Nordsee-Hotel Arlau-Schleuse

There’s great birding just beyond the dike, and the hotel sits right on it. The staff were amazing. It’s a beautiful little place, with lovely patios off some of the first-floor rooms.

Everyone on staff was wonderful. The hotel was very nice, and both breakfast and the dinner buffet were good.

We chose the superior double room, which was really nice, and the breakfast buffet was genuinely good. The rooms were nice too, but sadly that didn’t make the stay worth the money. The area is worth visiting, but I’m not sure about the hotel. We booked directly through Hotel Arlau’s website after seeing versions in English and Danish, alongside a more silent website, and went in with high expectations. We wanted half board because the hotel is far from everything. The Schimmelreiter package was only in German, but we came away thinking it included half board, a dike walk, a pharisee, and a book. We didn’t get the book, and the proper tour wasn’t available while we were there. They offered something else, but it wasn’t useful to us. At the restaurant, we were initially turned away because tables had to be booked 24 hours ahead. That seemed absurd when we’d booked our stay a week earlier. In the end they let us eat, but the meal was a big disappointment. We tried to reserve for the next day and learned half board only covered one day. The website said there’d be grill evenings every Tuesday all summer, but that had changed to selected Tuesdays, and we weren’t there on one of them. So we rented bicycles, despite the website saying bikes could be borrowed, and rode to ie Berliner Imbissbude in Brendsted. The food there was surprisingly better than at Restaurant Deichgraf. It feels like the hotel hasn’t marketed itself accurately. There was potential for five stars, but I can only give it two.

It’s a peaceful, lovely spot, and the kitchen is excellent. The restaurant is worth the trip even if you’re not staying overnight.