Swiss Holiday Park

This place completely ruined our Switzerland vacation. I cannot put into words how much I regret choosing this place. If you are coming from the United States, especially with children who are used to air conditioning, do not stay here during the summer. Sleeping was almost impossible because there is no air conditioning, and the only solution they offered was an old fan. The bed was one of the worst we have ever slept on, with huge, uncomfortable pillows. Even worse, when we arrived, there was not a single towel in the apartment. We had to pay extra just to get towels. Their explanation was that they had informed us in advance. Seriously? By that logic, why not remove the toilet paper as well and tell guests to pay extra for that too? It makes no sense. The apartment was also not cleaned during our stay unless we paid an additional fee. Because of this, there was an insect in the bed, and my wife’s arms developed a severe rash. I have attached photos. I had no intention of writing this review. On the day we checked out, a staff member noticed how disappointed we were and asked what had happened. After I explained everything, she asked for my contact information. I gave it to her, but I honestly knew that nobody from management would ever contact us. A place that is managed this poorly simply does not care about its guests. I cannot comment on the hotel rooms because we stayed in the apartments. However, if you want to ruin your Switzerland vacation, this is the perfect place to stay.

The basis for my review is the fact I went there with my 7-year-old. The "park" is located in a picturesque location next to Lake Lucerne. It is heavily focused on offering a variety of activities for families and generally speaking has all the necessary facilities so that you don't even have to leave the area if you don't want to. Swimming pools, a small shop with a decent selection, restaurants, racing track, pony riding, activity park, VR gaming... you name it. The service is good enough, the rooms/apartments are good (although we had no A/C, which is unfortunate if it's hot) and the area is very clean and child-friendly.

After years of making Swiss Holiday Park our family summer tradition, this year's stay was unfortunately the one that made us decide not to come back for different reasons: Price vs. Value: We knew it was an expensive resort, but for the same three-night stay, we went from around CHF 950 four years ago to CHF 1,665 this year. Such an increase would be difficult to accept, but it becomes particularly hard to justify when so many aspects of the experience have deteriorated at the same time. Food: Compared with previous years, the choice has become much more limited and, in our opinion, the quality has also declined. The afternoon snack for the children was particularly disappointing. In previous years there was a generous selection of sweets and other snacks. This year there was only a tray with a few doughnuts, a few mini-Berliner and a few slices of marble cake. Within minutes, the children's buffet was empty. During our three-day stay, our children were able to get something from the snack buffet only once. The main meals were also noticeably more limited than in previous years, and there was no longer a dessert offering for the children. Service: We also experienced some very unpleasant situations with the restaurant staff. One evening we had reserved a table at the Panorama restaurant. Because our children were using the children's buffet, a waitress initially wanted to seat us outside the actual restaurant, near the reception area. When we insisted on sitting inside, her attitude became quite unfriendly and we were told that we had only 30 minutes to eat before closing. The children's buffet was already almost empty. We asked whether it would be possible to get some fries for the children. We were told that they would have to fry them especially for us, making us feel as though we were causing a problem. My daughter asked me to taste one because they did not taste good. Later, when we asked for the bill, the waitress remarked that parents are not allowed to eat food intended for children. I found this extremely disrespectful and unnecessary. I wanted to leave the resort that evening, but we stayed because I did not want to ruin the holiday for my children. On another evening, despite the restaurant being almost empty, I repeatedly had to look for a waiter to place orders or pay the bill. Activities: We played mini-bowling every evening, but completing a game sometimes took around 40 minutes because the computer was not working properly, balls got stuck and we repeatedly had to call a staff member. Despite all this downtime, we were still charged for the full time. What should have been a CHF 15 game could end up costing almost CHF 40, even though a significant part of the time was spent waiting or restarting the game. The video games had similar problems. Sometimes the machines did not register the tokens properly, particularly when the children inserted them too quickly, and we had to insert additional tokens. We reported the problem to the staff, who acknowledged it was a known issue, but told us there was nothing they could do. Facility: More generally, the resort is increasingly tired and poorly maintained. We noticed this in several areas, including the pool, mini-golf and hotel rooms. There is a feeling that the facilities have aged without receiving the level of maintenance and investment one would expect from a resort charging these prices. I fully understand that costs increase, that a resort has to manage food waste and that the number of guests may have increased over the years. But from a returning guest's perspective, the evolution is difficult to understand: prices have increased substantially while the experience has moved in the opposite direction. What makes this disappointing is that we remember Swiss Holiday Park very differently. We have years of good memories from this place. This year, however, those memories were replaced by frustration and disappointment. Based on our experience, we would not recommend it to families expecting the same experience we enjoyed in previous years.

Wow, what can I say, we had an absolute amazing time at this property that is situated on the top of a beautiful mountain with breathtaking views. They have so many activities for the kids that even though we stayed here six nights, we didn’t even get a chance to do everything. We have to give an especially big thank you to Miri at the front desk who took such good care of us when we checked in at night and helped to rearrange some items for us to make sure we had the best possible stay. We were also very well taken care of every single morning at breakfast by Natashca who made sure all of our children were well fed and happy. My only recommendation for others traveling here is if you happen to come during a heat wave like we did where it was around 95°F, do your best to try and get a hotel room with air condition, which is extremely rare in this part of the country. Or go to Jumbo nearby and buy some fans if the hotel doesn’t have any. Overall, we were extremely happy and would definitely return.

One of the ultimate family destination in Switzerland. Loved the scenery, services, and the hospitality of the resort staff. Truly a great experience and worth repeating in the future.