When the Hyatt / Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership formed last year, I said I wasn’t excited. That was mostly because I think it set up Hyatt to introduce a new category since some SLH properties currently cost 40K Hyatt points per night (more than anything on the Hyatt award chart, with top properties like the Park Hyatt New York or Tokyo costing only 30K per night) — but also because I said I generally prefer the predictability of a chain hotel over not knowing exactly what I’m going to get. After my first SLH stay last week, I’d say that the partnership was a bigger deal than I’d realized. If I can count on other SLH properties being this nice, maybe they have my kind of predictability after all.
Schlosshotel Kronberg
Early last week I had two extra nights in Europe and I was really trying to make Budapest work so I could get to the place Greg wrote about last Thursday. Unfortunately, timing just wasn’t going to work well for Budapest. Frankfurt ended up being the easiest option in terms of flights. When I went to the Hyatt website, I found this for 20K per night:
Schlosshotel Kronberg, you had me at “available”.
The hotel description did a decent job of selling the place:
Experience the elegance of a royal palace at Schlosshotel Kronberg—the former home to Empress Victoria Friedrich. The enchanting grounds boast an 18-hole golf course, a fine dining restaurant, and a beauty salon. Enjoy a traditional English tea in the library surrounded by the empress’ original antiques.
After a bit more (Wikipedia) research, I learned that the Schlosshotel was built for German Empress Victoria and she lived there towards the end of her life. When the US occupied Germany after World War II, this apparently became an officer’s club and Dwight Eisenhower lived here for about 7 years (and also designed the golf course). That all translated to “interesting enough” in my book to book it.
Notably, this property isn’t the highest value for Hyatt points. The lowest room category (i.e. the one you’ll book with Hyatt points) is often available for about 235 Euro per night (about $265 at the time of writing). That’s only a value of about 1.325c per point, which is relatively poor for Hyatt points. Personally, I’m flush enough with points that were mostly earned at 5x, so I was OK with booking this for one night at suboptimal value — and after my stay, I’d probably consider it again as I’d definitely like to come back and generally prefer not to spend that much on a night.
Getting there from FRA (Frankfurt Airport)
This place is a super easy drive from Frankfurt Airport — it’s about 28 minutes by car from the airport. A 2-day car rental booked through Autoslash cost us less than $50. Parking is free and with the hotel having only 62 guest rooms, it probablty won’t be difficult to find a spot. There’s even a grocery store just a couple of miles before you get to the hotel if you need any supplies on your way.
Arrival and check-in
I had written an email in advance (something I often do before arrival) and asked for a crib and a room with a little extra space for it. Since we began traveling with a baby, I’ve made this a general habit. I find that even with standard rooms, there is often a room on a corner or laid out with just a little extra space and I’d rather at least lock that down in advance if possible. We didn’t always value suites and larger rooms, but now that we have to be in the room for an afternoon nap and put our son to sleep a few hours before we go to sleep, extra space is huge (pun intended). The hotel had written back confirming that they had a very nice room lined up for us and would have a baby bed ready. That was non-specific, but it achieved my main goal when I write to a hotel in advance: it assured that a human picked it rather than a computer, which means we’d likely at least get that corner-type room.
The gentleman at check-in (whose name I unfortunately missed) had a deep voice with exceptionally well-annunciated English. I went to offer my passport and credit card and he promptly let me know that those things “wouldn’t be necessary”. I kind of chuckled inside a bit — apparently, they aren’t concerned that SLH guests won’t pay for their incidentals.
I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but there was a clear air of luxury in the check-in process that came from a slow and deliberate confidence in the way things were explained. Breakfast would be served from 7am to 11am in the dining room and would of course be complimentary for us. That’s courtesy of booking through Hyatt: all World of Hyatt members, even those with no status, get free breakfast and 2pm late checkout at SLH properties. Breakfast was really good (more on that below), making it well worthwhile to book through Hyatt.
At the end of the check-in process, the agent walked us to our room. Pictures don’t really do it justice: walking through the halls made this place look really impressive.
But we did have to walk. As our agent was quite tall (and I am quite not tall), I felt like I was really hustling to keep up. My wife carrying our oversized bowling ball of a baby was getting winded as well when the check-in rep mentioned that our room was literally at the other end of the hotel. We walked in and the room was fine — there was a small hallway, with a bathroom off one side of it and a bedroom off the other side. The room felt semi-sauna-like — I was quite surprised that the AC hadn’t been turned on in advance. I was further surprised not to find a crib in the room on arrival — those are precisely the kinds of things that lead me to generally prefer chain hotels over indie properties. The agent left and I went to work trying to figure out how to turn on the AC.
About 5 minutes later and before I’d even finished figuring out the AC situation, I heard a knock on the door and barely looked up before our check-in agent had burst into the room huffing and puffing and spitting something out about how he was hoping he could get back before we started unpacking so it wouldn’t be unpleasant to move. He apologized — we had inadvertently been assigned the wrong room. He had literally walked all the way back to reception, which I’ll re-emhpasize was at the total opposite end of the castle, realized there was a mistake, and must have sprinted down the halls of the castle to stop us from unpacking in the room that was probably in the category that we actually booked. We later said amongst ourselves that we just can’t see that happening at most hotels: we certainly didn’t complain or express any disappointment in our room; I have to imagine most hotels would think, “oh well — they seem to be fine with the room they got” and move on and upgrade someone else. The fact that the agent didn’t even call but rather ran down the hallways to fix it seemed above and beyond what I’d expect.
