Hotel Garni Haus Arenberg

It was a fascinating experience! Perfect service, tasty breakfast, super clean room, kind personal. We must return there ASAP

I have really struggled with this review. I had a number of pros and cons with Salzburg Arenburg Haus. On balance, I would say that I would not choose to stay here again. First, the pros: The location is was very good for us. It is quiet and away from the traffic. Pretty long hill to walk down to the road, but manageable (about 15 minutes). The wifi is good, and there are plenty of plugs in the room. Our room had a combo shower/bath, which was nice. The price was very reasonable. We made our reservations about three months in advance, when no one was traveling to Europe…It turned out that we were there during the Salzburg Music Festival, and I think the prices for our same room were doubled by the time we arrived. Not sure if that had anything to do with our experience. My first couple of impressions were: (1) I had made a reservation 3 months earlier, when Europe wasn’t even open to tourists, and specifically requested a room with a balcony. Instead, we got a lower level room with no view at all. (There is a picture on this review page with sliding glass doors; we had nothing of the kind.) It was a nice size (king + twin bed; no sofa; two chairs with a small coffee table; decent sized bathroom), but pretty simple and a little worn. (2) No air conditioning! I know lots of places in Europe aren’t air conditioned and tried to make it a point to check; however, I (my own fault) had several hotels to book, and I missed this one. Just want to be sure others are aware in case this is important to you. There really are no views from this hotel at all that I could see. We don’t spend much time in the room, so that doesn’t matter too much…but I guess I expected there would be something. Also, when we came into the room, it smelled to me the way nursing homes used to smell. And when I took my shoes off, I realized the carpet was damp. Perhaps there is extra disinfecting going on due to COVID, or the room had been closed up for a while due to COVID. But again, not what I was expecting given the 4-1/2* reviews on TripAdvisor. (Not that I ever expect to have wet carpet in a hotel room.) With the lack of air conditioning, came the need to open the windows. (Temps ranged from low 60’s at night to over 80 in the daytime.) Pro: There were screens on the windows. Con: The windows opened into the room, about 24”. Each of the two was split vertically in the middle; the two sides swung out, so there were 4 windows opening into the room, from 4-6’ feet high. I was on the side of the bed closest to the windows, so that meant I either closed the windows, or took the chance of walking into the windows, which extended to just even with my side of the bed. I hit my head on them twice during my stay. Water: The first night, it was fine. The second night, we literally had nothing but hot water (both shower and sink). My husband found a valve by the toilet, which could be flipped to change it to nothing but cold water; but there was no