Since my wife loves fairy tales and has always wanted to go to Europe, I knew I needed to bring her to the Märchenhotel for our honeymoon. We stayed in the Rapunzel room, which made for a truly magical experience and great memories. The room was extremely clean, neat and cozy and we enjoyed spending time on the terrace. The view of the Doktorberg (Doctor Mountain) was fantastic and made for some very romantic evenings. We will definitely come back.

Great experience as its different, but quite noisy as you hear you neighbours.. Recommend for one night.

We recently stayed 3 nights in the Marchenhotel and were extremely disappointed by the discrepancy between the hotel website, the reviews here and the actual reality of staying at the hotel. Having reviewed many other B&B's and hotels over the years, this is the first time I have ever felt the need to warn fellow travellers about a property.

The rooms that are profiled online look wonderful, and the tone of the information is friendly and welcoming. We encountered none of this during our stay----though there do seem to be lovely rooms available somewhere in the hotel. Had it not been for the hotel's strict cancellation policy, we would not have stayed more than one night. For 170 euros/night we expected much more----even for a 3* family inn.

We booked the Rapunzel room with only 2 room choices left for our dates. Of course, as the name implies the room is on the top floor, which was not a problem.

What did present a problem was the room's sponge foam mattress which had a terrible odour, no mattress cover, and only a thin sheet. The bed was not at all comfortable, particularly as the bed frame is a trapezoid built for the odd shaped room. Fairy tales, history and "charm" will only carry you so far when you cannot get a good night's sleep.

With travelling from Fussen we arrived about 7:30pm (having emailed to let them know we'd be arriving after 6pm) and without any reception person present, were rushed through a rather curt registration by the owner/chef as he was busy with dinner. We were too tired to bother venturing out to dine and decided to stay at the hotel. Despite being booked for several nights as guests at the hotel, we were left waiting for over 20 minutes at a streetside table for even an offer of a beverage......not very good first impressions.

Our experience with dinner also left much to be desired. We found the service very slow, and the food terribly overpriced----and that was basically with our server choosing our meal since we couldn't read the menu and he was rushed. It is our opinion that insisting on a German menu to keep the historic "integrity" of the hotel intact, does not help attract or welcome diners. Other nights we had much better fare, friendly service and reasonable pricing at the Ratskeller and the Hotel Moselbluemchen, both just down the street.

The breakfast (8:30-10am) was fine with cheeses, meats, cereal and hard boiled eggs and with some variety of breads and pastries and jams every morning. Orange juice was available but was obviously made up for each guest to enjoy only one glass. Our overall impression of cleanliness in the dining room was also not positive. It is not a very good indication of attention to detail when the glassware, condiment jars and salt & pepper containers feel greasy.

On a positive note, the Rapunzel room did have free wi-fi, a balcony with table and chairs overlooking the town and vineyards (on the other side, apartments and other people's balconies), an LCD tv with international CNN and a good sized wardrobe for belongings. Overall it was quite a spacious room. The very small bathroom offered a walk in shower---only 31" square---which thankfully provided hot water, though the grey towels were off-putting. But even on the top floor, we had to keep our windows closed until after diners left at 10pm to keep our room smoke-free. And the street noise was incredibly loud in the early morning and during the night. Thankfully, we were gone all day.

The town of Bernkastel-Kues is charming and from there we were also able to visit Trier, the city of Luxembourg, Maria Laach and travel along the Mosel during our stay. For that we would recommend the location, but definitely not this property.

The location is definitely the best thing about this place.

We found the food good (although we only had breakfast), the staff seemed friendly but no one really spoke to us except at breakfast and on check in/departure.

The rooms are clean but although they are themed, the finishing touches were not great, and somehow the personal touch was missing. We only stayed 2 nights and although we would love to return to the area we would not stay at this hotel again. It was just a little pricey and although there is nothing wrong with it, there was nothing about it that would tempt us to return.

Its worth mentioning, that there are places in the town where you can sample the wines of a particular vineyard (for free). We spent a couple of hours in one next to the Ratskeller, and very happily came away with some fantastic Mosel wine.