At any rate, I’m somewhat hopeful that we weren’t just lucky in getting an upgrade: he later mentioned that as he walked back to reception he began questioning our room assignment because they “never assign that room to SLH members”. I’m sure that isn’t entirely true — with only 62 total rooms, if the hotel is any sort of busy I would imagine you may indeed get the room you booked (as is the case with any busy hotel), but it sounds like folks booking through Hyatt are fairly likely to score an upgrade of some sort if available.
Our suite
I was even less upset to have used Hyatt points at relatively poor value when I saw our suite. Here’s the description from the hotel:
Delight in the history of this sprawling suite, which includes a separate living area, double bed, and large bathroom. The 65-square-meter space once served as a living room to Czar Nicholas II, a frequent guest of the empress.
While it’s not necessarily where I’d put up the Czar, the room was quite nice.
Also very interesting: in the first room, I thought the check-in agent said that everything in the minibar was complimentary, but when I opened it I realized I must have misunderstood since it was fully stocked. I was going to re-inquire at the desk, but when we moved into the suite he reiterated that everything in the minibar is complimentary and it is replenished daily.
Here’s the contents of the minibar:
We enjoyed that little bottle of Moet very much indeed. Reisling isn’t really my thing, but that wasn’t bad, either.
Breakfast
Breakfast was included since we booked through Hyatt. It was in the main dining room, which is also a gourmet restaurant by night and a more casual bistro-style during the day. The entrance and dining room are grand.
However, they had tables set up on the rear patio for breakfast, so we ate outside to enjoy the nice weather and beautiful grounds. The buffet was quite good for a European breakfast (I find breakfast in Europe to generally be pretty light compared to American standards, and certainly compared to what you get at luxury hotels in Asia). There was honey on an actual honeycomb, plenty of breads, eggs, etc. You won’t walk away hungry or disappointed.
The grounds
Just meandering the grounds and hotel here was really nice. In addition to the 18-hole golf course, there is a rose garden and a number of walking paths. While strolling through the gardens in the morning, we heard the whinny of a horse. Of course there’s a stable — what kind of respectable castle *doesn’t* have horses?
Here are some more pictures of the place as I just couldn’t get enough of the way it looked.
Bottom line
This hotel was nice. I would definitely stay here again if my travels took me to Frankfurt. In fact, I’d even purposefully build in an overnight stopover just to go back. The place was just cool. I’d always wanted to spend a night in a castle; I never thought that Hyatt points would get me there. Furthermore, I was really impressed with the experience, from check-in to breakfast. I met a guest at a different hotel the other day who has stayed at many SLH properties and in speaking with him about them, it sounds like Schlosshotel Kronberg’s location is unique but not the level of service or amenities (even the free minibar isn’t unprecedented according to his experience, though of course that isn’t true everywhere). Maybe I didn’t give this tie-up enough credit as the Schlosshotel Kronberg has me checking into other SLH properties and much more interested in Hyatt for my next trip to Europe, a continent where they’ve long had an inferior footprint and they now have quite a few other similarly-unique places that look fittingly small and luxurious. Perhaps Greg’s irrational excitement was justified after all (See: On my mind (Hyatt and Small Luxury Hotels of the World edition). I think I was wrong in my disappointment with the SLH partnership — and this is the kind of wrong that I’m happy to be.
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Thanks for the review as it really sealed the deal for me! I hope it hasn’t changed much over the last two years. Booked this for two nights in Nov for a change of pace.
[…] the Old Continent. Whether you plan to search for Platform 9 3/4, hunt for trolls, sleep in castles, or you’re just really craving a ham baguette, Europe has an undeniable allure for many […]
The only downside I have noticed when booking Hyatt SLH is the prices are about 30% higher on the Hyatt website than booking direct with the hotel. Hyatt will not price match on SLH, I tried – but still nice way to use points.
I love the Hyatt SLH partnership, I stayed at the Centurion Palace in Venice and the Regency in Florence. Both hotels gave me a nice upgrade, welcome amenity and the free breakfast included all you can drink prosecco. Wonderful experience, great location and the service was better than most Hyatt’s.
Recently stayed at SLH Hotel Vestibul Palace in Split, set within the palace in the Emperor’s quarters. Really very nice experience.
Hi Nick, great article. Have you heard that Hyatt will let you add points to the yearly free (cc) room for an upgrade? I think I read it somewhere and now I’m not sure if I imagined it?
Hey Nick, where can I find your post on “my disappearing 50K Marriott certificate” that you wrote while at this hotel? Is it not published yet? I may be missing a certificate myself and am interested to know what happened in your case.
The article you are looking for is called “Almost #Bonvoyed: a cautionary tale on free night certs.” You can find it using the search function on this site.
