Holiday Home in Hambachtal Boutique Resort

The apartment was warm during our April/May stay, and it seemed like the bedroom floor heating couldn't be turned off. The kitchen was also stocked very sparsely: four of each basic item, one kitchen knife, no bread knife, and no rack for drying plates. Those were the two drawbacks in an otherwise wonderful stay, so I gave it four stars instead of five.

The staff really try to make you feel welcome, and the pool is nice. The mini golf course is pretty poor, though, and there aren't facilities for the youngest kids. Be sure to book a renovated home: the old ones are really, really old and smell like it.

There’s potential in the way this vacation park is laid out, but seeing how much of it has fallen into disrepair was disappointing. We stayed in house 210, at the edge of a large grassy area with badminton and volleyball nets and a playground for small children. That playground felt outright dangerous. The old playhouses were badly worn, with sharp edges and screws that could injure children’s feet or worse. The owners should remove them or maintain them properly. Leaving them that way is unacceptable. Inside, the house seemed clean at first, and the kitchen was recently renovated, decent, and had a dishwasher. But the toilet had a broken light switch, a dirty mirror, and odd stains on the seat. The bathroom gave much the same impression. There was a moldy smell throughout the house when we arrived, though it went away after we aired it out thoroughly. The beds were okay. Since we have a toddler who crawls, we also noticed the floor clearly hadn't been mopped in a long time. The park advertises free internet on various sites, but the fine print means WiFi is free only at the central desk, not elsewhere in the park. A voucher for one device costs about €10 for a week. The connection was acceptable for much of the day, then nearly disappeared in the evening, maybe because of Netflix use. Some services, including VPN connections, are blocked, which makes little sense when people use VPNs to secure their connection or connect to work or home. The main building has a small supermarket, entertainment area, restaurant, pool, and sauna. The sauna was closed, as were the trampolines near the restaurant because they were defective. Restaurant food was okay, but the buffet price changed during the week from €15 per person on some days to €18.50 every day. I don't mind the extra €3.50 that much, but changing the price midweek made it feel like we were being ripped off. The pool was nice too, though it showed wear: the roof was torn and the support beams needed attention. One of its three toddler pools was closed for maintenance, which seems like work that could be done off season. The raised toddler pools also looked risky, since little ones could fall out. Some pool flooring was slippery and sloped, making it hard to walk. There was a lot of stainless steel in the pool construction, and I thought that material had already been banned in German swimming pools because pool water can corrode it. The house appeared to be €900 a week for six people. The place needs a lot of care and serious investment before that price feels justified. The biggest failure, to me, is the lack of attention to children's safety, and I'd strongly advise families with kids to avoid it until safer facilities are in place.

The apartments are extremely dated. Think of a 1960s hotplate, a random volume and channel knob on the wall opposite the TV, and a shower that never gets beyond lukewarm. The furniture works and the layout is fairly effective, but for a warm shower you may as well head to the pool. The shared area is old-fashioned too, though still okay. They charge small amounts for nearly everything, which gets annoying and makes the low room prices feel misleading. The supermarket is overpriced, and its huge toy selection seems aimed at families with kids. The pool seems to have its own Google Maps page.