Stayed at the Hotel Sonne in Saalbach for a few nights in February 2007. The first thing to state is that although the hotel is located around 1km from the resort centre, a shuttle bus is provided for exclusive use by guests and this runs regularly at key times during the day. The fact that the hotel is slightly out of the centre is also not a bad thing given that Saalbach centre can get a little noisy/rowdy at night.

Despite a late arrival at the hotel (around midnight), we were given a warm reception and offered some supper and a nightcap before being shown to our room.

The double room we stayed in was spacious and clean, and nice and warm, with temperatures outside at around -5 C. The room was fairly basic with a tv, minibar and hairdryer. There was no satellite or internet access in the room, although there was a PC in reception.

All the staff at the hotel were extremely friendly and nothing was too much trouble. They organised ski hire for us on our first morning, with a shuttle bus coming to pick us up 15 mins after we requested it. The bus took us right to the door of the ski hire shop.

We were half board at the hotel and both breakfast and evening meals were of an excellent standard. Breakfast was a buffet with an array of choice from cereal, fruit, breads, salami, cheese and eggs. We had a fondue on our second evening (fantastic!) and the italian theme on our third meant we were tucking into pasta, pizza and tiramisu. Five courses were always available, although we found that three was sufficient.

There is a wonderful spa facility in the basement of the hotel with a pool, jacuzzi, 3 saunas and a plunge pool. This is a great environment in which to chill out after a day on the slopes and for the three days we spent in Saalbach, we found that the perfect day involved skiing until around 4pm, a little apres ski until 6pm, back to the hotel spa for an hour and then dinner. By 9pm we were relaxed, full, slightly tipsy and ready for bed.

I would recommend this hotel to anyone and if we ever return to Saalbach, we will defintely stay here again.