Here's a review from Tripadvisor, "a" because the rest was all pretty much bad.
This is actually one of the nicer ones...really!:
Starting on a positive note this place potentially has a lot going for it - a mild climate, views of the hills, and an impressive imitation of a north-eastern French village. I lived in France for years and have travelled through Germany and Switzerland too, and I was amazed by the standard of the replicas of traditional European architecture. I have never been to the original Colmar, but the architecture is very true to the NE France/south German/Swiss German region in general.
Unfortunately, there are many bad things that spoil the experience. So many things in fact that it is hard to know where to start. Most annoying of all were the vastly inflated prices in the restaurants. The sort of prices I might expect to pay in central Paris or London. They are really exploiting the fact that they have 'trapped' visitors on site. There is no excuse for this: the place is not really isolated so it should be easy to get fresh food delivered there (indeed it is surrounded by farms able to supply fresh vegetables). The restaurants also tend to run out of food at unpredictable intervals. Regularly, the chicken restaurant runs out of chicken and is seen turning people away. Each night at the Colmar is a fight to get a table anywhere. In general there are simply not enough restaurants or tables for the volume of people visiting the resort. The Japanese restaurant up on the hill does not even bother to stock sushi during the weekdays - despite the fact nearly everyone going there requests sushi (the other food they had was very low quality - including the possibly the worst bowl of noodles I have ever had - but extremely expensive).
We rented a family apartment, which was spacious and pleasant. Unfortunately hot water had a habit of disappearing half way through a shower. when we arrived at our room there were no towels or coffee yet provided: we had to ask for these to be brought up. The second day the room was not cleaned until after 5pm, and then only after we phoned the front desk to complain (as they swept the floor dust was flying showing how poorly the room is usually cleaned). The really annoying thing though was the noise from the pub, which played sports matches and pop music on a big screen TV out in the square VERY loud up until midnight. What are they thinking?? This is a family resort, families with small children in rooms all around the square, and people who have come up for a nice quiet holiday away from the city - and they have to put up with this.
Among the other things that bothered us:
That the rabbit farm has the cheek to try to charge us RM 3 each after we already paid so much for rooms etc. on site, the low frequency of shuttles (once each 30 minutes).
There is no internet in the rooms despite the prices - and even the e-centre at one end of the square demands RM 30 just to get online (it was empty every time i passed by). The Chateau outside the village has free wireless, but I was told it was unavailable during my stay because there was a conference at the Chateau. in the end I just sat outside the Chateau in the darkness with my laptop, to check my email.
I really wish the resort owners, Berjaya, would get its act together and bring this resort up to standard. I feel they are just exploiting the fact they have this lovely little gem of a resort, to rip people off once they have got them through the gates. It may work for a while, but eventually this will catch up with them.
my heart was telling me to just go, rather than mull over the place. I'm glad I listened to my heart :) It was a quick and fun getaway. Either that we were so desperate to get away that we can stomach almost anything! We managed to escape paying for the bunny farm per head charge simply because there was no one on duty when we went, and I consider us lucky coz RM3 is daylight robbery!
This is actually one of the nicer ones...really!:
Starting on a positive note this place potentially has a lot going for it - a mild climate, views of the hills, and an impressive imitation of a north-eastern French village. I lived in France for years and have travelled through Germany and Switzerland too, and I was amazed by the standard of the replicas of traditional European architecture. I have never been to the original Colmar, but the architecture is very true to the NE France/south German/Swiss German region in general.
Unfortunately, there are many bad things that spoil the experience. So many things in fact that it is hard to know where to start. Most annoying of all were the vastly inflated prices in the restaurants. The sort of prices I might expect to pay in central Paris or London. They are really exploiting the fact that they have 'trapped' visitors on site. There is no excuse for this: the place is not really isolated so it should be easy to get fresh food delivered there (indeed it is surrounded by farms able to supply fresh vegetables). The restaurants also tend to run out of food at unpredictable intervals. Regularly, the chicken restaurant runs out of chicken and is seen turning people away. Each night at the Colmar is a fight to get a table anywhere. In general there are simply not enough restaurants or tables for the volume of people visiting the resort. The Japanese restaurant up on the hill does not even bother to stock sushi during the weekdays - despite the fact nearly everyone going there requests sushi (the other food they had was very low quality - including the possibly the worst bowl of noodles I have ever had - but extremely expensive).
We rented a family apartment, which was spacious and pleasant. Unfortunately hot water had a habit of disappearing half way through a shower. when we arrived at our room there were no towels or coffee yet provided: we had to ask for these to be brought up. The second day the room was not cleaned until after 5pm, and then only after we phoned the front desk to complain (as they swept the floor dust was flying showing how poorly the room is usually cleaned). The really annoying thing though was the noise from the pub, which played sports matches and pop music on a big screen TV out in the square VERY loud up until midnight. What are they thinking?? This is a family resort, families with small children in rooms all around the square, and people who have come up for a nice quiet holiday away from the city - and they have to put up with this.
Among the other things that bothered us:
That the rabbit farm has the cheek to try to charge us RM 3 each after we already paid so much for rooms etc. on site, the low frequency of shuttles (once each 30 minutes).
There is no internet in the rooms despite the prices - and even the e-centre at one end of the square demands RM 30 just to get online (it was empty every time i passed by). The Chateau outside the village has free wireless, but I was told it was unavailable during my stay because there was a conference at the Chateau. in the end I just sat outside the Chateau in the darkness with my laptop, to check my email.
I really wish the resort owners, Berjaya, would get its act together and bring this resort up to standard. I feel they are just exploiting the fact they have this lovely little gem of a resort, to rip people off once they have got them through the gates. It may work for a while, but eventually this will catch up with them.
my heart was telling me to just go, rather than mull over the place. I'm glad I listened to my heart :) It was a quick and fun getaway. Either that we were so desperate to get away that we can stomach almost anything! We managed to escape paying for the bunny farm per head charge simply because there was no one on duty when we went, and I consider us lucky coz RM3 is daylight robbery!
Though the food there kinda, hhhmmmm, how shall I put this gently, yeah the food really sucked, but then we were hungry and hungry people can't really complain. I had the worse ever fish&chips to date! And you would think you can never ever go wrong with fish&chips! Ho Hum!! but apart from that alot of fun with my two usual suspects!
