InterContinental Davos, Switzerland - Master Thread (leaving IC on May 31, 2021)
Feb 16, 2016, 10:47 am
#136
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Shanghai and Bavaria
Programs: Spire RA, 1865 Voyager, Bonvoy Titanium, FB LP, LH SEN.
Posts: 3,104
Do all guests/ RAs get free ski passes here
I came across this site that lists the IC giving out free lift passes - http://www.davos.ch/en/winter/activi...pass-for-free/
Also is booking on points here limit the benefits over a revenue booking? I noticed on award bookings you can get the Deluxe room (1 cat above superior)
Thanks!
I came across this site that lists the IC giving out free lift passes - http://www.davos.ch/en/winter/activi...pass-for-free/
Also is booking on points here limit the benefits over a revenue booking? I noticed on award bookings you can get the Deluxe room (1 cat above superior)
Thanks!
Nice offer for ski passes... However, during Nov/Dec of the last few ski seasons, taking hiking poles was a better choice than taking skis. I wouldn't book a ski holiday in Nov/Dec/early Jan in the Alps anymore.
Feb 16, 2016, 11:01 am
#137
Join Date: May 2009
Location: SIN (with a bit of ZRH sprinkled in)
Posts: 9,456
Simply book an overnight stay in one of the accommodations listed below, in our holiday shop Davos Klosters or at our guest services, for every night you book, you'll receive a ski pass for the open Davos Klosters Mountains ski areas.
If you book via their guest services (or their "holiday shop") only it seems. And somehow something tells me the rates there will be higher
And Nov/Early December usually isn't great for skiing..
If you book via their guest services (or their "holiday shop") only it seems. And somehow something tells me the rates there will be higher
And Nov/Early December usually isn't great for skiing..
Feb 17, 2016, 1:04 am
#138
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MAN and LON
Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat
Posts: 13,773
Do all guests/ RAs get free ski passes here
I came across this site that lists the IC giving out free lift passes - http://www.davos.ch/en/winter/activi...pass-for-free/
Also is booking on points here limit the benefits over a revenue booking? I noticed on award bookings you can get the Deluxe room (1 cat above superior)
Thanks!
I came across this site that lists the IC giving out free lift passes - http://www.davos.ch/en/winter/activi...pass-for-free/
Also is booking on points here limit the benefits over a revenue booking? I noticed on award bookings you can get the Deluxe room (1 cat above superior)
Thanks!
Feb 17, 2016, 3:33 am
#139
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: ZRH
Programs: LH SEN, BA Gold, Bonvoy Plat, IHG Spire RA
Posts: 580
but agree, especially during summer season, cash is always the preferred option
Feb 17, 2016, 4:50 am
#140
Join Date: May 2004
Location: SIN (LEJ once a year)
Programs: SQ, LH, BA, IHG Diamond AMB, HH Gold, SLH Indulged, Accor Gold, Hyatt Discoverist
Posts: 7,741
Agree, it depends on the days you will stay. I was there last year in Jan (2015) about 2 weeks prior to World Economic Forum and originally they had wanted around 700 CHF for a Deluxe room (before the Swiss Franc appreciated a good 25% or so). Hence I had booked all on points, but then the IHG Winter Sale came to the rescue and I got a Deluxe with breakfast for 210 CHF and saved the points. YMMV
Feb 23, 2016, 10:52 am
#142
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 5,596
I just tried to make a 14 day reservation here for my son and his school friend.friend is over 18 (just) and son will be just short.I wanted to use a combination of Barclays free night,my points and my wife's points as I did not have enough.I called the ambassador service centre to try to get everything together,and the agent said there was no availability for reward nights,and I must make a paid stay.I love my son,but he's not getting 560 Swiss francs a night from me,for 14 nights.
I advised the customer service agent that rooms were showing on the website for 50k points per night,but she insisted it was paid only.She tried a system refresh and then still insisted paid on,no reward nights.
So I then made 3 different reservations,1 using Barclays free night,1 using my wife's points and 1 mine on the website.The customer service agent could see the reservations as I made them,I was still on the telephone at the time.She could not explain why I was able to make a reservation when no reward rooms were available,but I had no problems on line.
I am now slightly concerned as to whether these reservations will get cancelled by the hotel as an error.Anybody have any thoughts on this?
