Hôtel des Bains & Wellness à Waimes, Belgique

Great place where to spend a night and relax! The rooms and nice and large. The wellness area was great too! Too bad the hammam was not working when we were there. Pool water was warm. Great for a change. Restaurant food was tasty too!

This is the review of an unpleasant experience with the Hotel des Bains & Wellness at the Lake of Robertville in Belgium which took place on November 2, 2024. What was planned as a two-night stay turned into a four-hour one. This was not due to the technical hitches and problems that came up, but to very unprofessional reactions by two members of the staff.||My wife and I are retirees and experienced travellers. We currently hold the Ambassador status in the Bonvoy fidelity programme (at least 100 nights a year); we have collected more than a thousand and two hundred Bonvoy nights since joining the programme in 2010 and in the current year (2024) we have spent already more than 130 nights in hotels (Bonvoy and other hotels).||We wanted to spend a couple of days in the Hautes Fagnes region of Belgium and we had booked a suite in the Hotel des Bains & Wellness of Robertville, a four-star hotel. We checked in at the hotel in the early afternoon of the 2nd of November 2024 and were given room 11, a very spacious room.||We discovered that the television was not working (we wanted to watch the semi-finals of an important tennis tournament in Paris). The person at the reception tried to deal with the problem, could not find a solution and finally came up with another TV set. Unfortunately, the tennis tournament was shown on a channel which the hotel had not included in its subscription. These things happen.||However, we discovered that the bathroom had a very large window giving on to a flat roof, with stairs leading to the higher floors. But the window was totally transparent with no curtains whatsoever. A lady told us that the curtains were under repair. We insisted on some sort of solution and a provisional cloth was finally fixed on the window.||After a short nap, I tried to take a shower and discovered that the bathroom had only one light above the washbasin and that the shower area was almost in the dark.||But the real problem was that the mechanism designed to send water either to the overhead showerhead or to the handheld one was broken. At the most, one could get a little bit of water from the handheld showerhead, but there was no way of preventing water from coming from the overhead one. My wife could not accept to be obliged to have wet hair every time she was taking a shower (usually twice a day).||The person from the reception, a different one, came to the room, tried operating the shower but could not obtain more. However, he considered that this should have been enough. Faced with my disagreement, he said that he could not understand how we could have so many problems when the previous guests who had been in the same room had made no remarks.||Very surprised by this unprofessional statement, I told him that since he felt that we were the problem, we would be leaving the next morning staying one night instead of two.||When we went to the reception, the person explained our position and our decision to leave early to the manager/owner/cook. This person expressed the view that we obviously were feeling more at home in luxury hotels whereas the Hotel des Bains was just an “hotel de charme”. But he then added an incredible “I will not cook for you” ! We were due to have dinner in the hotel.||In this situation we had no choice other than leaving the hotel right away. The four-hour stay cost us 324 euros; the “Hotel des Bains is not a small village inn.||This experience reinforced us in our policy to avoid as far as possible any hotel calling itself “Boutique hotel”, “Hotel de charme” or something similar and to stick as far as possible with the large hotel chains. Not only are their hotels laid out by professionals, but they have staff trained to deal correctly with possible difficulties. Other would-be guests of the Hotel des Bains & Wellness will draw their own conclusions.

This was my third or fourth time in this hotel, but unfortunately it’s not as good as it used to be. Positive: The bed is amazing. The pool, jacuzzi, sauna and hammam were as agreeable as before. Negative: the new(?) decor of the room wasn’t my cup of tea. Erotic photos in the rooms and on the corridors are easily tacky and make you feel most likely only uncomfortable. The bedside lamp wasn’t fastened, it fell to my head when I was trying to find a twitch in the dark. But the thing I absolutely disliked most was the clear glass door to the bathroom with unhindered views from the bed all the way to the toilet seat, no privacy what so ever. ||In the spa the women’s cloakroom downstairs might be rarely used, one of the showers didn’t work and the other one was quite blocked with lime. There was also many flies/moths flying around in the showers. Many of the ceiling spot lights were broken throughout the hotel and pool, also in the stairways, which was a little risky in the dark. The desired breakfast you will choose beforehand from four different plates, they are not huge. Would have been lovely to have some fresh fruits/berries/veggies as well. Hotel website is perhaps also not fully up to date: children are allowed in the spa and in the hotel. Restaurant Cheval Blanc’s menu is also different than advertised.

