Soll, Haus Niederacher Hotel

Do stay here at the Haus Niederacher which will be renamed shortly to Familie Niederacher, Haus Aloisia. There are two accommodations with the same name in Soll called Haus Niederacher, one of them appears to be rather appalling but we were lucky and booked the right one. We had such a good time and best service, very tidy and clean, very friendly and helpful. They collected us from the bus station and dropped us at the train station. The breakfast was yummy and plentiful enough to take a roll up to the mountains. It might be worth taking your vocabulary book with you as she speaks very little English.

Soll is a nice place but don't stay at the Niederacher!

Food nice and value for money.

DO NOT STAY AT THIS PENSION/HOTEL.

The land lady was completely unreasonable/aggressive/shouts in Austrian/man handled guests on more than one occasion.

It wasn't just our party that had problems, a couple we did not know requested to leave after the second night.

The boot room was not heated and she refused to lock it or heat it. She man handled fellow guests if they tried to take ski boots in their rooms.

She burst into my room unannounced, shouting that I had not given her my passport, while I was still in bed. We arrived at night and I had not gone down to breakfast, which is where she collected other passports from my party.

We were charged 25 Euros for the room key which was ridiculous.

Facilities in the pension/hotel are poor, it's a fair walk to get an evening meal.

We were only allowed in small section of the building. The bathroom was inadequate, the toilet was jammed in such a small place between the wall and shower cubical!

We were a bit worried by what we had read about the Haus Niederacher in Soll and also the landlady, but to be perfectly honest, we would go back again without a second thought. We left at about 8.30am so got our deposit back with no problems. I suppose that if you are leaving on an early flight then you need to take this into consideration. Breakfast was the usual Austrian affair, and it was enough to fill up on until lunch. Austrian pensioners don't like turning the heat on whatever the weather, so take a small portable fan heater if going in the cold season.

All in all, I had a great time.

Martin's Marvellous Memorandum

Soll in Austria

Background

If I could provide a brief background about myself and our skiing history. I'm 41 and live in Darlington in the NE of England with Teresa and our children Lauren (9), James (7) and Joe (2).

Teresa and I have skied in the bargain basements of Europe on and off since we were 25 - Andorra, Romania (no food) etc. We took Lauren and James to Sauxe D'Oulx in Italy for their first experience of skiing last year and they really enjoyed it.

Travel

We arrived at Salzburg and following a 2 hour coach trip were dropped at our hotel 'Club Hotel Austria' which was located in the centre of Sol.

Club Hotel Austria

The rooms were basic but clean and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

Breakfasts (7:00 to 10:00) consisted of cereal, fruit, bread, toast, ham, cheese etc, and you were provided with a choice of evening meals.

Afternoon snacks were provided in the 1st floor bar from 4:30 - 5:30 and consisted of salads, soups, spaghetti bolognaise etc.

Main meals (6:30 - 7:00) were very good - goulash, fish, turkey, veal, pork etc. Starters were mainly soups and there were a variety of deserts. We all enjoyed the meals after a busy day on the slopes. The brochure and the reps failed to mentioned that 2 complementary drinks were included with your main meal either red or white wine or a small beer.

Welcome Meeting

I am never impressed with welcome meetings and I was not disappointed. I believe that it's primarily an arena for the reps to sell additional excursions.

Ski Hire

Left out of the hotel, left at the cross roads, under the underpass (on the right) and up to the ski school (probably a ten minute walk). You need your forms xxx and you require to complete additional forms. Boot hire comes first and then ski hire. The staff are helpful and there is no crush as you normally experience in Italy - there's Austrian efficiency for you. We hired ski helmets for Lauren and James (about 20 euros each), and on the way out you are required to leave a 10e deposit per person. We also paid 5e per head for use of the ski school locker room which was well worth it to save you carting your equipment to and from the hotel.

Ski School

Over the road to the ski hire shop and xxx

Children are required to meet near the top of the first drag lift (it's a bit of a walk for beginners!). Adult ski school meet at the bottom of the drag and then troop on mass to the top of the drag where you are evaluated and placed in the appropriate class.

Straight into the bubble to the middle section.

Subsequently ski school meets to the right of the bubble.

Ski school runs between 10:00-12:00 and 14:00-16:00 on day one and then from 10:00-12:00 and 13:30-15:30 (not on Fridays or Saturdays). On Tuesdays and Wednesdays you will go on tour and have lunch with the ski instructor. Children do the same and they require 10e for lunch.

Pistes

There are numerous runs for all levels of skier (maybe not advances) and the pistes were in excellent condition.

The lifts were excellent and the few drags could be avoided. Even though we skied every day there were still miles and miles of piste that still lay undiscovered.

Swimming

There is an infinity pool located near the ski school (150 yds) with an out door Jacuzzi. Good fun for the children.

The main disappointment of our trip was the accommodation Haus Niederacher. It was appalling. The landlady wanted a deposit of €25 for the room key on arrival and she said we could have it back on departure. However, our departure time was 5.30am and she made it clear that she would not be up at that hour and neither would she provide any form of breakfast even though that was paid for as part of our deal. It was a real struggle to get the deposit off her the night before. We managed it, but in doing so it meant we could not leave our room to go out that evening as our room would have been left unlocked.

We stayed on a half board basis and we had dinner at a hotel nearby called the Franzlhof. The hotel itself was lovely, but the menus we were given did not give us a choice between a meat dish and a vegetarian dish. I don't eat beef and three of the nights out of the seven we were there, served beef. Due to the lack of English spoken it was virtually impossible to ask for something vegetarian. We ended up eating out a few times as a result, but when we did the quality of the food in restaurants was superb.