I advised the customer service agent that rooms were showing on the website for 50k points per night,but she insisted it was paid only.She tried a system refresh and then still insisted paid on,no reward nights.
So I then made 3 different reservations,1 using Barclays free night,1 using my wife's points and 1 mine on the website.The customer service agent could see the reservations as I made them,I was still on the telephone at the time.She could not explain why I was able to make a reservation when no reward rooms were available,but I had no problems on line.
I am now slightly concerned as to whether these reservations will get cancelled by the hotel as an error.Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Mar 16, 2016, 3:54 pm
#143
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MAN and LON
Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat
Posts: 13,773
I have just completed a stay here and found it a real mixed bag.
Initial impressions were very good, the architecture is stunning and the interior fit out of high quality. Given the location though the 30 CHF per day parking fee seems rather stingy.
I paid for a club room and was upgraded to a very large Alpine Suite which was very nice but somewhat oddly laid out with a huge balcony and relatively narrow bedroom and living room at key points as it forms the end corner of the property.
We were there to relax and ski and the property works well for that in theory, in practice however less so. The room temperature was consistently too high (extraordinarily so in the bedroom), whilst I should have complained about this the entire property was insanely hot and I heard many other guests remarking how unpleasant this was. service in the restaurants and the bars was painfully slow meaning a dinner took 2 to 3 hours. There simply is not enough staff. A turndown service materialised only for one day of the 3 we spent at the property.
The club lounge is an excellent space but poorly stocked, breakfast is served in the main capricorn restaurant for club guests which in practice means you get the same terrible service as everyone else. The lounge serves afternoon tea (we never tried it) and 2 hours of evening drinks and canapes (5 low end spirits, one red, one white and a prosecco wine and carlsberg by the bottle). The now obvious theme of poor staff to guest ration was very obvious in the lounge, no-one ever check if you were entitled to lounge access or not and the door was left open and unattended.
The basic breakfast offer includes proseecco and decent hot and cold options but don't expect to be shown to a table, be asked if you want a hot drink or to receive your hot drink within 20 minutes of asking. This is a consistent theme, the service is just terrible and for us ultimately destroyed the entire experience. Not only at breakfast but in the 2 restaurants we tried too (capricorn a la carte - 2.5 hours for dinner service and studio grigio at 3 hours, the latter we didn't even get served the complete tasting menus we had chosen and were charged for because the service was so slow and took 3 hours to complete what we did have).
At the bar (nuts & co) we waited almost 20 minutes for someone to offer to serve us and then some time for drinks to arrive. Food and drink quality here is very high but the shockingly bad service detracts from that too much to make an enjoyable experience.
On our final night we attempted to try Alpina the italian restaurant (we made our reservations for all 3 nights on the first day). when we arrived we were offered only what I would describe as the worst table in the restaurant. I would not have taken that table had I been given a reservation for the one time reopening of el-bulli. It was close to the main entrance and by a buffet station. We left and were told we could wait for a further unspecified time which was later adjusted to approximately 15 mins (it was 20:45 by this point). My wife sensibly didn't want to waste more time and we returned to the room and ordered a delivery pizza 9which was very nice) instead, so at least that kept my overall bill down.
To round things off I didn't even get a full final folio (which I didn't notice until I left) just a credit card receipt. This type of lack of attention really summed up our experience at the property and I expect an awful lot more for 2K CHF (and that was using a BOGO voucher too) than this property delivered.
There are so many nice touches, some truly excellent staff (including one who repaired my glasses with superglue when I broke them on the slopes) but a remote property such as this really needs to lift it's game in terms of service at in house restaurants. It all frankly felt as if a hugely impressive and very expensive space was being run on a skeleton staff by fairly poorly trained people.
Will I be back? Despite loving the potential of the place and the slopes of Davos Klosters, sadly almost certainly not. There are far too many issues for a new property like this. Ultimately the GM needs to take responsibility for this.
Initial impressions were very good, the architecture is stunning and the interior fit out of high quality. Given the location though the 30 CHF per day parking fee seems rather stingy.
I paid for a club room and was upgraded to a very large Alpine Suite which was very nice but somewhat oddly laid out with a huge balcony and relatively narrow bedroom and living room at key points as it forms the end corner of the property.
