Andrew Kemp

Review of Kempinski Hotel Duke's Palace

Stayed here for 5 days. The staff are pleasant en...

Stayed here for 5 days. The staff are pleasant enough and the rooms are large and spacious. Beware though that the lower floor rooms have a view of a shabby roof which could be easily fixed with some green screening. We did ask to change but we were shown a room a couple of floors above that still overlooked the same roof but had no bath. There is no milk provided just creamer and the towels are thin and have threads hanging from them. In the hallway there are some shabby areas where wallpaper has been scrapped. The rooms are nicely decorated at the standard of Hilton or similar chain hotel. The breakfast was disappointing with no table service apart from coffee so the hot offering was over cooked eggs and if you wanted sausage and bacon it came on a bed of omelette type egg served in a bowl. The pastries and coffee were lovely though. A warning that the restaurant and bar are very over priced. We had croque monsieur in the bar and it was served in a bowel with no attempt to make it look nice with side salad or crisps. We had the restaurant booked and were prepared for high prices but we left when we were told that if we wanted water we had to have bottled. Personally I think this is a rip off and if you are going to charge such high prices why do you need to be so petty about serving tap water. There are some lovely restaurants in Brugge and we found Couvert which is lovely. In summary, this hotel does not live up to its five star superior rating and there are better four star hotels locally where you will get better value for money.