I've stayed in Kandersteg several times and thought I'd treat myself to a luxury stay at the Royal Park. What a disappointment. The hotel thinks very highly of itself but its opinion is misguided. It's old fashioned in a bad way - there's a class system in the dining room so the lowly waiters can only bring water to your table for a senior waiter to pour into your glass and service is painfully slow. Staff are friendly but intimidated by the owners and while they keep telling you nothing's too much trouble, in practice everything's too much trouble. There's a spa and treatment rooms which remained closed throughout my one week stay. Allegedly you can make appointments with a "local" therapist who will come to the hotel at her convenience - not yours. The menu says vegetarian options available but clearly the chefs and the restaurant staff haven't read the menu as their "mushroom crepes" were scrambled eggs and the vegetarian risotto was a plate of rice. Desert buffet's good though.To cap it all, the elderly owner insists on touring the dining room to chat to the guests every evening. He didn't stay long at my table. I booked a suite (with a fabulous mountain view) which was spacious but overheated and had a shared open balcony so the people next door could see straight into my room and my bathroom unless I closed the curtains. I complained about the food on my last night and was ostracised at breakfast next morning for my trouble. Don't go if you are under 70 or vegetarian (and if you're over 70 and veggie, eat out - there are several better places than the RP dining room).

We stayed at the Royal Park for 6 nights on a half board basis and booked a Junior Suite overlooking the garden. We had a wonderful stay and found the staff to be outstanding. Having read mixed reviews on the trip advisor web site we booked with some minor trepidation but found the negative comments to be totally incorrect. We took the advice of some reviewers and requested a quiet room overlooking the garden. The one comment I would agree with is the length of the beds, ours being from an era when people were obviously a lot shorter; this was not a problem for us as we are both 5ft 7ins or less but if you are say 5ft 9ins or taller, then our beds would not have been long enough. My advice would be to check with the hotel before booking and request beds without the ''antique'' ends, there definitely are some. Our room was spacious and lovely, very clean, with a balcony and glorious views to the surrounding mountains. We found the half board deal to be extremely good value for money and found the quality of food and service to be outstanding. Dinner consisted of salad starter choices (sounds boring but definitely not), followed by a soup (with choices and delicious), followed by hor's douvres or a fish course (your choice to heap as much smoked salmon on your plate as your conscience will allow!!), followed by a main course (example choices being red snapper, beef stroganov, medallions of lamb, etc etc and all absolutely delicious), followed by a huge array of exquisite desserts (and as many visits to the dessert table as your stomach will allow), followed by coffee etc in one of the comfortable lounges. We drank Swiss wine every night which we found to be extremely good value for money, taking the advice of the head waiter (who never pointed us to the most expensive wine). You are definitely not treated as a statistic in this hotel. In fact the owner's father (in his 70's) loved to make all of the guests feel even more welcome (if that was possible) and we were impressed that rather than simply enjoy retirement, he turned out 'suited and booted' from morning until evening, offering any advice required and ensuring standards remain exceptionally high. We used the hotel indoor pool, steam and sauna every day and usually had the pool to ourselves, and always had the steam and sauna to ourselves. We were on a ski / hiking trip and the hotel staff would even have returned our skis to the shop if we'd allowed them! We were picked up from the train platform in the hotel limo and delivered back to the train station by the 'owner senior' himself, with our bags being carried right to the platform by the porter. We cannot fault this hotel and would definitely return again, especially for summer walking, Kandersteg being surrounded by wonderful mountains.

Having stayed over 9 times in six years at the Royal Park Hotel it feels like my own home. One of the last truly independent owned and operated 5 star deluxe hotels anywhere in the World, the Rickli family are excellent hosts and can arrange anything a guest would require. Traditional Swiss service and quality are the order of the day if you like busy modern, funky minimalistic hotels then stay away.
Standard rooms overlook the main street in the village and the local school is opposite so you can get noise from the Children playing also the station so its well worth paying for a garden view room if you want complete quiet, however its nice to feel part of Swiss Village life instead of some mass tourism resort with no local people.
The food is exeptional the "standard" half board dinner consists of 5 courses with great choice and if you have any special diet request the chef can prepare anything with 24 hours notice, all meals are prepared fresh no quick meals here. The puddings are fantastic usually i end up choosing at least five every evening!
All in all excellent value for such a high class hotel, truly first class service and taste assured.

This hotel seems to prevoke extreme reactions - but not with us! Despite reading mixed reviews of this hotel, my husband and I were looking forward to our three day weekend break in September. We were disappointed - others have stated that this is a luxurious hotel, but we would disagree mainly due to the quality of the room. We also have to wonder if we stayed in the same hotel as some of the other reviewers...?
Our room overlooked the train station which was very noisey, the room was small and it's furniture shabby - as per an earlier comment, the bed was too short for my husband at 6ft. The staff however, were charming, really friendly and helpful - (but they all seemed a little intimidated by the owners!) The Royal Park has many good points, the food - plentiful and elaborate but the location being the greatest, Kandersteg is breathtakingly beautiful. However, the hotel just doesn't live up to it's backdrop - pleasant but nothing extraordinary.