We were there to relax and ski and the property works well for that in theory, in practice however less so. The room temperature was consistently too high (extraordinarily so in the bedroom), whilst I should have complained about this the entire property was insanely hot and I heard many other guests remarking how unpleasant this was. service in the restaurants and the bars was painfully slow meaning a dinner took 2 to 3 hours. There simply is not enough staff. A turndown service materialised only for one day of the 3 we spent at the property.
The club lounge is an excellent space but poorly stocked, breakfast is served in the main capricorn restaurant for club guests which in practice means you get the same terrible service as everyone else. The lounge serves afternoon tea (we never tried it) and 2 hours of evening drinks and canapes (5 low end spirits, one red, one white and a prosecco wine and carlsberg by the bottle). The now obvious theme of poor staff to guest ration was very obvious in the lounge, no-one ever check if you were entitled to lounge access or not and the door was left open and unattended.
The basic breakfast offer includes proseecco and decent hot and cold options but don't expect to be shown to a table, be asked if you want a hot drink or to receive your hot drink within 20 minutes of asking. This is a consistent theme, the service is just terrible and for us ultimately destroyed the entire experience. Not only at breakfast but in the 2 restaurants we tried too (capricorn a la carte - 2.5 hours for dinner service and studio grigio at 3 hours, the latter we didn't even get served the complete tasting menus we had chosen and were charged for because the service was so slow and took 3 hours to complete what we did have).
At the bar (nuts & co) we waited almost 20 minutes for someone to offer to serve us and then some time for drinks to arrive. Food and drink quality here is very high but the shockingly bad service detracts from that too much to make an enjoyable experience.
On our final night we attempted to try Alpina the italian restaurant (we made our reservations for all 3 nights on the first day). when we arrived we were offered only what I would describe as the worst table in the restaurant. I would not have taken that table had I been given a reservation for the one time reopening of el-bulli. It was close to the main entrance and by a buffet station. We left and were told we could wait for a further unspecified time which was later adjusted to approximately 15 mins (it was 20:45 by this point). My wife sensibly didn't want to waste more time and we returned to the room and ordered a delivery pizza 9which was very nice) instead, so at least that kept my overall bill down.
To round things off I didn't even get a full final folio (which I didn't notice until I left) just a credit card receipt. This type of lack of attention really summed up our experience at the property and I expect an awful lot more for 2K CHF (and that was using a BOGO voucher too) than this property delivered.
There are so many nice touches, some truly excellent staff (including one who repaired my glasses with superglue when I broke them on the slopes) but a remote property such as this really needs to lift it's game in terms of service at in house restaurants. It all frankly felt as if a hugely impressive and very expensive space was being run on a skeleton staff by fairly poorly trained people.
Will I be back? Despite loving the potential of the place and the slopes of Davos Klosters, sadly almost certainly not. There are far too many issues for a new property like this. Ultimately the GM needs to take responsibility for this.
Mar 17, 2016, 6:15 am
#144
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Programs: IC Spire Amb, Hilton, Marriott, BA, VA.
Posts: 673
I have just completed a stay here and found it a real mixed bag.
Initial impressions were very good, the architecture is stunning and the interior fit out of high quality. Given the location though the 30 CHF per day parking fee seems rather stingy.
I paid for a club room and was upgraded to a very large Alpine Suite which was very nice but somewhat oddly laid out with a huge balcony and relatively narrow bedroom and living room at key points as it forms the end corner of the property.
We were there to relax and ski and the property works well for that in theory, in practice however less so. The room temperature was consistently too high (extraordinarily so in the bedroom), whilst I should have complained about this the entire property was insanely hot and I heard many other guests remarking how unpleasant this was. service in the restaurants and the bars was painfully slow meaning a dinner took 2 to 3 hours. There simply is not enough staff. A turndown service materialised only for one day of the 3 we spent at the property.
The club lounge is an excellent space but poorly stocked, breakfast is served in the main capricorn restaurant for club guests which in practice means you get the same terrible service as everyone else. The lounge serves afternoon tea (we never tried it) and 2 hours of evening drinks and canapes (5 low end spirits, one red, one white and a prosecco wine and carlsberg by the bottle). The now obvious theme of poor staff to guest ration was very obvious in the lounge, no-one ever check if you were entitled to lounge access or not and the door was left open and unattended.
