Absolutely a great old hotel. The staff couldn't have been nicer. The grounds were beautiful. We stayed in room 121, and it is one of the nicest accommodations we have ever seen. Large separate living room with fireplace, decorated with tiles. It was a memorable stay.

I was also disturbed by the negative review of this beautiful old estate and hotel. I have stayed here several times over the years and have never been disappointed. To see this old house coming down the driveway; it is simply breathtaking. This is one of the former homes of Empress Friedrich, Queen Victoria's eldest daughter and mother of the Kaiser. It is grand, magnificent and very well maintained. The rooms are furnished nicely with authentic antiques and reproductions. If you are willing to pay, stay in a suite which is the epitome of royal splendor. The Staff while I stayed here was courteous and pleasant. The breakfast was delicious, the grounds were beautiful, and the main drawing room and dining room were absolutely grand. The golf course is pricey but if you can afford to stay here, you can afford the green fees. This hotel is surprisingly close to Frankfurt yet far enough away to actually be in the countryside. Kronberg is one of the wealthiest towns in Germany as many bankers reside here and the surrounding town and countryside is well maintained and immaculate. I had the impression from the angry reviewer that he personified the "ugly obnoxious American (I want it and I want it now)" stereotype and that his expectations were beyond belief. Nothing irritates me more when I am traveling in Europe than to see and hear loud, obnoxious people, which are usually Americans. And for the record, I am American, but a well-behaved one.

I typically do not write reviews but decided to do so after reading that very negative comment from another traveller on the Schlosshotel Kronberg who complained about how arrogant staff was. I visited the Schlosshotel on one of my last trips to Frankfurt and was very positively surprised. The service was excellent, the room was cosy, bathroom very modern and stylish and yet it had a distinct historical feel. Each time going to breakfast I found a new way to get there with all the 'hidden' staircases. It was a place to relax and feel comfortable. I find that the other traveller who wrote the review and complained about the service being bad and reception staff being arrogant was exhibiting a lot of arrogance himself as well as bad planning. If you invite clients for golf surely you should be prepared enough to do so. It is ridiculous to expect the hotel to have a golf shop in a hotel nor a banking facility. His mistake is to confuse customer service with "everything has to be like I am used to (whatever that means)". Europe is diverse and the uniqueness is reflected e.g in the style of its different places.

Schlosshotel Kronberg was a lovely place for me. I may stay there again during one of my next trips to Frankfurt.

On a recent visit to the Schlosshotel Kronberg, I was so shocked at the degree of incompetence and arrogance and the lack of a service mentality on the part of the hotel's reception desk staff, that I can only wholeheartedly recommend to anyone reading this to stay as far away from the place as possible. This is a "Leading Hotel of the World" that will stonewall its guests and have no qualms about admitting that they're perfectly content in doing so.I was about to go play golf with some clients of mine on the neighboring course (my tee-time was about 10 minutes away) and inquired at the reception that if I perhaps it was possible that I could have some fruit and a couple of candy bars in a plastic bag to take away.The young lady I had addressed, who had an unshakable aura of self-assuredness, responded with a rather curt "Why?" ...in the kind of tone that makes you feel as if she expected an apology for making such a request in the first place.Slightly befuddled by this reaction, I explained that I was in search for a small snack for my guests and myself to take along on the golf course and - given that there were no vending machines down by the golf shop - I thought perhaps I'd ask the front desk. (Actually "golf shack" is a more accurate description for the shop - there is nothing you can actually buy in there, such as tees, balls or any other essential golfing items)Anyway, my initial query now seemed to make more sense to the lady and she proceeded to make the appropriate arrangements for some fruit (sorry, no candy bars).So far so good - but my second request would not go down so smoothly. I informed the dear lady that the golf shop which I had visited just before had refused all non-cash methods of payment for the green fee (which in its own right is quite astounding, considering we're talking about a renowned golfing venue about 20 minutes away from Frankfurt, Germany's financial center).I continued to explain that that unfortunately I had only had about 50 Euros in my wallet but that the green fee for our foursome would be 186 Euros.I then asked if perhaps she could help me out by charging the green fee for the golf course to my credit card. Not such an odd request, I would have thought.Her response: "No, I cannot help you since we are not in any way associated with the golf club and we cannot take charges on the club's behalf".I was dumbstruck and frankly a little at a loss for words. Nonetheless I proposed that perhaps then she could give me a cash advance on my credit card, but again I was turned down.Instead I was told that I would be best advised to drive to nearby Kronberg and get cash at the local ATM (there is no ATM at the hotel).Refusing to believe what I was hearing and getting a bit annoyed with the kind of attitude I was confronted with, I asked to speak to the manager. The lady looked me up and down, pondered the scenario in a rather long moment of silence, and then disappeared into a back room behind the reception desk only to reemerge a minute later and tell me that "No, I am sorry, we cannot help you!" I suppose the manager did not consider it necessary to bother to come out and tell me this himself.I again insisted on seeing him, and eventually he did make his way to the front of the reception. He gave me a look of raw disgust - quite obviously for appearing in his hotel lobby wearing my golf gear and having the nerve to rattle him from his slumber - and proceeded to explain that "the rules and regulations of the hotel exist for a good reason", and that "this was just the way things are and the way they have always been" and that "there was absolutely nothing that he could do for me".At this point I was getting quite unnerved, not least because I had clients waiting outside and a tee-time only about two minutes away and apparently still no way to pay for the round of golf.Realizing I was not making progress with the staff in front of me I asked, simply for the record: "So you, a Leading Hotel of the World, are letting me, your guest, run full-speed into a brick wall here?""Well, if that is how you care to look at it, yes."It goes without saying that I was appalled, not only at their lack of cooperation, but even more so at this shocking level of arrogance and disrespect.Furthermore, I'm sure you'll understand that I will never visit the Schlosshotel Kronberg again and that I certainly cannot recommend it to anyone after this experience. (By the way, I eventually managed to convince the guy in the golf shop that I would drive down to the nearest ATM after playing the round of golf with my guests and that I would put the cash in an envelope under the door of his shack, which would at that time of day already be closed, but I did not succeed in doing this without first being accused of causing him all kinds of problems with his end-of-day bookkeeping and being threatened with legal consequences if I did not keep my word).It is very sad, but the above is a true and not infrequent experience in this country.
Unfortunately, there is still a large number of black sheep out there in the service landscape in Germany, who seem to believe that service is not a means of distinction but rather a necessary evil. Other examples of this are a large number of customer service staff at Lufthansa Airlines, at the Deutsche Bahn (railways), at Deutsche Telekom (part-state-owned phone operator), most retail banks, quite many retail shops, and an endless number of cafes, bars and restaurants across the land.Add Schlosshotel Kronberg to the list.