Visited the Spa as part of a 3 hour Spa access package (€45 per person). The lunch we had additionally booked in was not possible as the cook didn't come to work "as they had not seen our reservation from the previous day". Lunch being unavailable was not a huge issue for us and we did very much enjoy our time in the spa, which was very relaxing and tranquil. The jacuzzi and pool are nice temperatures and the facility generally feels quite clean. However, I would still say that €45 per person for 3 hours is excessively expensive - €90 for a couple! If this was the price of a day admission it would make sense, but in the space of 3 hours (which MUST be taken from 10 till 1300) one can't really get a "full day of Spa experience". Note that there was no secure way of securing and locking up our ebikes. We therefore had to lock them together and put them out of sight behind the hotel (by the bins). While I can't say if there is a huge risk of bicycle theft in general in Robertville, leaving expensive equipment unsecured did still feel a bit odd. Finally, while the receptionist was friendly enough, French was the only language spoken - German or English were not possible. This is fair enough as the hotel is in Belgium, but if you have no French knowledge whatsoever you may struggle a little.

Stayed here for a birthday celebration weekend and booked the suite with view at the lake wich turned out to be an 'appartement'. It was large with a good bed and nice bathroom but we did not find it to comfortable. It mostly lacked the nice touches.. there was not a bottle of water, not even a glas to drink from.. 2 tv's but ample choice (only French and dutch speaking so did not use them) only one bathproduct from their nuxe spa (but it turned out to be a honey flavoured and did not like it at all) no chancing of towels the second day, not even properly cleaned.. the rooms are without airco and they were very aware that they are very hot..we were lucky they put in a mobile airco unit to lower the temp, a nice touch but nothing to compare to a real airco. The breakfast had to be payed extra and at 20 Euro p/p you would expect something special but it was very disapointing in sice and quality with exception of nice cooked fried egg, wich was good. The wellness could only be used for 1 hour a day on reservation due to covid19 but that was fine, only we found out they forgot to put the hamman on the first day so could not use that because it was cold.. If you pay more than 300 Euro per night (without the breakfast wich was another 40 Euro) i think is reasonable to expect something more. So for that reason it was not ok for us and felt rather dissapointed.||If you pay over 300 Euro a night

The website presents the hotel as an oasis of peace and tranquillity, which is not exactly the case since it’s by a high traffic road. The view from the lakeside rooms is impaired by a camper van park on the other side of the lake. The “Art of hosting”, stated on their website, is a kinda surrealist concept, as staff do not shine for friendliness or attentiveness (yes, it’s an euphemism) and no, it hasn’t much “charme” as decoration is nondescript and rooms are small and not luxurious. We bought a weekend package for two including dinners, spa treatments, “1 lunch box 1 carte de promenade”. They never gave us the lunch box or the carte de promenade. In this Covid period, dinner is served in the room, which is fine. However, the minuscule table is far too small for dinner for two and they don’t even give you a tablecloth, which makes dinner quite a depressing moment. The menu is limited and of average quality, while the markups on the wines are very steep and choice limited. Customers have to book the SPA by the hour. However, there is no cleaning / disinfecting of the SPA between users and we saw that the users before us did not use a mask while using the facility, which made it unsafe. Price of a 5 star for a 2 star service.

I went there with my teenage daughter for a moment mother-daughter. This small hotel is really beautiful and cosy with some rooms having a view on the lake. |The location is a good central point to visit the region.|The rooms are really big and the bathrooms are new and beautiful with products from the brand NUXE. |The hotel has a wellness with Nuxe treatments. The wellness is well organised and super clean and also calm. The wellness is adults only in the afternoon, a real pleasure. We tested the massages and it was also a total pleasure ! |The staff is soooooo kind, you feel at home. |The breakfast is really qualitative with amazing jams and very good teas from Mariage Frères. |A place where you feel good and where you want to return quickly !

We had a lovely time in the hotel and the spa. To be honest, during Corona it’s extremely difficult to review a hotel for service and food. The service was friendly, the staff helpful and polite. It being Belgium food was good but extremely expensive for what it was. And yes, we would have loved a “dining” experience even if confined to our room for dinners: Tablecloth, complementary water and such would have been appreciated for the cost of the dinner - as there was no option to eat anywhere else than in the hotel thanks to Corona. Breakfast was not overwhelmingly fantastic but OK. Honesty bar was again nice but not amazing: it being Corona times a coffee machine/ tea making facility in said honesty bar would have been great. The rooms were fine, a bit “lived in” and the bathroom could do with an update once Corona is over. The spa was great, very clean and modern, lovely pool too. ( And no the spa was not completely disinfected after each group of guests but I imagine that being near impossible - also I just saw someone criticised guests did not have wear masks in the spa - seriously? Sauna with a mask? Due to Corona the spa can only be used privately by guests from the same bubble for an hour per group of guests; surely this should suffice. ) The location of the hotel not far from the Botrange is the real winner. The nature reserve is stunning. All in all the hotel is recommended and will surely come into its own during non-Corona times when one can get a true sense of the establishment.