The basic breakfast offer includes proseecco and decent hot and cold options but don't expect to be shown to a table, be asked if you want a hot drink or to receive your hot drink within 20 minutes of asking. This is a consistent theme, the service is just terrible and for us ultimately destroyed the entire experience. Not only at breakfast but in the 2 restaurants we tried too (capricorn a la carte - 2.5 hours for dinner service and studio grigio at 3 hours, the latter we didn't even get served the complete tasting menus we had chosen and were charged for because the service was so slow and took 3 hours to complete what we did have).
At the bar (nuts & co) we waited almost 20 minutes for someone to offer to serve us and then some time for drinks to arrive. Food and drink quality here is very high but the shockingly bad service detracts from that too much to make an enjoyable experience.
On our final night we attempted to try Alpina the italian restaurant (we made our reservations for all 3 nights on the first day). when we arrived we were offered only what I would describe as the worst table in the restaurant. I would not have taken that table had I been given a reservation for the one time reopening of el-bulli. It was close to the main entrance and by a buffet station. We left and were told we could wait for a further unspecified time which was later adjusted to approximately 15 mins (it was 20:45 by this point). My wife sensibly didn't want to waste more time and we returned to the room and ordered a delivery pizza 9which was very nice) instead, so at least that kept my overall bill down.
To round things off I didn't even get a full final folio (which I didn't notice until I left) just a credit card receipt. This type of lack of attention really summed up our experience at the property and I expect an awful lot more for 2K CHF (and that was using a BOGO voucher too) than this property delivered.
There are so many nice touches, some truly excellent staff (including one who repaired my glasses with superglue when I broke them on the slopes) but a remote property such as this really needs to lift it's game in terms of service at in house restaurants. It all frankly felt as if a hugely impressive and very expensive space was being run on a skeleton staff by fairly poorly trained people.
Will I be back? Despite loving the potential of the place and the slopes of Davos Klosters, sadly almost certainly not. There are far too many issues for a new property like this. Ultimately the GM needs to take responsibility for this.
Initial impressions were very good, the architecture is stunning and the interior fit out of high quality. Given the location though the 30 CHF per day parking fee seems rather stingy.
I paid for a club room and was upgraded to a very large Alpine Suite which was very nice but somewhat oddly laid out with a huge balcony and relatively narrow bedroom and living room at key points as it forms the end corner of the property.
We were there to relax and ski and the property works well for that in theory, in practice however less so. The room temperature was consistently too high (extraordinarily so in the bedroom), whilst I should have complained about this the entire property was insanely hot and I heard many other guests remarking how unpleasant this was. service in the restaurants and the bars was painfully slow meaning a dinner took 2 to 3 hours. There simply is not enough staff. A turndown service materialised only for one day of the 3 we spent at the property.
The club lounge is an excellent space but poorly stocked, breakfast is served in the main capricorn restaurant for club guests which in practice means you get the same terrible service as everyone else. The lounge serves afternoon tea (we never tried it) and 2 hours of evening drinks and canapes (5 low end spirits, one red, one white and a prosecco wine and carlsberg by the bottle). The now obvious theme of poor staff to guest ration was very obvious in the lounge, no-one ever check if you were entitled to lounge access or not and the door was left open and unattended.
The basic breakfast offer includes proseecco and decent hot and cold options but don't expect to be shown to a table, be asked if you want a hot drink or to receive your hot drink within 20 minutes of asking. This is a consistent theme, the service is just terrible and for us ultimately destroyed the entire experience. Not only at breakfast but in the 2 restaurants we tried too (capricorn a la carte - 2.5 hours for dinner service and studio grigio at 3 hours, the latter we didn't even get served the complete tasting menus we had chosen and were charged for because the service was so slow and took 3 hours to complete what we did have).
At the bar (nuts & co) we waited almost 20 minutes for someone to offer to serve us and then some time for drinks to arrive. Food and drink quality here is very high but the shockingly bad service detracts from that too much to make an enjoyable experience.
