Hotel Panther'a in Saalbach

Stayed here before and really enjoyed the experience, however this year the food was very disappointing. Hotel is lovely but not the food sadly .

Friendly staff and excellent location for skiing. Eclectic contemporary decor. However we were are room 221 which is directly over the laundry which they were running from 6am so difficult to have a lie in from this time. We asked them to stop this and it then carried on at night until past midnight. We again spoke to reception and it was great for 2 days. Although if you laid on your bed after skiing you could hear it during the day. Then it started up again early in the mornings. Really frustrating! The room is also fairly small and dark (you can’t actually see in the wardrobe with the layout). The beds are very soft. The food is variable, good size portions but over cooked salmon, rubbery calamari etc. Our friends on the first floor are directly over the night entrance, the basement pub entrance and next to a nightclub so had very disturbed nights. We wouldn’t rush back…

I will start with the good things about this hotel. The location, next to the main lifts, is truly excellent. The hotel is very clean, the rooms are nice and modern and a decent size, and the cost (package booked through Crystal) is reasonable. Now the not so good. One of the key problems with this hotel is that the number of guests is far more than the hotel facilities can cope with. This results in queues at breakfast, having to wait for a table for dinner (we were half board), crowded boot room and crowded spa. There is no hotel lounge except for a very small are next to Reception. The locker room is too small (skis heaped together) and the heated boot stand rather old. The small spa was just about adequate, albeit crowded, with small outdoor heated pool, two saunas and two infrared chairs, but no steam room or hot tub. The hotel provided lovely dressing gowns but, strangely, only one spa towel and no slippers or flip flops - we were not warned and had to wear outdoor shoes to get to the spa which was in the lower level. The food was hit and miss and overall not up to 4* standard. Some meals were tasty others were dreadful with cheap ingredients. The poorest aspect of the evening meal were the deserts which seemed to be an after-thought; there was always only one choice and usually small bites such as cakes or tartlets. Breakfast was adequate but a rugby scrum with queues to get hot drinks from the only two hot drinks machines; at most other 4 star hotels I have stayed the server brings your hot drinks. They ran out of tea bags every day. Service at meals was poor, there were simply not enough staff to cope with the number of tables; this led to rushed service, indifference and sometimes rudeness. The servers and bar staff also lacked basic training, such as not understanding why wine from a bottle with a cork is tasted before being accepted. Things were worse at Reception where there was complete indifference and unwillingness to interact with customers, not even a good-bye when we departed. The bar was a nice space but the prices were 4 star whereas the much of the hotel was not. To summarise, some good bits, especially location, but you feel that the hotel has done the minimum to get its 4 star status, is trying to save money left right and centre, and falls short in some areas, especially food and service.