Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
It wasn't just me, in our restaurant experiences everyone around us had painfully slow service.
In our 3 days stay, we were never shown to a table for breakfast once were you? Never proactively asked if we wanted a hot drink (no self serve options available), once flagged down passing staff and waited for ages each time.
The standard service for breakfast is for guests to find a free table after giving their room number to the member of staff at the podium, it isn't usual to be shown to a table. However on the busiest morning when a small queue had formed because there were no free tables (about 6 people plus us) we were shown to a table for 2 in the spill-over room (actually Al Pino) that had been set up to accommodate the extra numbers. We got asked by our servers about coffee on most mornings, but I think the first couple of busy days I had to flag someone down, which again was no problem. I have to say I found the service at breakfast very good, even to the point that at 10.20 a member of staff went round the restaurant to tell everyone that the food was finishing in 10 minutes. One morning a server came around at 10.35 with a selection of pastries etc asking if we would like anything before they were taken away.
Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
In the club lounge again we were there at the same time, plates and glasses were not cleared away, it was fairly busy on Saturday and Sunday which meant sitting at tables with uncleared crockery and glassware from previous occupants, these sat for a long time before being cleared away, indeed the guy attending to the lounge cleared more recently finished items from other guests a good half hour before clearing the previous occupants detritus from our table. The offering in the lounge was also really basic (despite the great facilities), I have had better club lounges product offerings at CP's. This is certainly the worst food and beverage offering of any IC I have ever visited (with a club lounge). I absolutely would not pay again for club. We saw the dog each day too, I am not sure I am keen on having pets running around the lounge either.
I agree that used plates and glasses weren't cleared away quickly in the Club Lounge, but it didn't really pose us a problem as there were plenty of free tables even at the busiest times. Some of the food offerings in the evening I actually found quite good; I thought offering soup with bread was a very nice touch and more than you get in some lounges. There were always 3 different types of canapes that were replenished regularly. I know we have different ideas regarding Lounge value, but given that it gave us a full and comprehensive breakfast in Capricorn and drinks and snacks in the evening I found it represented good value to us. The little dog didn't bother us, he was very cute, but I get your point.
Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
Did you eat at Studio Grigio or Capricorn (a la carte)? Again service standards were awful, with the exception of the bar in Studio Grigio which was quite good perhaps because it was bar service not table service.
.
.
I don't think I am being over picky, my experience spanned Friday to Monday and encompassed every facility and service offered. I can only assume you ate and drank more out of the hotel as I now wish I had.
We ate at Al Pino on Friday evening, had room service on 2 nights, had a snack in Studio Grigio one evening. Didn't try Capricorn outside of breakfast. We only ate out once as we found breakfast and the evening snacks kept us going quite nicely. Funnily enough I quite like that Mongolian vodka in the club (it's actually a premium brand, I've had it in Switzerland before) - very filtered and very smooth. :-)
Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
If you see the hotel as a place to stay and base yourself whilst you ski and eat and drink out (or self provision as we did with gin) then I can see that the impact would it be high. If you expect a much more resort like experience in a country renowned for it's hotel service standards I feel you will be bitterly disappointed as indeed we were.
It is strange how our experiences are so different, I can only imagine you had really bad luck when I compare our own experiences over the same period. But we certainly spent a lot of time at the hotel, over a longer period than yourselves, and thoroughly enjoyed fairly much all aspects of it. And I haven't even talked about our lovely room and the view either yet... Trip report to follow...