Austria Trend Hotel Schloss Wilhelminenberg - Vienna, Austria     

The hotel is gorgeous and the view is breath taking. It can be a romantic get away esp during the winter. But once you walk in you'll find a lot of frowning faces from the wait staff at the restaurants to the reception desk. It really brings down the mood esp since we were there over Xmas. The hotel is far enough from the central area of Vienna where you'll have to take a bus down a hill and then catch a metro. All in all, it'll be a good 35-40 min trip. It's not bad but do note that the buses outside come every 30 mins. We paid a lot for this hotel and did not feel it lived up to it's expectations. Room interior was not all that. Nothing that pleasing inside for the price you pay. If we ever go back, I'd stay closer to the central area where transporation is easier and I'll probably pay less. I do not recommend this place for the Holiday Season! It's really really depressing!

What the hotel lacks in class (quite a bit), it makes up for in panorama. The Wilheminenberg hotel is a refurbished castle, but lacks the class to make you feel like nobility. The rooms are quite spacious (especially on the top floor); however, the hotel only lights every other lamp in the hotel, it could also use some further refurbishing (like a new elevator, some repainting at some places, etc). The hotel is also used as a site for continuing education, conferences, youth groups, etc. and it is adjacent to Vienna's HI youth hostel. It does lack a pool, unfortunately. All of these make it a mid-class hotel in a potentially 5-star environment. However, the staff was quite friendly, especially for Austrian standards. I did not experience the lack of air conditioning to be a big problem as the high-ceiling rooms were quite cool to begin with, even in the middle of a July heat wave. Breakfast and dinner were somewhat average. While this is -again- largely compensated by the spectacular view from the outside terrace, the variety of the food is a big problem if staying for more than a single or two nights, but public transportation to downtown Vienna is very handy through a bus (that rides about every 10 minutes) that goes straight to the U-Bahn. It does, however, take some 30 minutes to an hour (depending on traffic and where one is headed) to reach many points in central Vienna. However, because of this Wilhelminenhof is located in a forest-like environment that lends itself well to nature walks and the like. And again, the view is phenomenal and would handily beat any postcard I saw over the week I spent in Vienna. The walk down to Ottakreuz (the U-Bahn station) from the hotel is fairly nice and if you have some time (and reasonable health) it is well worth the effort. The historic value and panorama make this hotel worth a visit, but consider the drawbacks of location, and more importantly, the fact that there is quite some room for improvement still.