I have heard some great things about these apparently truely family friendly Austrian hotels. Has anyone been? Any particular recommendations?

My family of four went to the Hagleitner in Zell am See last June (2008) and I do not have enough good things to say about the hotel.

The price may seem a bit expensive when you are comparing it to other properties, but there were no surprise extra charges. All the food is included (three meals, morning cake and afternoon ice cream). And non alcoholic drinks were available self serve free of charge. And the food was of a good standard. Most evenings there was a buffet for the children and the adults got served a plated meal that looked and tasted gorgeous. There wasn’t much of a selection for the plated meals, but if you didn’t like it you could always have something off the buffet and the kids food was also of a high quality.

The staff were attentive and friendly and spoke excellent English (at least the ones that needed too, but even the cleaners were able to communicate). Bike, buggy and baby backpack hire is free. And the play areas are lovely.

You didn’t have to leave the hotel for the kids to have fun, but the town was an easy bike ride or 5 minutes train ride away – and my kids loved both.

We didn’t use the crèche much since we like spending time with the kids on holiday, but even though our eldest didn’t seem to like it (he just wanted to spend the time with us) I thought the standard of care was excellent.

If I understand it correctly, Kinderhotels are not all owned and run by the same people but must meet certain criteria to be marketed as part of kinderhotels. So, although I can’t speak about any of the other hotels I highly recommend the Hagleiner.