That’s the kind of room service on offer at the new Hard Rock Hotel in Davos, Switzerland, a boutique 4H property that opened last winter.
Room service can even bring up an electric guitar for the more musically gifted guests to play in the comfort of their rooms.
Hard Rock has plenty of these quirks, designed to make their guests feel like rock stars — from the spare loo roll labelled “B-sides” and laundry bag called “Dirty Deeds”, to the note from hotel management titled “Sent from backstage”.
This might seem perfectly normal in Hard Rock’s hotels in Ibiza or Las Vegas, but it’s definitely a change of direction for Davos.
The quiet Swiss alpine town — two and a half hours from Innsbruck Airport and two hours from Geneva Airport — is the most conservative ski resort I’ve ever been to.
While there are bars and clubs offering apres ski, when we arrived at midnight on a Friday in the middle of the season, the town was dead.
Theresa May was in the resort at the start of this year for the World Economic Forum and even by her running-through-fields-of-wheat standards, Davos is pretty tame.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, though. In fact, the perfectly ordered, polite, clean and quiet nature of Davos — home to six ski areas — made it the most relaxing ski trip I have ever had.
Ski shops stock as-new skis and boots as standard, the queues for the lifts were always tiny and there was never a jostle at the bar.
Davos is the highest town in Europe and it’s easy to get to the slopes. One of the biggest ski areas is reached by a funicular train, although certain chair lifts also run from the town.
The skiing is perfect for a week’s stay, with mainly red and blue runs, plus a decent smattering of black runs. It also has a small snow park, a slalom track and a speed downhill.
The main resort also links Davos with neighbouring Klosters.
Prepare to pay through the nose for everything, though.
Two plates of pasta, a coke, a beer and two espressos easily tops £46.
But, surprisingly, booze doesn’t have to cost the earth, with some bars selling bottles of beer for £3.80.
Most local eateries serve traditional Swiss mountain fare — sausage, potato, cheese and bread — another reason Hard Rock stands out from the crowd.
The hotel’s restaurant serves food that would satisfy any Millennial, including guacamole and homemade nachos and vegan burgers, alongside local grub, such as schnitzel.
Before staying at Hard Rock Davos, I pictured it as a hotel version of the chain restaurants.
But while some of the quirks that made the eateries famous in the Nineties — such as popstar memorabilia — have been retained, the business has very much moved on.
Yes, there is pop music playing fairly loudly in the bar and the restaurant, but nothing that would put families off. The hotel has an inclusive vibe that welcomes everyone from five to 50 years old who is young at heart.
There are still the ski resort hotel essentials, though, including the spa — which was launched this summer and also has a modern twist.
The 1,000sq metre “Rock Spa” aims to bring together key elements of spa, fitness, dance and yoga, with facilities including a 57sq metre main pool, a whirlpool, several saunas, a steam bath and an ice room.
In the six treatment rooms, guests can opt for “Rhythm and Motion signature treatments”, using music combined with vibrations, pressures and patterns.
As the property is brand new, it features many of the mod cons lacking in older hotels — USB charge points, Bluetooth speakers, cordless phones, on-demand music TV and powerful rain showers.
The standard rooms are on the small side, but the extras made them extremely comfortable to relax in during the evening.
There was nothing Hardcore or Rockstar about our stay in Davos and on reflection, that was perfect.
GO: DAVOS
GETTING/STAYING THERE: Flights from London to Zurich with British Airways are from £39pp one way (britishairways.com). A night’s B&B at the Hard Rock Hotel is from £132pp based on two sharing (hardrockhotels.com/davos or 004181 415 1600).
Source: Read Full Article