San Luis Hotel & Lodges - South Tyrol, Italy
A small spa hotel centred around an idyllic mountain lake, with luxurious spa facilities, huge, cozy lodge accommodation, but service which doesn’t quite live up to the rest. Would I come back? Absolutely, but it’s be for the hard product this hotel has in spades.
Where: in the hills above Merano, South Tyrol. For most visitors this region means “The Dolomites”. San Luis is located just to the west of the famous rock formations and has more of an alpine character. Perched at 1400m above sea level, you get fabulous views of some of Italy’s highest mountains to the West and North.
Accessing the hotel requires a car - for short stays a taxi is fine, but for longer visits I’d wholeheartedly recommend hiring a car since it frees you up to tour the areas wineries, castles and Tyrolean towns as long as you can manage the mountain roads.
When: a 3 night stay as part of a 9-night trip taking in Venice and the Dolomites in late June and early July. This trip we also stayed at the Adler Ritten (a frequent recommendation in r/chubbytravel) because we couldn’t choose between there and here!
Who: a couple in mid-late 30s. The San Luis doesn’t allow children under 12 and most of the patrons were well-heeled older couples, but we also saw a handful of families with older/grown children. Overall the clientele was about 1/3 Italian, 1/3 German-speaking and 1/3 American. My wife and I were the only Brits.
The hotel and facilities (10/10): in terms of hard product, this place oozes quality. Exteriors of pine and glass, interiors all roaring fires, cozy sofas and dark wood.
The focus of the hotel is the swimming lake and spa comprising:
• an indoor/outdoor heated pool surrounded by the comfiest loungers I’ve experienced
• an outdoor jacuzzi on a platform in the middle of the lake
• a small but very well-equipped gym including brand new machines, free weights, plyo boxes and a Pilates reformer
• a Finnish sauna, hay sauna and steam room (given the location, you’re expected to go nude here, but my wife and I had these to ourselves whenever we went in)
• a minor miss - I’d love them to add a cold plunge.
There are a few more common areas though mostly the focus is the lake and the spa, but if you want to find a quiet spot to relax with a book, you won’t have a problem.
The hotel has one restaurant and bar though that’s all you need given the size - it has indoor and outdoor seating and either can be used, weather depending.
The room (9/10): San Luis offers room sizes from 1 to 6 people. For couples visiting I recommend either the Lake Chalets which have direct access to the lake and catch the morning sun for breakfast outdoors, or the Loft Chalets which have large wraparound balconies with panoramic views over the mountains.
We stayed in the aforementioned Loft Chalet which offered a small kitchenette, dining area, living area with a big corner sofa, superking bed, open plan bathroom with double sinks and a free standing tub, as well as separate WC and shower, the aforementioned balcony, and a private sauna and outdoor hot tub.
The room was huge and sympathetically decorated in pine and neutral tones. If felt comfortable in the summer, but would be even more so in Winter as it had a huge log burner in the centre of the chalet.
A couple of very minor nitpicks - the bed was generously outfitted with a lot of pillows, but they were all the same (big and squishy) so not great for side sleepers, and the light switches took some getting used to.
Food and Drink (8/10): this requires some explanation - your room rate includes three meals a day as well as a (very tasty) daily cake and gelato buffet between 3 and 5pm.
Breakfast is ordered the day before and is served in your chalet at the time of your choosing. The ordering system is via a web app and you can choose between a big selection of hot and cold drinks, pastries, fruit, cheese, cold meats and cereals. If you want eggs, these are included but you have to cook them yourself in your kitchenette. Every day they also offer a handful of supplemental à la carte items.
You can close off the breakfast area in the room and housekeeping will lay out your breakfast at the chosen time - I’ve included a picture to show how cute it looks!
In terms of quality it’s pretty good but not exceptional - their granola, salami, home-made honey and fresh OJ were highlights. My wife and I loved the relaxed pace we could eat at, and the privacy it afforded, but the fact you had to choose your breakfast in advance, sight-unseen wasn’t ideal, and neither was the lack of hot options.