On our final night we attempted to try Alpina the italian restaurant (we made our reservations for all 3 nights on the first day). when we arrived we were offered only what I would describe as the worst table in the restaurant. I would not have taken that table had I been given a reservation for the one time reopening of el-bulli. It was close to the main entrance and by a buffet station. We left and were told we could wait for a further unspecified time which was later adjusted to approximately 15 mins (it was 20:45 by this point). My wife sensibly didn't want to waste more time and we returned to the room and ordered a delivery pizza 9which was very nice) instead, so at least that kept my overall bill down.
To round things off I didn't even get a full final folio (which I didn't notice until I left) just a credit card receipt. This type of lack of attention really summed up our experience at the property and I expect an awful lot more for 2K CHF (and that was using a BOGO voucher too) than this property delivered.
There are so many nice touches, some truly excellent staff (including one who repaired my glasses with superglue when I broke them on the slopes) but a remote property such as this really needs to lift it's game in terms of service at in house restaurants. It all frankly felt as if a hugely impressive and very expensive space was being run on a skeleton staff by fairly poorly trained people.
Will I be back? Despite loving the potential of the place and the slopes of Davos Klosters, sadly almost certainly not. There are far too many issues for a new property like this. Ultimately the GM needs to take responsibility for this.
I will do a full trip report over the next couple of days if I get time, but I had virtually no service issues whatsoever; from contact with staff prior to arrival, to our welcome, status recognition and upgrade through to breakfast, club and dinner and general service throughout the hotel, everything was superb.
It was very busy on Friday and Saturday nights, and the subsequent breakfasts (the manager confirmed to me that the hotel was full in a long conversation that I had with him on Friday) but my wait for a table on the busiest breakfast (Sunday morning) was 5 minutes. Neither my wife nor I had the problems you had getting coffee when needed and it always came within a few minutes of being ordered. The food offerings for breakfast were very good too. We ate at Al Pino on Friday evening at 8.30PM and had no service issues or delays. Nice drinks on the sun terrace of Nuts and co throughout our stay, again with no delays. (Even on the really sunny and busy apres-ski times).
And we had turn-down every evening too and no problems with the heating controls, although we did turn down the temperature each day and the system responded fast.
If I was trying to be picky then I would say the shuttle service could be a little better organised, along with the concierge being a bit more helpful, generally. But that really is trying to be picky as Marcus (guest relations manager) who was covering for the usual concierge one day was absolutely superb and so helpful with booking an out-of-hotel special request and making all the necessary arrangements for us. Oh, and the Club Lounge was always unattended at the entrance you say, but it didn't seem to me that anyone was abusing their rights-or-not to access; on the busiest evening there must have been 12 people plus us in there, on a usual evening maybe 4-6 - plus a lovely little dog! :-)
Our stay was so superb that we are already looking forward to booking our next visit to Davos.
Mar 17, 2016, 6:31 am
#145
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MAN and LON
Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat
Posts: 13,773
Wow, I just checked out yesterday after a 5 night stay and my experiences are so different to yours that it seems like we were staying at different properties.
I will do a full trip report over the next couple of days if I get time, but I had virtually no service issues whatsoever; from contact with staff prior to arrival, to our welcome, status recognition and upgrade through to breakfast, club and dinner and general service throughout the hotel, everything was superb.
It was very busy on Friday and Saturday nights, and the subsequent breakfasts (the manager confirmed to me that the hotel was full in a long conversation that I had with him on Friday) but my wait for a table on the busiest breakfast (Sunday morning) was 5 minutes. Neither my wife nor I had the problems you had getting coffee when needed and it always came within a few minutes of being ordered. The food offerings for breakfast were very good too. We ate at Al Pino on Friday evening at 8.30PM and had no service issues or delays. Nice drinks on the sun terrace of Nuts and co throughout our stay, again with no delays. (Even on the really sunny and busy apres-ski times).
And we had turn-down every evening too and no problems with the heating controls, although we did turn down the temperature each day and the system responded fast.
If I was trying to be picky then I would say the shuttle service could be a little better organised, along with the concierge being a bit more helpful, generally. But that really is trying to be picky as Marcus (guest relations manager) who was covering for the usual concierge one day was absolutely superb and so helpful with booking an out-of-hotel special request and making all the necessary arrangements for us. Oh, and the Club Lounge was always unattended at the entrance you say, but it didn't seem to me that anyone was abusing their rights-or-not to access; on the busiest evening there must have been 12 people plus us in there, on a usual evening maybe 4-6 - plus a lovely little dog! :-)
Our stay was so superb that we are already looking forward to booking our next visit to Davos.