Nick, You have just helped get our Fall plans in order. We were trying to makes Greg’s Budapest find work for us, but this is even better. We’ll spend our first night at the Sheraton at the airport, then drive here.
I’ve never picked up a car at FRA before. Is it easy? Any tips?
Thank you!
The Hertz line was forever long when we got there. We made the reservation at the last minute since we made the whole plan to fly to Frankfurt literally about 8 hours before leaving, so we didn’t get the rental set up and Hertz Gold Plus number added early enough to have had our name on the board with a bay number. If you’re planning in advance, it should be quick since there should be a car ready to go which may mean skipping the line. That said, I’m not positive how that works at FRA since there was no agent on the way out….
Other car rental agencies had no line or very short lines. I’d say it was fairly easy to pick up / drop off overall. It does add a little walking as the garage is pretty big, so you’ve got a bit of a hallway to get to the rental cars after you’re done at the counter (assuming you have to stop there).
Biggest tip is to use Autoslash as I got much better rates through them on all of my European rentals on this trip.
Yeah, thanks, I do use Autoslash. Your info is helpful. As luck would have it, your day late and dollar short is appropriate in my case. No award availability the night we need it. But the night before is available. Just don’t know if I want to do it if we are going to arrive near 8pm. I like the enjoy the hotel at night and during the day. Having said that, your write up makes it so enticing.
I didn’t make a speculative booking because non refundable, if I read the fine print correctly.
Thanks again Nick.
Excellent post, Nick! And thanks for providing several tips about emailing in advance to request extra space for a baby. Super helpful!
Your pics are beautiful too. It makes me want to check out this castle when I’m in Germany again (and other SLH properties too).
It’s pretty cool that you’re at least the second Nicholas who has stayed at that suite. Unless it’s the same person and you were once a Czar in your past life, LOL 🙂
I like to think we could be since my last name does mean Kings in English :-).
Thank you for this wonderful post. Wife and I always wanted to stay in a castle like that, we’ll see if we can fit in a trip to Germany next year. Much appreciated!
Excellent post. Really really good description and pics. I can get on board with this type of content at FM.
Heading to the south of France soon and looking forward to staying in some castles.
The SLH properties I’ve looked at have the usual Europe problem of having max occupancy of 2, even more so than the Hyatt hotels themselves. Did you book for 2 adults and then just mention the baby in the email? We are a family of 4 (with kids that are well below the teen years, but starting to look rather adult like (boo hoo) ) Since these properties are small, we can’t really sneak too extra people in, and most of the standard rooms don’t even look big enough for 4 anyway. What are your thoughts?
I’ve been meaning to write a quick tip type post on this. I have booked for 2 adults and then just emailed (or used the Marriott chat feature) to mention the baby and not had any problems at any of the hotels I’ve stayed at since he was born. That said, he’s under 2 — I know that in both Europe and some parts of Asia, hotels can sometimes be strict about occupancy. I’d suggest contacting the hotel directly after making a (flexible) booking and causally mentioning the kids and see what they say. Again, I’ve been doing this repeatedly when rooms say a max occupancy of 2 and not had a problem yet, but I could just be lucky. With 2 older kids, I think your luck may not be as good, but it’s probably worth a shot. Maybe you’ll score an upgrade to a room with a higher occupancy.
I will note that in the case of this particular hotel, 2 adults and 1 child of 1yr old was fine for the occupancy limit of the standard room. I always check to see if it allows for me to include him during the booking process. If that adds an additional fee during the booking process or makes a room appear unavailable, I’ll try booking for 2 and emailing. Each time, I’ve accepted that I may get charged more for him, but it hasn’t happened yet. I find most places to be great about traveling with a baby (seems especially true in Europe with a baby, maybe not so with older kids). Just this afternoon I went to the bar at my hotel (knowing that they have an espresso machine) and asked if I could get a cold cup of milk to go for my son and charge it to my room. They didn’t charge me. That’s not the first time that has happened. That’s not at all my goal — we’ve been buying milk over these past couple of weeks, but there has inevitably come a time in between bottles a few times where I’ve needed to get a glass and people have been great about it.
But you certainly may run into instances where a standard room won’t hold 4 people. In that case, the Hyatt Family Rate may be your best bet:
https://frequentmiler.com/know-hyatt-family-rate/
Thanks! Lots of great advice. Totally forgot about the family rate. That’s a good option if they balk at having the kids with us in one room.
That 9-br villa a coupla yrs back was ALL your’s for only 15k Wyndham Rewards. Looked more like a castle considering you had your run of the place!
Yeah, I mean, I felt more like the king on that stay, that’s for sure. I don’t imagine we’ll ever see that opportunity again — but it sure was fun.
My experience thus far mirrors yours. Villa Mangiacane in Tuscany, partially designed by Michelangelo, was also extraordinary, And a category 6 (25,000 pts) to boot. Beautiful grounds, attentive staff, bountiful free breakfast, etc.
The SLH properties, combined with the Park Hyatts, make for some beautiful aspirational properties!
Good to hear. I’m in Italy right now and wish I had a few more days to check out Villa Mangiacane — sounds right up our alley!
Wonderful post. Nick at his finest.
Thanks 🙂