I found these were too soft and had space between the two mattresses on the king sized beds. Well, it’s a small negative thing to mention and would not limit my visits many more times to this hotel.

The garden of the hotel too is very interesting with trees of Hazelnut and Walnut. One can spend several hours by just sitting in the garden and enjoying flora and fauna. They have pretty cockatoos (birds) and rabbits too for the guest’s pleasure.

The entire credit finally goes to Max Ritter, the owner of this hotel. We had very small but very significant interaction with him. My wife had some injury in the foot and requested reception if they had Band Aid. Mr. Max, whom we did not recognize, heard me and went out of the way to get me all the first aid kit from his personal office chest and asked us to keep the kit till we needed it. This was a big help to my wife who could continue her day trips without any problem. We had also wished to see Imi, wife of Max but they had a baby only 3 months back and Imi was with her parents at Germany. Maybe next time we will get to meet her. In short, this hotel is a home away from home, specially for Indians, who are normally a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian...

Last year we went to Switzerland for family vacation and stayed at this hotel ,unfortunately had a very disappointing experience. I feel it is important to share this feedback so that no other guest has to go through what my family experienced.

During our stay, my son accidentally spilled some water in the room. We immediately called the reception to request housekeeping assistance. Instead of sending a staff member, the receptionist herself came up and began shouting at us, telling us to “teach our child manners.” This was deeply unprofessional and unacceptable.

When I contacted the hotel owner to report this behaviour, he not only supported the receptionist but also used foul language and made an inappropriate remark stating that “Indians should teach kids manners.” Such discriminatory and disrespectful comments are shocking and completely unacceptable in the hospitality industry.

As guests, we expect to be treated with courtesy and respect, regardless of nationality. This incident left us feeling humiliated and unwelcome. I hope some serious action should be taken to address this behaviour and ensure proper training for your staff in professionalism, cultural sensitivity, and guest service. Also I would never recommend anybody to stay here..We had a very bad experience

Dear Max

Please find response to your message

Some memories truly last forever — unfortunately, not all of them are good ones. Last night, while discussing a possible Switzerland trip with our child, we were surprised that he did not recall the beautiful moments of our vacation, but instead remembered only one thing:

Mom, we will never stay at Beausite Hotel again… that aunty with the glasses was so bad, she shouted at me.”

You may not be able to recall this incident, but for us — and especially for our child — it is unforgettable. It left such a strong impression that it overshadows the rest of our trip.

For your reference, I am sharing pictures and videos of your hotel to confirm that we are indeed speaking of the same property, and not another.

I hope this feedback helps you reflect on how important guest interactions are — especially with families and children — as they can define the entire travel...

Hello Mr. Max Ritter, I am responding to your response here.

Although your “facts” about non-refundable reservation is absolutely accurate. We are not challenging the validity of this whatsoever. However, we were traveling not only to your Hotel, but numerous other Hotels in Switzerland as well as other counties under the same “non-refundable” policy. EVERYONE met our request for refund with compassion and understand due to pandemic except YOU!

You mentioned facts, so here are the true facts...

we booked on 2/18/2020 for our Trip to your hotel in May We immediately tried to cancel the reservation on 3/13 after Trump announced a travel ban to Europe on 3/12. Hotel Beausite did NOT offer any booking extension initially, refused refund request, and mentioned that you will keep the FULL payment even if we don’t show. I had to actually CONVINCE YOU through our numerous back and forth conversations through email along with Booking.com. So, instead you moved our reservation to November. NOVEMBER! why would my wife and I want to visit Switzerland in the cold of November? Again, I had to argue with you to change dates to May of next year. However the pandemic has hurt us financially.

I will leave you and the rest of other travelers with final thoughts. Again, how is that HOTEL BEAUSITE is the only Hotel of all the other Swiss Hotels that did not provide compassion during a Global Pandemic.

Lastly, do you think my wife and I would feel comfortable going to your hotel now after this?

THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL TRAVELERS COMING TO THIS HOTEL: Be careful with the type people that you are dealing with when traveling, especially on their customer service! Otherwise you will get stuck paying for a bad experience. This has been a rude awakening for us, so I am doing my du diligence to warn you all.

Thank you...