Experiencing the Alps At A Kinderhotel: REVIEW

Feb 7

7 min read

I have been wanting to do a mountain ski resort trip for a long time and with the alps spanning several countries this was a great chance to do that while going to a new country.

We came across Kinderhotels through internet searches and word of mouth so they had been on our radar for quite some time, whether we go in summer or winter.

We stayed at Familienparadies Sporthotel Achensee, which is just inside Austria when driving south from Munich. It's about an hour away from Innsbruck, nestled in a nice little valley with a small lake nearby.

This post will be a mix of review, our experience and overall thoughts of the area and this hotel. This also doesnt speak for any other Kinderhotels so experiences may vary.

What is a Kinderhotel?

Kinderhotels are a chain or company of hotels that specifically cater to families. Each of their hotels have a ton of activities and play areas for kids of all ages and even parents to enjoy without kids for their own holiday fun.

Most Kinderhotels are all inclusive, which includes 3 meals a day, all of the play areas, daycare and some other group functions and activities for kids. Basically once you are booked at the hotel you don't have to worry about finding food or activities and just enjoy your vacation.

Some hotels even offer beer and wine, which I initially thought ours did, but I must have confused it with another property.

These hotels are mostly in Austria, with a few in Italy and one in Croatia. There are similar type of family style hotels across Europe but this is the biggest chain we could find and what we tried first.

Our stay

As i mentioned before we stayed at Familienparadies Sporthotel Achensee which is located in Achenkirch, Austria. Its just inside of austria coming from Munich. We flew in and out if Munich and rented a car to get there. There are shuttles you can hire through the hotel to be picked up in Innsbruck.

The hotel itsself isnt very large and there is much much in this little town, you are essentially going there for the mountain activities, in this case skiiing and snow. The hotel is literally at the base of the slopes, technically not ski in and ski out but you just have to walk like 20 feet.

The setting is amazing, with snowy mountains encircling you completely. On the opposite side of the hotel from the slopes, there is a spacious open area featuring actual snow trails that have been created and maintained by some kind of machine. There is a walking path and another path for cross-country skiers, complete with grooves cut into the snow.

Skis and snowboards are available for rent, but the hotel provides sleds at no cost. Let me tell you, the sledding here is quite extreme. The slopes are quite steep, and I'll mention that most sledders were wearing helmets. We primarily used the sled to pull Landon around in the open area, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

The Rooms

The rooms were great, i think we got like a second tier room, so not the bottom level but one step up. This one had a king size bed, a loveseat and a nice bunkbead. Plenty of room and a large balcony. The fridge was small and one odd thing was there was no kettle or anything to make coffee, but more on that later.

Regarding air control, I didn't notice any AC, just those traditional radiator heaters. They're excellent in the winter, but keep in mind you might feel hot during the summer. Even in winter, we never needed to turn the heaters on and kept the window slightly open because the room was so warm. Perhaps being on the 3rd floor helped it stay quite warm, but fortunately, the windows and door could be opened.

Kids Areas

This is where the hotel really shines and where most people will be coming for anyway.

In the basement, there is an indoor pool, one deeper than the other. The larger one has a baby area that's only about 8 inches deep, then that's joined with a shallow area that's maybe 2.5 feet deep. To put it simply, Landon could actually stand on his tiptoes in the larger portion of the pool.

The pool is equipped with plenty of floaties and various toys available for everyone to enjoy. Needless to say, Landon never wanted to leave and always looked forward to returning. Visiting in the middle of the day was ideal because we generally had it all to ourselves. However, by 4 o'clock, like clockwork, everyone would arrive, and the kids' pool became quite lively. This was around the time the slopes were closing.

It wasn't rowdy in a bad way, just lots of kids having fun, mostly smaller kids, and the parents were there. However, this being an Austrian hotel, most people there only spoke German.

Also downstairs was the actual kids play area and daycare. This place was awesome and landon loved. They had a front play area that was like a house. As you walked back there was a rock wall kids could climb. Then further back was a padded junglegym and ball pit with a slide. They had a little disco area they hosted dance parties some nights with the kids.

Directly upstairs from that was an older kids' club for young teens. I didn't see what that had.

The staff there in the kids area and daycare were fantastic. Most of them knew english and were eager to play with landon and bring him in. Since non of the other kids seemed to speak english one of the staff usually stayed close to Landon.

And since the daycare and play areas are all included with then hotel you just have to fill out a form and drop your kid off and go. You can check a box if you kid will be there during meal time and need to be fed. We never left him there very long but it was good to be able to drop him off.

Actually, it was a very weird experience for us and was definitely a "I don't know what to do with my hands" situation. But whats a whole other thing.

The kids area is why you come and if you have multiple kids especially age 5-10 these hotels would be ideal for you. Theres also outdoor playgounds and an outdoor pool with a slide for warmer months.

The Food

DUN DUN DUN

I saved this toward the end because I didn't want this review to seem like a rant. But the food is without a doubt the weakest aspect to this hotel.

So how the food is structured here is as follows, each meal has like a 2.5 hour time range to it. Your family/party is assigned a table when you first eat and every meal after that you sit at the same table with the same serve, which is pretty cool.

Breakfast - this is buffet style and very European, most of which is cold items. Things like breads, cold deli meats, muesli, and cereal, but you can get eggs made to order, which was great.
Lunch- This is served across the street where the bar is. This is a resturant you can go and eat and order ala carte but also during the assigned lunch time there is a lunch buffet. Usually cold salads, a soup and 2 hot items for kids and 2 for adults.
Dinner- This is the more unique meal because the kids have their own small buffet they can eat from where as adults get a pre selected menu you can choose 1 item of three different courses, starter, main and desert.

So that is how it is structured, and for the most part, it's great. Being able to go and get the food right away for a kid is amazing, especially since living in Spain, service is very slow. Limited choices each meal got a bit old, especially since breakfast was always the same, but the eggs were fantastic.

We often found lunch and dinner to be somewhat disappointing. Lunch offered only one main dish along with the usual cold salads and a soup, so if the hot lunch option didn't appeal to you, you might end up going hungry. On the first day, the hot lunch might have been sitting out for a while since both of us felt unwell after eating it.

Dinner is marketed as a five course meal and you noticed on the paper i said you only pick three different things. well we realized during that the other two course are the same cold salads that are always out and the bread and cheese. Most of those salads are fairly good but you will need to take advantage of those because the dinner portions are very small.

Once again, this is quite European, but we don't need elaborate five or three-course meals. I'd prefer just one good plate of food. Each evening, there were only three entrees and two starters to choose from, so often we ended up making an unenthusiastic choice of "I guess I'll take that one."

A few times we went to the kids' buffet and took some of their chicken. Also, with the location, there wasn't anywhere we could walk to and eat out at.

Service

This was a slight worry after reading reviews people stating that its mostly all german speakers here. But the majority of the staff spoke english, only a couple of people just new the minimum english and would usually get hey from someone else.

Everyone was also super nice and helpful. The daycare staff I mentioned were great and eager to play and have us leave Landon.

Key points

If you have multiple kids and want a vacation without much thought, this is great.
the kids areas, daycare and programs are fantastic and where these hotels really shine.
not much are around the hotel so go there prepared to use just the hotel or the slopes/area nearby.
don't have high expectations on food. there were a few surprise good meals but each meal the choices are lacking.
the rooms are great

Our final opinion

Kinderhotel has enough positives that we absoutely would do one again. For the next one id try and pick one where if need be we can go out and grab some food or find one that has beer and wine included.

I would also like to make sure we pick an area we would use more. We didnt need to pick this hotel since we didnt step food on the ski slopes which is the main reason everyone was there.