Hotel Elefant

Hotel Elefant has a long history and is ideally positioned in the historic centre. The hotel is the pride of a well-established family, and you can see it everywhere, down to the large portraits of a previous generation looking down on the guests from the walls of the breakfast room. The building and the rooms are well-kept and continuously renovated. However, the emphasis is clearly on the upkeep of the family estate, and not so much on the experience of the guests. Our bathroom, for instance, with a shower that did neither have a tub nor a closing door, looked nice while it was dry, and was certainly very easy to clean in no time at all, which saves on operating costs - a concern that you could see everywhere but in the lavish furnishings, and indeed the price of the hotel. But once you were in the shower, you quickly noticed that moving as you are used to while showering, resulted in extensive flooding. If you wanted your partner to be able to shower after you or use the toilet without getting wet feet, you had to crouch down and use water very sparingly. Breakfast was another disappointment, with the coffe machine being an older and not very performant push-button affair, which made the usual underwhelming dishwater coffee such devices mostly produce. It quit service on one day, leaving the short-handed staff trying to cope as best they could, with even less performant devices, in the kitchen next door. The bread rolls were underwhelming by Austrian standards, soft on the outside and dry on the inside, and although scrambled eggs were good and tasty, trying to get a soft-boiled egg resulted invariably in getting one that was completely done, almost hard, and too hot to handle. You might try and get your 17 Euros worth by eating as much as your stomach could hold, but why would you, if it isn't any good? Our room though, apart from the bathroom, was very comfortable and spacious, with the luxury of two opposite windows and a sofa and armchair, very handy to put one's feet up between walks, and to chill out before going to bed. However, given that it wasn't at all cheap, it is improbable that we will return. The owners who run the hotel are far too reliant on Salzburg's charms and the precious situation of their establishment, and do not seem to really care about their guests. This is reflected also in the attitude of the staff. We have been to Salzburg a number of times, and we can compare to other hotels that are in a similar topgraphical position.

we stayed 2 nights and were pleasantly surprised. location- in the midst of the pedestrian zone. this means that if you want to drop off your luggage at the front door upon checkin you need to get the code from the hotel reception to lower the barrier at the pedestrian zone entrance to drive your car up to the front of the hotel. then you would park your car in the alstadt public garage (built into the adjacent mountainside) and walk in the tunnel back to the pedestrian zone (about 1/4 mile). checkin- easy and simple. we did not book the breakfast buffet which would have been 20 euro per person. there is a slight discount with the public parking garage. rooms- basic and simple and on the small side, but very adequate. the less expensive rooms are in an adjoining building which requires to take 2 elevators (or a few stairs). this did notbotzer us as we expected it from reading the reviews. our room was very quiet, and had a small fridge and safe. the hotel has a supposedly good restaurant but be sure to reserve a table as i do not believe hotel guests get any advantage to access.