Lisa M.
Yelp
We stayed at The Belvedere in Grindelwald for 3 nights of a 3-week trip I planned and booked myself. I wanted the best of the best hotels since in my opinion, a hotel and its breakfast are major parts of the experience and we may never be in these places again.
Based on reviews and price, this would definitely be *that* hotel for Grindelwald. And it may well be that compared to other hotels in Grindelwald, this really is the nicest. But in general throughout the rest of our trip we were able to stay in the $400 range per night at ultra-luxe hotels with incredible breakfasts and amazing staff. This place I believe hit us $650/night and while that did include dinner for myself and two children (the others did not) there were many things about this place that were not nearly as nice as the other places we stayed:
(1) Nobody showed us around the hotel on arrival. No efforts were made to advise us of the best things do or see or eat in the area.
(2) While the staff was willing to book our Jungfrau tickets for us, they advised us that my son was half price (he's 7) and charged us accordingly. The ticket checkers on the bus told me I'd overpaid and should only need to pay 25 chf for him (rather than like 85 or something - even with the Swiss Travel Pass it was incredibly pricey). They asked me which hotel I was staying at and when I said this one, they said that this happens all the time specifically from this hotel and they insinuated that the hotel was pocketing the difference. While I'm not sure that that's true, it seems that at best there is some incompetency behind the desk there.
(3) Which brings me to another difference between this and a true luxury hotel; the staff were very friendly but they basically struck me as kids and not true concierge professionals.
(4) Another example of this was that we waited 15 minutes for the shuttle to gather us from the train station and nobody ever came - I am positive nobody came because had they come, it would have been a gray shuttle that actually said "Belvedere." Certainly if they did come, they didn't look very hard for us; the train station in Grindelwald is small and not crowded between trains. When we arrived at the hotel, they told us that the person had been there and left. But no effort was made to contact us by email or phone about this; it was lucky we could see the hotel from the stop and lucky my mom's bad knees were able to manage the walk with our luggage.
(5) The sauna seemed broken.
(6) The Wifi did not reach to the pool area. Thankfully my parents were with me so I was still able to work remotely up in my room while my kids swam - otherwise it would have been a big problem for me.
(7) As others have mentioned, they charge for the minibar. If the price of the hotel made it more obvious that this place wasn't pretending to be a luxury hotel, that would be fine. But at these prices, it comes across as cheap and rip-offy.
(8) The pillows were beyond flat. I am sure you can ask for extra pillows but that's annoying and shouldn't happen at these prices.
The very best thing about this hotel is the restaurant. The breakfast is indeed worthy of a luxury hotel and comparable to what we had elsewhere for these prices (well, not quite these prices). Other than the hot chocolate which was real elsewhere and just milk with a powder packet here. The dinners were excellent and while in other cities you wouldn't want to give up the choice of where to eat in town, Grindelwald as a town seemed rather lacking and it was nice to have dinner in the comfort of our own place. The view was also spectacular.
In short - great food, great view, but otherwise an average hotel for insane prices. If price is no object for your trip and you really just want the best experience available in Grindelwald then this is **possibly** still worth it for the restaurant, and possibly still worth it if none of the other hotels are any better on the other fronts. I know that Switzerland is pricey but at a certain point whatever the internal prices are, hotels are competing internationally. When we go back to Europe we'll stick to Chamonix and Annecy for the Alps experience and probably just skip Switzerland.