Four Points Sheraton Panoramahaus Dornbirn Hotel

Unless you like spas, the hotel itself is not a great destination in and of itself, but near by there are several things that can keep one occupied like hiking in the mountians and a smattering of museams such as the Rolls Royce Museum. http://www.rolls-royce-museum.at/ We drove to the museam and then hiked around to a very nice waterfall area that we enjoyed very much.

With our Starwood Loyalty status we got upgraded to a "large" suite on the 10th floor. This was very nice, but if I had been paying for this upgrade I would have been disappointed becuase the room had several deficencies. The room itself was much larger than others on the floor if the floorplan on the door can be trusted, but it was still quite compact. As it was a suite, we had a sitting area as well as sleeping area. However, the TV could not be viewed from the sitting area which was opposite the beds. (Actually in concept, the tv should have been viewable since it was on a 180° swivel, but the tv speakers made it too large to actually be able to swivel past about 15°. The design was perfect, but it was flawed in application.)

The staff was very nice, but not particularly helpful. For example, there were several rather small issues with our room which as a sum became annoying. The staff was made aware of the problems and said only, we're very sorry for the inconvienience.

The small issues: we were lacking several things that the room should have had: a do not disturb sign -- we were disturbed in the morning because of this lack; the whole hotel was out of shampoo -- though extra condtioner was available upon request; our room also did not have the slippers that were required to go down to the spa either--we had a frustrating time asking the cleaning staff for these. Also a strange smell like rotten eggs seemed to be coming from the sink, tub and bidet drains in the bathroom in the evening -- we had to close all the drains to try to get rid of it. All these things were mentioned to the staff at check out and they just said sorry. The multiplicity of issues with a room at other Sheratons we've visited would have come with a more tangible appology even if we were just paying for the room with points. However, if I had been paying cash for the room, especially if I had paid for the suite level, I would have pressed this issue further. It obvously was not up to Sheraton standards espeically for one of their "top rooms."

I am still giving this hotel a pretty good rating however because the spa is quite cool and it was a good buy with Starwood points. They have a large (I'm told the largest) indoor hot tub that I enjoyed a lot. It really is huge. almost as big as the pool ouside. It is an infinity tub so the water comes right up to the top and runs down over the side where I'm sure it is recycled. There are nice features like built-in "lounge chairs" in the hot tub and you can turn on the jets underneath you, aso a shower type fountian that feels awesome on your back.

The pool outside was also really nice. You could enter the pool from inside the building and swim out. They also had some neat looking water workout machines built into one side of the pool. No one seemed to be available to tell me how to use them though. One downside to the spa area is it not exclusve to the hotel and seems to be very popular with the locals. So it was quite crowded and most people seemed to know what they were doing, so when we did not, we felt a bit out of place.

This is Europe, so our American sensiblities of sunbathing were challenged a bit, but that is to be expected. We did not venture into the Sauna -- again that silly American sense of modesty, but it seemed to be a popular place.

Item of note, the spa is only open to ages 16 and above, so while the pool would be cool for kids, they are not allowed. Good for adults that don't want to be bothered, but bad for people that didn't see this when they booked the hotel. I read one such review from a family that was quite steamed that they had not been properly notified of this fact.