Lunch is served buffet-style and is mostly antipasti with a few supplemental à la carte options. Everything in my experience was very tasty here and we ate outside on the terrace each day.
At dinner you’re assigned a table for your room and you go to the same table each day, though on hot days they also offer outdoor seating. This “assigned table” has been pretty common in South Tyrol in my experience but if you don’t like your table then there’s not much you can do about it, which isn’t great. The meal itself is a 4-5 course affair of antipasti buffet followed by a choice of three antipasti, primi (usually two pastas and a tyrolean choice), main course and dessert. It’s not fine dining but everything served at dinner was delicious with the exception of one overcooked duck dish.
Drinks are not included and are charged at fairly typical 5* hotel rates (i.e. pricey but not unreasonable). Wine was fine but a little disappointing given South Tyrol is a really underrated wine region, but cocktails were potent and delicious.
Activities (hard to score): I say hard to score because I don’t think you come here for activities. You come for the spa and the hiking in the area, which is really fantastic as there are a lot of good hiking routes nearby including a short (40 mins there, 30 back) walk to the “Knottnkino” aka the Cinema on the Rocks which offers mind-blowing views of the valley and mountains beyond.
For outside activities, the hotel mostly parters with local businesses and has a variety of day trips and other things to do.
Service (5.5/10): here’s where it gets a bit tricky as the service was pretty up and down. Our arrival experience summed this up well:
We arrived about 2.5 hours later than expected as we were delayed due to bad weather on a hike trapping us up a mountain as they shut down the cable car for safety. We were met by a man who didn’t seem to quite be expecting us, and my “können wir Englisch sprechen, bitte?” was met with a firm no. He proceeded to give a very cursory explanation of the spa in rapid German and took us to check-in. Then the mood changed - he offered us an aperitif (with a choice of sparkling wines) and we were brought a delicious and abundant plate of meats and cheeses. Wow! Then the receptionist came to check us in and she also would only speak to me in German - I strained my schoolboy Deutsch and did my best to understand, while my wife (with no German at all) sat mute.
Then she left us to enjoy our wine and snacks, but with no clear timeline - she was just gone for a long time. I took my time to wander around the beautiful lobby and eventually were shown to our room - but by another member of staff who could only speak Italian.
To pause here: I get that we’re visiting a region where German and Italian are the spoken languages. But this is a luxury hotel with International travellers paying >€1,000 per night and I’m sure they’d want their guests to feel welcome. I assure you we did not at this point.
All of this melted away once we made it to the spa which, frankly, would make any stresses melt away, but it resurfaced a few times through our stay:
• The head waiter was Italian but spoke great English, but some of the other serving staff seemed extremely monolingual - for example I had a tough time conversing in either German or English with another waiter whose service generally was rough around the edges including hitting my wife’s wine glass hard with her plate as he set it down and leaving without an apology.
• We noted a couple (speaking Italian) who were unhappy with their assigned dinner table (next to a wall) and who were refused a change of location.
• One day we were relaxing in the spa and a member of staff, addressing us in English this time, strongly hinted at us to leave that room and go relax outside so they could spend less on their heating bill(!) Uncomfortable, even through a language barrier.
• We were checked out by the same guy and this time he was friendly, charming and helpful, even proactively rearranging our taxi to the airport so we could stay longer in the hotel.
The Cost: we spent €3,370 for 3 nights, which equates to around $1,280 per night, which included all meals.
The Verdict (8/10): if you speak German or Italian to a conversational level, I think you’d have an amazing time here. I had a stay that was at times outstanding thanks to the hard product, the food at dinner and the beautiful surroundings, and at other times frustrating because of the service niggles that I suspect would be ameliorated by speaking the local language.
My wife and I were split on whether we’d return - for me the impeccable hard product and charming location mean I’d for sure come back, perhaps brushing up on my German beforehand. For my wife, the service stuff was more impactful and maybe that’s fair - there are a lot of great options in the region after all. We also stayed at the Adler Ritten which didn’t hit the heights of hard product or room quality, but excelled at the service aspect. If I get the chance, I’ll post a review of there too.