Seehotel Bellevue

Amazing location and excellent room! The view from the balcony is breathtaking

To start with the positive first. The hotel itself is beautiful, with a beautiful view of the lake. Also the breakfast had some good quality items and the rooms are spacious. However there was no staff and because of the self check in process we came across some people that couldn’t acces their rooms due to several reasons. For a hotel with this rate it’s really unacceptable that people cannot acces their rooms. In most hotel the check in takes a few minutes and we spend like half an hour to figure out how to check in. That’s not really ideal after a long trip. The hotel has so much potential and could significantly be improved by having staff (which to me seems like the base of a hotel?)

We had no issues with check-in process when we arrived at 10pm. After we opened the room, we left luggage there and took our dog for a walk before sleep. When we returned, we could not open the door of the room because access card was not working. We've contacted Hotel's support line to find out that there was no option to open this door due to stuff absence, Hotel's representative sounded very amused by this situation and suggested to wait until the next morning. As you can see, there was a physical keyhole and I asked Hotel's support multiple times whether there could be a physical key in the building to open the door, I just could not believe that they don't have some master-key for emergencies. Then I've contacted booking.com support, spent 50 min on phone explaining that we left our luggage including passports and credit cards in the room and we had no place to sleep. Booking.com representative explained that they are only intermediary company and refused to relocate us for that night or to help to find another place with 24h reception where we could sleep. Honestly I always booked at booking.com in order to avoid this kind of situation and never expected that one day I would be left to sleep at reception. Then we've reached local police in Zell am See, the policemen contacted Hotel's support line again and got the same reply: no options to open the door until the next morning. We had to go to another Hotel in Zell am See with 24h reception and paid 350 EUR for 7 hours of sleep. The next morning I was contacted by Hotel's representative and they advised us to return by 10am. When we arrived at 10am, we found only 2 cleaning ladies in breakfast room, they tried to open the room with their cards but unsuccessfully. I have contacted Hotel's support lines multiple times, they advised to wait until some staff to arrive. By 11am the situation got critical because our dog is eating dietary food and this food was locked in the room, his medical condition does not allow huge gaps between meals. My husband went to police again, I was still waiting for someone to open the door. When I've contacted the Hotel's support again for the 5th time and explained the situation, a lady who spoke to me just navigated me back to lockers, provided me a code and with a master-card I opened the room 13 hours after the first time I had contacted them. I was shocked because this situation could have never happened if they let me ( okay, they don't trust Guests) or the policemen know that the master-card was in the building. On top of it, they denied full refund when we explained that we were leaving immediately. I've contacted booking.com for assistance with full refund and after 1 month got no reply. Horrible experience, I stayed in apartment hotels before, I really advise to property management to replace cards by physical keys at least. I would also appreciate full refund because no one would continue their stay after being locked out for the night.