Room type: Junior Suite

Setting: Grand Hotel du Lac is located in Vevey, at the lake promenade. Vevey center is a short stroll along the lake.
The original hotel was founded in 1868. Today it has 50 rooms. The hotel was fully refurbished in 2006, with interior design by Pierre-Yves Rochon. It is in fact not dissimilar to Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne, but is much more intimate in scale. Public areas are small in scale but full of character. For example, there is a boudoir-like oriental salon.
The hotel is independently owned and managed, and affiliated to Relais & Chateaux.

Room: Our Junior Suite was located at a corner, facing the lake, on the first floor. It had windows on two sides, a windowed bathroom, and a small lake-facing balcony. We liked the Pierre-Yves Rochon interior design – classic, but not frumpy. The room had space for a sofa, two armchairs, and a rollaway bed for our child. There was also a Nespresso machine. We liked the room.
In terms of room selection, there are lake view and city view junior suites, all in the same category, but we requested and the hotel guaranteed a lake view on booking. For the best view, request a higher floor – the view from the first floor is partially obstructed by trees. Also, there is only one true suite in the hotel. More suites are bookable, but they are actually connecting rooms where a small hallway is closed off to create a joint entrance.


Pool/Spa: The hotel has a small but very nice garden facing the lake. There is also a small outdoor pool with a few loungers around it. We were disappointed that they would not serve food at the pool. This is not a resort, but rather an intimate city hotel with a pool in the garden. There is also a spa, which we did not visit.

Food: The hotel has three restaurants, the gourmet restaurant Les Saisons (unfortunately closed for summer), La Veranda, serving a traditional French menu, and the outdoor Marina Garden lounge, serving snacks and a light summer cuisine. We tried the latter two and were very happy with our food.
Breakfast is a buffet. We were not overwhelmed by the breadth of the selection, but everything was there. Very attentive service at breakfast, good egg dishes.

Service: Excellent. Given the intimate scale, people will remember your name and your preferences very quickly. Housekeeping worked very well, service in the restaurants was very attentive, and valet and front desk were efficient.
There was a nice welcome amenity, and free afternoon snacks (e.g., pastries, fruit) brought to the room every afternoon. Our daughter’s bed was decorated with balloons, and she received a small book with a children’s story involving the hotel.

Overall: We enjoyed our stay, and quite liked the quiet, intimate setting. We chose Vevey as a base over the neighboring Montreux. Montreux is clearly livelier, but also has a fair bit of 1970s concrete box eyesores. In Vevey, the local contender is the Hotel Trois Couronnes, also located at the lake promenade. It does not have an outdoor pool, and rooms look a bit tired from the website, that’s why we opted for Grand Hotel du Lac. Another alternative would be Le Mirador Resort in Mont Pélerin. I stayed there when it was still a Kempinski. It is located high up the hill, and the lake view is stunning, especially in the morning. Can’t comment on how it is now – my last stay was years ago.