Landhotel Hitzacker

For a complete beginner like myself, I expected proper instructions on how to saddle up a horse, how to ride and how to treat horses properly. However, I was not shown how to fetch the horse from the yard nor was I shown how to saddle up a horse. On top of this, the girl who was told to "help me", ended up throwing the saddle, which probably weighed 5kg+, onto the horse. Where is the care factor?! ~The horse riding lesson was a farce. All I was told was to get up onto the horse using the step ladder and slight kick on the horse's abdomen to get her to start walking, pull the reign left or right if she decides to veer off course, and pull the reigns to stop the horse. No proper explanations as to why or how much force to put into the reign pulling. When we went out for the ride in the afternoon, the horse decided to do her own thing and went backwards, no one came to help me. The staff behind me just said "pull the reigns" and the horse kept going backwards while kept sitting on his horse. A few minutes later, another staff finally decided to come and help me to calm the horse and told me to just get off the horse. You can imagine how dauting the experience was for me, who was a complete beginner. It was lucky that I kept calm and didn't fall off the horse when she decided to do her own thing! The horses, school horses, were not treated ethically from what I saw. Some of the horses were so old, they should be retired, but were still being used in their programs. Most horses were showing clear pain signals and they were disregarded by the owner and staffs. This is not how these horses should be treated, especially when the owner thinks that the horses are well both physically and mentally when they are obviously not! Furthermore, the staffs were not helpful or friendly to non-German speaking guests. I was basically brushed off when I went to asked questions about the arrangements for horses and classes, when they told us we can ask questions anytime. The room service were OK, not great. The towels and bathmat were not drying properly due to the cold, wet weather and they were not changed as required. Design of the shower is ridiculous as the door only closes 3/4 of the way and water splashes out. Meals were OK. Breakfast was repetitive, with the same offerings everyday, nothing special. Dinner was OK but everything was very salty. Maybe this is suited the German? Overall, this place is not worth the money that I'd paid. It's subpar for the so-called riding school and accommodation only just meet the normal three-starred standard. This is not suitable for beginner riders at all.