We came to Murren following three days at Fasnacht in Basle looking for a peace and quiet in beautiful surroundings. The hotel staff were friendly and helpful, our rooms spacious, well equipped and comfortable. Tea/coffee making facilities in the room were much appreciated (you'll need to take some sachets of tea/coffee with you). The views were beautiful as they are at any point in Murren. Particularly worthy of comment were the restaurant staff for whom nothing seemed too much trouble.

We enjoyed our stay in Murren over New Year and will return to the village but NOT to the Palace. Overall, the place is terrible. The decor is just awlful - completely out of keeping with the lovely old building and the stunning village. The food quality is also very poor - so bad that we only ate in the hotel on the first night. Dinner was served in the huge ballroom (completely overwhelming for the small number of people who were dining there). Coupled with a dreadful, female singer playing a keyboard, it made for uncomfortable dining. Food was bland, service was slow (probably because there weren't enough staff). Breakfast was also served in the ballroom. Fruit was limp, eggs were rubbery, hot chocolate was lukewarm - pathetic! The worst breakfast was on New Year's Day when leftovers from the previous evening's gala dinner were served instead of eggs and bacon - yuck!

However, our room was very clean, with lots of storage space and stunning views and the staff were very sweet and helpful.

The problem is the management -they need a serious re-shufle to restore the quality and class to this hotel!

My husband & I just returned from a two-night stay at the Alpin Palace. We had a corner room (#124) with windows on two sides and were completely amazed by the view from our room & balcony. The view of the 3 mountains of the Jungfrau was amazing. The moon was just about full, so we could see the mountains all day and all night.

Our room was spacious, bright, & clean, as was the bathroom. The bed & bedding were comfortable. The hotel has a sunny gameroom, where we enjoyed a game of Scrabble. The restaurant is pleasant & bright. While you can tell that there have been attempts to update the hotel decor, there are elements of 70's or 80's decorating style. Normally this might be unappealling, but it had a bit of a pleasant retro feel. We went up to the Schilthorn, and that retro feeling continues with the architectural style of the Piz Gloria restaurant, and the clips of the 1969 James Bond movie shown there. We loved the trip to the Schilthorn. Between the gondola ride and the cost of the meal, it made for the most expensive lunch we'l probably ever have, and it was totaly worth it!

We took the half board option at the hotel, & upgraded it to a "plus" option (including a generous portion of wine, chosen from 9 open bottles, & bottled water at dinner). The dinners were only ok. We liked the soups offered for the first course, and the desserts were pretty good too, but the main courses were only medicre. While it's true that many places in Murren are closed this time of year, I noticed a few restaurants open when we strolled around during the day (I didn't check the hours to see if they were open at dinnertime). The breakfasts were the best we had during our two-week trip, because they included much more than at other hotels (like scrambled eggs, sausage, crepes, smoked salmon, & you could help yourself to make Mimosas).

Overall, we were very happy with our stay at the Alpen Palace. The staff were friendly & helpful, and the view is outstanding,.

We stayed in room 211 (deluxe double room with balcony; 133 CHF PER PERSON per night including breakfast and dinner).

The hotel is in a good location, very near to the train station. The hotel and restaurant staff are all very friendly. After taking so many trains and cable cars and lifts to get to Murren, it was nice to have a hotel in such close walking distance to the train station. The hotel in located uphill from the train station so a bell boy came to pick us up (and our luggage) in a motorized cart. The hotel appeared a bit outdated - like it needed to be redecorated - as did the rooms. The buffet breakfast at the hotel was very good and there was a wide selection of food. The dinners at the hotel (also buffet style) were hit or miss. However, food in Switzerland proved to be very expensive, so it might be a good value to have dinner included. There is one restaurant in Murren that is not associated with a hotel, Stagerstubli. We opted to eat there one night (and received a credit on our bill of 10 CHF per person from the hotel). The food at Stagerstubli was great! We had a cheese fondue that was delicious. We looked at menus at other hotels and some of them looked good.

Our room was very spacious. It had 1 1/2 bathrooms and a balcony with nice views of the mountains. The beds were not very comfy (although we didn't find the beds to be comfy anywhere in Switzerland). They were all the same style - hard mattress, flat pillows and a flat comforter with no other blanket or sheet option.

Our big disappointment came when we were checking out of our room. We came to find out that the cost of our room was not 133 CHF per night but 266 CHF per night! The rate we were quoted was 133 CHF per person per night, which after looking back to some old emails we came to find this clause in the fine print. My husband emailed with the hotel when booking the reservation and confirmed our understanding of the reservation several times ("133 CHF per night"). No one bother to clarify our misunderstanding, which was disappointing.

I'd suggest that you shop around when looking for a place to stay in Murren. The Alpin Palace Hotel isn't bad, but had we know the true price of the hotel, we might have looked into renting a cottage or A-frame with a fire place instead.

Top 3 things we did in Murren:
1. Train to Mannlichen and hike (~1 hour) to Kleine Scheidegg) - a very easy hike with great views of Eiger, Monch and Junfrau. Kleine Scheidegg is also a great place to get lunch. The weather was nice when we were there so we could sit outside in the sun and enjoy the great mountain views.

2. Cheese fondue at Stagerstubli

3. Jungfrau - of course