We had a good stay at Hotel Derby for 5 nights after we accepted the reality and adjusted to it :)
We booked it on Booking.com and it did not say that this is a B&B and not a hotel. Maybe it did that we failed to see. So when we landed in there we were taken by string of surprises.
> There is no elevator and we had to drag up our 3 large bags and 2 cabin bags 2 floors up which was a pain. (3 of us travelling for 16 days). I requested them for a room on the ground floor where 2 other families along with me were allocated rooms but unfortunately the house was full and there was no option but to go up. Again booking.com doesn't say that upfront, I later found that on the reviews posted on TA but it was too late until then. The plus side of the room on 2nd floor was a view of the mountains :)
> The next surprise was the size of rooms. We had booked a triple room and the room was clearly designed to utilize every available opportunity to cram an amenity. It only lacked the practical aspect of usability. With 5 bags on us, we had trouble choosing which bag to open because we could open only 1 bag at any given time :)
Along with 3 beds, there was also a table and 2 chairs in the room. I failed to see the use of table and chair and It was indeed a challenge to skillfully maneuver through the room without hitting your knees on the beds or chairs :)
> The next surprise was that of the set of rules and some of them were highlighted with color. Fine! no complain about the rules, we ought to live with them but we had to keep them in mind all the time lest face the prospect of 100 or 200 CHF penalty ! Not to cook or eat in room, no damage to the property, no flooding of bathroom and some more rules.
> As if the room size wasn't small enough, the bathroom was more smaller. I couldn't take shower without hitting my elbows. However I found shower rooms small in all hotels I stayed in Switzerland so I give this to Derby. if the opaque glass door was opened wide, it would bang into the window frame outside, so I needed to keep a watch on my kid all the time so that he doesn't end up breaking the glass door. Also, the opaque glass door meant that every time someone wanted to use the washroom at night, he or she would end up waking the others.
> The rod to hang the towels and napkin was overloaded with 3 of them. The room although had 3/4 beds, it is clearly not enough to house a family of 3 or 4.
> There was a coffee maker in room but it was placed in an not-so-easily-accessible corner of that room maybe because all others corners were used up :). It was perched up at an height which was slightly above my wife's eye level. There were 3 cups precariously stacked on top of each other over a set of 3 saucers. Every time me or my wife picked up a cup I feared that something or other will fall down. We could never get ourselves to use the coffee maker and ended up using the microwave in the garden area.
> Coming to the garden area, there is a nice garden on the ground floor with a small room that houses a table chair and microwave oven. The room was small too and the door opened on inside. The table had only 2 sides practically usable since the door would invariably bang into the chair kept on 3rd side . Since any form of cooking and eating was not allowed in the room, we used the microwave for heating the food and the table chairs in the garden for eating. It was actually nice but for the cold. Coming from tropical countries, we cant stand cold that well. I realized on the day of check out that we could have also used the breakfast room for eating instead of sitting out in the cold.
On that note, I must add again about the strict set of rules. On the day of arrival, we carried our food down to the garden area for eating and My wife went in at the reception and she was prohibited from using the water dispenser to fill her water bottle. When she requested to use the kitchen on ground floor she was told to use our allotted room for water bottle. So imagine, going up 2 floors to fill the water bottle. Remember the rules guys !
> The microwave room had a small water dispenser for cooking /drinking purpose and a small sink too but there was not water tap. So after you finish the food, carry everything up to your room for cleaning !
The hotel was nice and clean, barring the incident of prohibition of water from the dispenser on the first day, we found the staff to be nice and helpful over our stay. They also have a pet cat Daisy and the kids had fun playing with her and chasing her. But, this place is not really convenient for a family with kids for the reasons mentioned above. If we knew it was a B&B, we would be either mentally prepared or maybe would have looked at a different option.
So if someone is looking for a B&B, this could be a good choice but this is not a hotel.
