Greenside in De Koog

Let me start with the positive: the luxury room we had was beautiful, spacious and well maintained. We stayed for four nights because we were attending a course, and from a room perspective there was nothing to complain about. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience was very disappointing. We had clearly indicated that we eat vegetarian: no meat and no fish, which should not be a complicated dietary requirement. During our stay, the hotel’s chef was ill and the hotel used an external caterer. On the first evening, the vegetarian options were already extremely limited. When we raised this at reception, the response was not helpful at all. We were basically told: “Our chef is ill, and there is food, isn’t there?” That set the tone for the rest of the week. As the week progressed, the quality of the food became worse and worse. It felt as if the caterer had no real idea how to provide decent vegetarian meals. On Wednesday, there was supposed to be a wine tasting with wines paired to the dishes. Without any proper communication, this simply did not happen. The person serving us only said that we could order four drinks with our meal instead, but there was no explanation, apology or acknowledgement that the planned wine tasting had been cancelled. The farewell dinner was the lowest point. The vegetarian meal consisted of dry white rice and a tray of carrots and green beans, completely overcooked and without seasoning. There were black specks on the carrots, and many of the green beans still had their stems attached. Dessert was supposed to be crème brûlée, but it had not been caramelised and was more like a poorly prepared custard. Lunches were not much better. There was often soup, but it was unclear whether it had been made with meat-based stock. Other options included things like croquettes or frikandels, with no apparent effort to provide a vegetarian alternative such as a vegetarian croquette. In my view, the combination of poor communication, poor food quality and a lack of care towards guests makes this hotel very hard to recommend. I would especially advise vegetarians to avoid it. The room was good, but the overall hospitality experience was far below what I would expect from a hotel hosting guests for a multi-day course.

We booked 2 rooms for Christmas, well in advance including Christmas dinner. I was told that if I booked so early, the prices would apply. A week before we arrived I received an email that the prices for Christmas dinner were higher and that we had to pay extra, I found that inappropriate, but there was nothing that could be done about it. I think that if you make mistakes as a hotel and have accepted my booking, you should pay for it yourself. You can't do that in a shop either, buy something and say upon delivery that the price has gone up. The Christmas dinner was fine, but terribly unsociable, worst Christmas ever! Nicely decorated room, but it turned out that only 3 tables of 2 people had booked, 2 of these people had reserved a bit earlier, so only 2 tables were occupied, the rest of the hotel was empty! We found it absurd that we had not been called in advance by the hotel about the occupancy, because then we would not have gone. The rooms are good, but we didn't sleep, we had set the thermostat for the night at 16 degrees, but it remained 21 degrees, boiling hot. We thought it was the underfloor heating, but a vague story afterwards that they didn't have that, probably hot water pipes. We couldn't even handle a duvet so warm, what a misery! De Koog and the Burg were as good as closed, only a coffee bar open and that was it. This bought a lot of money, 1 night in 2 single rooms with Christmas dinner, we had tickets for a massage from the hydrojet, but upon arrival we were already told that the device was broken, that didn't happen either, an experience once but never again!