Sephs Hotel Sittard

Very friendly people, both at the front desk and in the tasting room. New beautiful rooms, lovely shower, spacious room with (hard) sofa, large hall. The only drawback is that the rooms on the second floor have windows at 2 metres high, so you cannot admire the beautiful view. From the hotel you walk in a straight line to the market in Sittard where there is a choice of restaurants. It is also a nice route to walk late at night. From the hotel, you walk straight into the fields to Selfkant (Germany)

This is a new hotel, the rooms are even advertised as 'pre-opening', so I was expecting some issues in advance. The room I had was very good, but to summarize my experience: there is a clear disconnect between what the hotel promises when you make your booking, and what they actually manage to deliver. The issues start during booking already. This hotel (a former monastery) is connected to a youth sporting academy, and they state that 'a small fee included in your room rate' will be towards their support, this is called a 'talentfee'. Except that it actually becomes a surcharge which only shows up at the very last page of the booking - effectively making the room rate higher than advertised during the whole booking process. It's not a large fee, but it feels underhanded. Another issue is that, only after booking the room, you receive an email warning that they are still doing construction, information that is also not available during the booking process. At that point I had already made the non-refundable booking, and couldn't back out anymore. I had specifically booked a 'Star' room, as those have a nice king size bed. Upon arrival, I find out that they gave me the (cheaper by 20€) regular room. The receptionist first claims to not understand the issue, and then states that they "pro-actively put people in the regular rooms", because there have been complaints about the temperature gradient in the (two storey high) Star rooms. From a customer perspective, this whole thing made the checking process very time consuming. If your Star rooms are not suitable for a night stay, don't offer them. If you are 'pro-actively' putting customers in cheaper rooms, inform them at check-in and refund the difference, or give them a choice. But don't just give them a key to cheaper room and hope that they don't complain. Anyway, I insisted on staying in the room which I had booked, and it was a great room, so I fail to see what all of this was about? I had also ordered breakfast, and they promise quite a nice meal for the €15,50 fee. At check-in, I was informed that breakfast was open until 10:30, which I appreciated, being the day after Christmas. But when I showed up at 10:00am, almost everything was gone already. Instead of the promised platter with delicacies, there was just a self-serve buffet. There also was no staff (they were all in the kitchen) and I had to go find them and ask for some butter, and tea. At 10:15, the staff started removing the few remaining breakfast items (without even saying hi to the guests). I asked why they were already clearing the buffet, given that they should be open until 10:30am. The reply was that this 'had been a mis-communication by the receptionist', without offering any solutions or support. I won't contribute any of these issues to actual malice, but I'm not sure whether Hanlon's razor is a much better defense here.

Staff are great: very friendly and helpful. Beautiful room, great beds. The restaurant is beautifully located and serves good food. My North-African stew was the best. The surroundings are superb. Very relaxing. Wonderfully located at the bottom of a lush hill in an old monastery. We will come back to this place. To do more cycling with the first class e-bikes we rented at the hotel.