Hotel Langenwaldsee

There is a reason this is the cheapest place in Schwarzwald with the wellness packages. Take your money, spend a little more and go elsewhere. I gave it 2 stars only because it technically delivered what was in our "Wir beiden am See" package, otherwise only 1. After reading the reviews here, we thought we had made a great choice, now I would really like to know what these people were on when they wrote them. Good things: - sauna area is nice. Salzgrotte and Finnish sauna are lovely. - food was as expected, good old fashioned German food, nothing special or gourmet but what I expected from a hotel like this. - bathroom in our room was new and clean. Everything else: - our room (52) is in desperate need of an upgrade. Incredibly old (not in a charming way) and stunk of cigarettes (absolute no-go for me). It was clearly a smoking room once upon a time for a LONG time and nothing gets rid of that small without a renovation. Mattresses were thin and anyone taller than me (I'm 177cm) will kick the bed frame. - "vital" Frühstück was a basic Buffet. Don't expect anything more. Also most things had run out an hour before it closed and wasn't replenished. - massage was WOEFUL. Both my partner and I had different therapists and both were so light that there was really no point. And his came with unwanted babble about dogs from the therapist. Only order if you want to be moisturised. - service is pretty basic (with the exception to the Hungarian waiter who was personable and lovely). I had the feeling none of the others wanted to be there. - the "lake" is a glorified muddy hole with 2 swans that are unable to leave. - sauna isn't open until 2pm!! The entire hotel is then trying to have a sauna in the 5 hours that's its open. So many people came down expecting to have a morning sauna, we saw this because we did the same after our crappy massage at 9.30am. Also meant on our last day we couldn't use the spa after we checked out. - came back to our room after breakfast on checkout day and all our towels and robes were gone. Even though all our stuff was still there and we had an hour qto go. - our bottle of red wine came to the table from the fridge, very cold. - the whole place is run like a moneymaker, there is ABSOLUTELY none of the charm of a family owned, cute black forest hotel. It's big, impersonal, clearly understaffed and overpopulated. This hotel is not the wellness retreat that we expected and felt less relaxed after our trip than we were before. We had the feeling we were always expecting the next thing to be bad, and it almost always was. We wish we had gone elsewhere and cannot recommend.