L'impérial Palace

“5 stars but 3 star service..”

The hotel is situated at the lake edge and is quite a beautiful building. Arriving staff all very good. Our room located to one side on the smaller side but nevertheless very clean and everything you could need. After a short walk and a freshen up it was time for dinner. We chose Italian... more

The hotel is situated at the lake edge and is quite a beautiful building. Arriving staff all very good. Our room located to one side on the smaller side but nevertheless very clean and everything you could need. After a short walk and a freshen up it was time for dinner. We chose Italian the first night and what a nightmare. The food was nice but the service terrible. Our waitress looked like we were a inconvenience to her. Very distracted, we were not in a hurry so didn't take too much notice until we had finished our main meal. After around 15 minutes she is now taking an order from 3 people near us, half way through their order she walks away to help a colleague set up a table. The 3 looked very confused, after another 5 minutes we decided enough was enough and left much to get surprise...'but dessert is included'. There were only 8 people in the whole restaurant and 2 staff shouldn't have been a problem. Breakfast wasn't much better as they had a group of 70 in from Norway...it seemed everybody else in the hotel had to fend for themselves. They should have accommodated them in a separate room or had 2 areas for the food. The food was nice, drinks expensive so all in all a 5 star hotel but definitely a 3 star service

less

“Amazing location and spa, but some major issues”

Beautiful hotel on lake Annecy. A short and very pleasant walk to Annecy. Incredible spa. Despite its some major issues, I would stay here again. The spa is absolutely worth visiting. My wife and I visited a lot of spas on our honeymoon, but this was by far the best. Excellent massage and... more

Beautiful hotel on lake Annecy. A short and very pleasant walk to Annecy. Incredible spa. Despite its some major issues, I would stay here again. The spa is absolutely worth visiting. My wife and I visited a lot of spas on our honeymoon, but this was by far the best. Excellent massage and incredibly well maintained gamma and pool area. They limit the amount of people in the spa area by reservation to keep the experience pleasant and clean, so make sure you make a reservation. Staff at the spa are outstanding and highly professional. The grounds and location are beautiful. A truly magnificent building with stunning views of lake Annecy. Unfortunately, the interior is not very pleasant. A lot of the windows looking out from the dining area unnecessarily have obscured views. And there are some horrible interior design choices. The anemic, all white, lobby with a casino on its side transports you from the beautiful exterior to a soulless, congested environment. The zebra patterned hallways whose lights are kept off (they turn on from sensors that activate when you are already well into the darkness) is unpleasant. This place needs a renovation. There are also significant staffing and management issues. At breakfast we ate from the buffet, which was very good, but we wanted to order something in addition to the buffet, so we repeatedly asked for a server to take our order, and despite being told one would come, one never came. After over half an hour of waiting, we left. I asked the concierge, who it turns out is also the valet, if we needed a reservation to ride the pedal boats from vendors around the lake later that afternoon, and he was adamant that I would not and that they do not accept reservations, but as it turned out the vendors all booked out by the time we got there (and we would have gotten a reservation had we made one that morning), so we did not get to experience this seemingly-awesome experience during our trip. And when we checked out at about 8/9am we were told that the valet was not working that morning, so despite leaving our car with the valet, the front desk gave us our keys and told us to get our cars ourselves. For a hotel that carries, prices, and markets itself as a luxurious stay, these defects are all unacceptable. Finally, beware the fraudulent and criminal activity of someone within the hotel staff. We booked via Expedia. After making our reservation the hotel contacted us through their official Expedia account providing a URL to a sketchy website that they wanted me to input my information into to pay for my hotel stay. But we had already prepaid. I notified Expedia and they told me that this was a scam and to disregard it. But the “scam” came from the hotel’s official Expedia page. When I messaged the hotel to let them know that whoever is operating the hotel is conducting what Expedia’s fraud team called a “scam” they disregarded my message. That’s a problem! All in all, I would stay here again, but only because of its incredible location and staff.

less