Johannesbad Hotel Palace

The beds were really hard (when checking out, they Said we should have told them - so they had other beds that were better and we were left with bad ones?) You hear everything very clearly from outside the room - hallway, outside when trucks come at 4.30am with goods or at 23.00 when all the +70 year-olds are partying in the lobby The food was really not something I would recommend, be that dinner or breakfast! Especially if you have kids with you, then there isn’t really any dinner besides pasta and ice cream. If you are 70+ the food I’m sure, is delicious The clientele is clearly the older retired Germans/Austrians, so the review is mostly from a younger kids family perspective...

Nice, clean, friendly hotel with good spa and pool for a ski trip. Location was good but you do need to take a bus each morning and evening to get to the nearest lift up the mountain. Food was good (self-service buffet rather than table service). There is ski hire in-house (very convenient and great service). Compared with other Austrian hotels we've stayed in over the past couple decades of annual ski trips, we felt there were three areas for improvement: 1. The room was fairly small for a family of four; 2. It was unusual to have to pay for coffee/tea/hot chocolate during the apres-ski tea+cake session (previous hotels have typically provided self-service urns); 3. The complimentary soap came from dispensers above the sink and shower (like Premier Inn in the UK) and bathrobes had to be collected from Reception (with payment of a deposit). I guess these were more reminiscent of a 3-star rather than a 4-star hotel, though everything else was definitely at 4-star level.

Overall a very positive experience. Very well run family oriented hotel. Excellent buffet style restaurant with very good variety of choices every night including "free" house wine and beer. Restaurant staff very helpful and friendly in particular the lovely Bulgarian couple, Judith and husband. Bar staff a little surly but that is a minor gripe. Nice pool and (naked) spa area which was a blessing to aching bones after a day on the slopes. A kettle and some toiletries (eg shampoo) would be nice. Very good facilities in town (thermal spa, ice skating etc) though a little quiet for our older teenagers as après ski is limited. Bad Gastein (€20 taxi ride) has plenty of action however if desired. Skiing good and extensive though blue slopes limited and those that were there were difficult to graduate to from nursery slopes for my first time skiing wife. Would recommend the hotel and area.