De Watermolen

Nice location and peaceful. Rooms are standard and without blemish, bathrooms modern. Nothing pretentious, and clean. Slept well here. Rooms spacious enough. Two wings of hotel each has a ground and first floor. Rooms a few yards away from the restaurant. Good location.

We were travelling In Belgium and the Netherlands and stayed 2 nights here in early April. I knew of the hotel, and had stayed here many times in the 90's and early 2000's and the their reputation for excellent food and good rooms is still of the highest in Northern Belgium. We experienced a warm welcome and very friendly staff throughout the hotel. We stayed in the junior suite which overlooks the 'Kleine Nette' stream with a nice balcony, spacious sitting area, good sized bathroom and a very comfortable large bed. We ate both evenings of our stay in the main restaurant and the food was outstanding, complemented by attentive and knowledgeable service. Breakfasts too were excellent with a good range of hot and cold food, pastries and fresh breads, fruit and smoked salmon. We will be going back. The position of the hotel is good, being a few kilometres between two key East-West highways making it a good base from which to explore North Belgium-Southern Netherlands.

I stayed here for just one night this week and the highlight was a fabulous meal which started in the lounge in front of the warm designer style fire. The service was immaculate. My room was reached by walking through stylish gardens and was very comfortable. Breakfast too excellent, I really enjoyed the selection of fresh breads. I arrived and left in the dark so I was unable to look around the outside areas of the hotel.

I stayed for three nights recently, having breakfast and dining in both the a la carte and brasserie restaurants. Yes the hotel is not cheap, but I did enjoy my stay, so I was interested to see the somewhat negative reviews on Tripadvisor. The room was not especially cold, nor did I think it old fashioned. The staff are clearly locals and not particularly young, and I found this refreshing after staying in chains where any conversation has to be prefaced with an enquiry after my health ("how has your day been so far sir?"). Breakfast is served as a buffet in the restaurant, so fine crockery and a silver service. The choice was as expected - eggs/bacon/sausages in a bain marie, breads and croissants, cold meats and cheeses, cereal and fruit. I shall review the restaurants separately but as for the hotel I was very satisfied.

I was in the Watermolen for an all day meeting and I was surprised to see what it became to be. During the years it normally was a steady and reliable hotel-meeting-restaurant establishment with continuous service and quality. Today not so much anymore.... the rooms and halways are outdated, the meetingrooms seriously outdated and the equipment and materials up to a serious renovation! The meetingrooms still had an old small white fridge with an old lamp on it, the projector makes a lot of noise, you get 2 sheets of blue paper to write on (recycled from a previous meeting), as a break we got wrapped cookies in a tin can eg., 1 old dated toilet in the hallway for both men/women.... just to mention that with all the meetings we have during the year, we see a lot and this is not the standard of 2015 anymore. The service we had was not good, nobody was there to greet us in the morning and point out where we have to go, they all look like they drank vinegar, the people not friendly and never smiling and our overall experience is that we will not come here for meetings/dinners anymore (group decision) . In the Kasterlee area it used to be the place to be but you can eliminate that from your memory definitely!

Especially the restaurant serves excellent dishes... some small improvements in the behavior of staff could take it to another level. The rooms are good, though a bit old fashioned. Breakfast was OK, we would like to see fresh 'pistolets' and at 10 AM all food is removed... so not for late birds :-) The location is green and ideally to walk or bike.

The best in this hotel is its location - very beautiful place, the pictures on the web do not do justice to it. the whole garden is also very nicely maintained. it is great to have the ceiling-to-floor window of the room facing lots of greenery and water. but this is about all that is nice about the hotel, especially considering its 4-star rating and very high prices (to its location) the rooms are very simple and not decorated in any quality way; the corridors are cold and in order to get between your room and the lobby/restaurant you need to go out - not so pleasant in the colder seasons or rainy weather. they do not heat the corridors (for the rate they really should be able to afford corridor heating); and when you enter your room it is freezing. it heats up pretty fast, but still not the nicest feeling to get into a cold room. the desk has NO electric outlets anywhere near, except if you unplug the refrigerator/minibar in a hidden place. is this reasonable in Holland in 2015...? there is no elevator so if you are on the higher floors you need to carry your stuff up. the restaurant is VERY overpriced and really not so great food. the food is heavy, unimaginative (even though it tries to pride on exquisite cuisine), has mostly unhealthy choices - and extremely expensive. i could not sleep after the meal (I had their montly menu or whatever it was called) because it was just so heavy on my tummy for hours after having it. the breakfast has also very limited choice (e.g. no plain yogurt, only sweetened ones; no vegetables, few fruits), and very expensive. they charge EUR 20 PER NIGHT for a baby cot - I have never seen such a crazy price for a baby anywhere in the world for 16 years of traveling with babies. they knew I was coming with a baby but they gave me a room or the second floor - without an elevator.

We stayed at this hotel for a family wedding. It was a nice little hotel, but the staff needed some work. Also, since we did not have a car, the location was difficult to get to anything, though we made due. The green area and trails around the hotel were beautiful for walking on a pretty day.