Château de Vignée

My second stay at Chateau de Vignée will also be my last as my experience was far from 5*. I stayed solo, on a stopover on a roadtrip and I booked the hotel specifically as I wanted to try Arden, their 1* Michelin restaurant. I booked directly on their website with the dining experience package. My verdict as an experienced 5 star traveller is that this hotel does not live up to the level of a 5 *. First impressions are ok, but the devil is in the detail! What I liked: 1. The welcome drink 2. Design of the lounge and restaurant Arden 3. The overall dining experience at Arden Areas for improvement: 1. Add the adequate photo of a Lesse room ( the one with the tiny cell like window) so you avoid people being disappointed with the room 2. Work on sound isolation as the hotel is surrounded by highways and roads and you can hear the traffic everywhere 3. Reception staff is courteous but not exactly hospitable , rather cold and hautain. When you have a comment they immediately go into the defensive and do not care about the comfort of their guests 4. My mattress was placed the wrong way up; my head was on the feet end ( see attached photo) and when i mentioned this to the staff they kept to their POV that this was supposed to be like that. They couldn’t care at all that I had back pain as a result. 5.Sommelier at Arden gave the wrong explanation about what is a rosé de saignée champagne, when you serve a champagne buffet with 2 rosé champagnes in it, thats a bit disappointing and unworthy of a Michelin star establishment. 6. The wellness was not as clean as expected, especially the doors of the hanmam had seen better times and the water in the pool was cloudy. 7. Breakfast at 45€ was disappointing. I couldn’t eat most of my order as my egg was too runny ( though I had specifically requested the egg white not to be runny) & the avocado was overripe ) nobody enquired if I liked it , nobody came to even clean the table.

Amazing staff, the attention to detail is excellent. Beautiful rooms and spa and surroundings. 45 euros for breakfast felt like a lot for what the breakfast is. You can hear the highway a little bit when you are sitting outside but that’s not something the hotel can do anything about. For anything they can help you with, they really do their best. Truly excellent service.

The hotel is nice, breakfast could be improved, but for sure a great stop over on our way to Italy, friendly staff and restaurant Arden is to be considered one of the best diners we experienced in the past years, compliments to the chef and his amazing team!