I will do a full trip report over the next couple of days if I get time, but I had virtually no service issues whatsoever; from contact with staff prior to arrival, to our welcome, status recognition and upgrade through to breakfast, club and dinner and general service throughout the hotel, everything was superb.
It was very busy on Friday and Saturday nights, and the subsequent breakfasts (the manager confirmed to me that the hotel was full in a long conversation that I had with him on Friday) but my wait for a table on the busiest breakfast (Sunday morning) was 5 minutes. Neither my wife nor I had the problems you had getting coffee when needed and it always came within a few minutes of being ordered. The food offerings for breakfast were very good too. We ate at Al Pino on Friday evening at 8.30PM and had no service issues or delays. Nice drinks on the sun terrace of Nuts and co throughout our stay, again with no delays. (Even on the really sunny and busy apres-ski times).
And we had turn-down every evening too and no problems with the heating controls, although we did turn down the temperature each day and the system responded fast.
If I was trying to be picky then I would say the shuttle service could be a little better organised, along with the concierge being a bit more helpful, generally. But that really is trying to be picky as Marcus (guest relations manager) who was covering for the usual concierge one day was absolutely superb and so helpful with booking an out-of-hotel special request and making all the necessary arrangements for us. Oh, and the Club Lounge was always unattended at the entrance you say, but it didn't seem to me that anyone was abusing their rights-or-not to access; on the busiest evening there must have been 12 people plus us in there, on a usual evening maybe 4-6 - plus a lovely little dog! :-)
Our stay was so superb that we are already looking forward to booking our next visit to Davos.
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.
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.
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.
When went to Nuts & Co for a pre dinner drink on Saturday a party of 6 absorbed the entire attention of the 2 staff in there for almost half an hour before we managed to get served (after sourcing our own menus from the bar).
I accept that the front of house staff were pretty good but elsewhere they really were not, I cannot comment about service standards in Al Pino since we left quite promptly given the table offered.
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.
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.
Mar 17, 2016, 11:58 am
#146
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Programs: IC Spire Amb, Hilton, Marriott, BA, VA.
Posts: 673
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.
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.
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.
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.
.
.
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.
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.
Mar 17, 2016, 1:03 pm
#147
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MAN and LON
Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat
Posts: 13,773
Agree the suite and the view was good barring the high temperatures that plagued the entire property but the services we consumed at the hotel were not of the standard I think are reasonable to expect at the prices being levied. The annoying thing was that they could have been good as the quality of the food and drink was high, just that the service was so bad it detracted from the parts that worked.
The root cause of the service issues seemed to me to be too few staff trying to serve too many customers. They didn't want to give bad service they just did because they were too stretched todo anything better. A smile case in point being serving of our bottle of wine in Capricorn. We had to request every top up and ended up with full glasses as we finished our meal, this would have been fine had the wine bucket been closer so that I could self serve but it was located 40 feet from our table. This is a relatively minor point but illustrative.
At breakfast on our first day it wasn't immediately clear which tables were in use so we sat at a table which wasn't being used for some 10 minutes before realising we needed to sit somewhere else when no cutlery or service of any kind was forthcoming. Not once on any of the 3 days did any staff member proactively ask if we wanted any drinks etc. at breakfast in the 10 to 20 minutes it had taken to be seated, get juices, have some cereal etc. On the Sunday it was so hard to find any staff at all that I had to go to the single staff member manning the arrival station to demand a hot drink after 20 plus minutes waiting.
I wonder if timing was a factor, we were at breakfast quite early and service was particularly bad. We tend to eat quite late (dinner reservations around 20:30 each night) and service was particularly bad, perhaps late breakfast early dinner was better?
The repeated nature of our experience in each and every restaurant makes me think we were not unlucky with uniquely slow staff, it was a universal problem. Now if we were in the med where it mightn't be too uncommon to take 3 plus hours to execute a meal service and we were relaxed about that, it might be fine, but in Northern Europe it really isn't. It would have been far worse had I been trying to conduct business rather than relaxing.
I think the overall context sets the scene for everything else, in overall context even my massively laid back wife was unhappy about service standards and it needs to be pretty bad before she starts to moan. That ruined the experience for us. I so wanted to like this property. If you feel your overall xoerience is good it tends to smooth the rough edges, when you think it is bad it tends to sharpen them.
The root cause of the service issues seemed to me to be too few staff trying to serve too many customers. They didn't want to give bad service they just did because they were too stretched todo anything better. A smile case in point being serving of our bottle of wine in Capricorn. We had to request every top up and ended up with full glasses as we finished our meal, this would have been fine had the wine bucket been closer so that I could self serve but it was located 40 feet from our table. This is a relatively minor point but illustrative.
At breakfast on our first day it wasn't immediately clear which tables were in use so we sat at a table which wasn't being used for some 10 minutes before realising we needed to sit somewhere else when no cutlery or service of any kind was forthcoming. Not once on any of the 3 days did any staff member proactively ask if we wanted any drinks etc. at breakfast in the 10 to 20 minutes it had taken to be seated, get juices, have some cereal etc. On the Sunday it was so hard to find any staff at all that I had to go to the single staff member manning the arrival station to demand a hot drink after 20 plus minutes waiting.
I wonder if timing was a factor, we were at breakfast quite early and service was particularly bad. We tend to eat quite late (dinner reservations around 20:30 each night) and service was particularly bad, perhaps late breakfast early dinner was better?
The repeated nature of our experience in each and every restaurant makes me think we were not unlucky with uniquely slow staff, it was a universal problem. Now if we were in the med where it mightn't be too uncommon to take 3 plus hours to execute a meal service and we were relaxed about that, it might be fine, but in Northern Europe it really isn't. It would have been far worse had I been trying to conduct business rather than relaxing.
I think the overall context sets the scene for everything else, in overall context even my massively laid back wife was unhappy about service standards and it needs to be pretty bad before she starts to moan. That ruined the experience for us. I so wanted to like this property. If you feel your overall xoerience is good it tends to smooth the rough edges, when you think it is bad it tends to sharpen them.
Mar 17, 2016, 3:28 pm
#149
Join Date: Jun 2011
Programs: TK Elite, BA Gold, Skyteam Elite Plus, IHG Spire AMB, HHonors Diamond
Posts: 162
i actually stay around 50 - 60 nights per year at mostly different IC hotels around the world - Davos is one of my favorite, top 3 Hotels. The service is really good, the property mind-blowing and Davos itself amazing for hiking and skiing.
Staying there around 4-5 times per year .... much better than Berchtesgaden ever was..
by the way: we were there last weekend as well ... i am sure we saw you in the lounge - anyway we had delicious swiss raclette at Capricorn Saturday evening
regarding Breakfast on Sunday, yes - i never saw the area busy like that - please note the hotel was fully booked - just 1 room left. For me, i understand that the employees were really busy - if i am busy in my job i appreciate clients who accept and realize the situation...
Staying there around 4-5 times per year .... much better than Berchtesgaden ever was..
by the way: we were there last weekend as well ... i am sure we saw you in the lounge - anyway we had delicious swiss raclette at Capricorn Saturday evening
regarding Breakfast on Sunday, yes - i never saw the area busy like that - please note the hotel was fully booked - just 1 room left. For me, i understand that the employees were really busy - if i am busy in my job i appreciate clients who accept and realize the situation...
Last edited by Marco159; Mar 17, 2016 at 3:33 pm Reason: .
Mar 17, 2016, 4:22 pm
#150
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MAN and LON
Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat
Posts: 13,773
I think if I had booked a bottom end room on cash or points and received a junior suite, RA benefits, club access etc. and had little interaction with the food and beverage outlets beyond breakfast when I was in no rush to go and hit the slopes then I mght be perfectly happy.
However I didn't book a cheap room and I did attempt to spend a fair amount in the F&B outlets in the evenings. Service wasn't bad then because it was busy as none of the places we spent time in were even close to busy (not even half full) except the lounge, when we spent time in them, it was just bad service or not enough staff to deliver good service.
However I didn't book a cheap room and I did attempt to spend a fair amount in the F&B outlets in the evenings. Service wasn't bad then because it was busy as none of the places we spent time in were even close to busy (not even half full) except the lounge, when we spent time in them, it was just bad service or not enough staff to deliver good service.