Forty-four keys behind a carved larch facade at the head of a high valley. A heated ski room by the back door, an eleven-metre table in the dining hall, bathing pools blasted into the rock below, and the Adlersaal casino floor working away in the old ballroom wing.
18+The casino floor is open to adults aged 18 or over, or the higher legal age where local rules require it. Photo ID is checked at the door.
44 keysFour room types, all with timber ceilings
AdlersaalLand-based casino floor, adults only
FelsenbadWarm pools cut eighteen metres into rock
Ski roomHeated racks, boot dryers, waxing bench
The house
Built for snow, rebuilt for long evenings
A cure hotel went up on this shelf of rock in 1904, when the valley railway was new and doctors still sent people to high air for their lungs. The ballroom wing came twenty-five years later, a wide room with a sprung floor and six tall windows, and for half a century it carried orchestras, weddings and one long political congress nobody here likes to discuss.
By the late seventies the ballroom was costing more to heat than it earned. The family who owned the hotel applied for a casino licence instead, kept the sprung floor and the windows, and opened the Adlersaal in 1981. The rest of the building was stripped back to its bones in 2016: the carved larch panelling was taken down, numbered, cleaned and put back, and behind it went new insulation, quiet glazing and plumbing that works at minus twenty.
What stands here now is a casino hotel of forty-four keys that still smells of pine resin in the stairwells. Breakfast starts early because the lifts do. Afternoons belong to the Felsenbad or the south terrace. From seven in the evening the casino floor opens and the house changes gear: roulette, blackjack, a grill plate at the Langtisch, snow turning blue outside the windows.
Everything we offer happens on the premises, in person. This website is a description of the building and the casino floor inside it. There is nothing here to play, no bet to place and no payment to make.
At a glance
Keys
44 rooms, suites and family stuben
Casino
Adlersaal, old ballroom wing, 18+
Kitchens
Two, plus a bar and a pastry counter
Spa
Felsenbad, pools and steam in the rock
Ski room
Heated, 60 places, boots and skis
Season
Open from mid-November to mid-October
Rooms
Four ways to sleep under a timber ceiling
Every key has a carved larch headboard, a wool blanket woven in the valley, a kettle with mountain tea and a window that opens properly. Floor areas are measured, not rounded up.
Top floor, two bedrooms
Gipfel Suite
The whole gable end under the roof beams, which the 2016 works exposed for the first time since 1904. Two bedrooms either side of a sitting room with a tiled stove that genuinely heats it, a writing desk in the dormer, and a stone bath deep enough to float in. The balcony takes the sun from eleven until it drops behind the west ridge, and the view runs the length of the valley to the pass. Breakfast comes up on a trolley if you ask the night before.
Floor area97 m²
BedKing plus twin
GuestsUp to 4
Valley side
Lärchenzimmer
Our smallest room and the one we are fondest of: panelled on three walls, a window seat built into the thickness of the old stonework, and morning light from about half past eight in winter.
Floor area23 m²
BedQueen
GuestsUp to 2
North face
Nordwand Room
Two windows onto the rock wall behind the hotel, so it stays dark and cool when the rest of the house is bright. Climbers book it in June for exactly that reason. Separate shower and tub.
Floor area31 m²
BedKing or twin
GuestsUp to 2
Second floor, family
Almstube
A proper family room: a sleeping alcove with two bunks behind a sliding timber door, a bench table for wet gloves and card games, and a bathroom with a low basin and a step stool that lives under it.
Floor area47 m²
BedKing plus two bunks
GuestsUp to 4
Adlersaal · 18+
The casino floor in the old ballroom wing
The casino at Kaiserhof Alpen works in the room the orchestras used. The sprung floor is still under the carpet, the six tall windows still face the valley, and the carved eagle over the north door is the reason the floor is called the Adlersaal. It is a small casino by design: nine tables, a machine alcove screened behind timber, and a casino bar in the old musicians' gallery with a rail you can lean on and watch from.
Nobody here benefits from a guest who plays badly. Our casino hosts will teach you a game properly before you sit down, tell you what the table minimum is without being asked, and say so plainly when the odds on a side bet are poor. Thursday is the evening most first-timers choose, because the dealers slow everything down and no stake is expected.
This is a land-based casino inside a hotel, open to adult visitors who come through the door in person. Nothing on this website is playable: no online casino, no wager accepted, no account held, no payment moved.
Admission for adults aged 18 or over, or the higher legal age where local rules require it.
Photo ID is checked at the Adlersaal door on every visit. No document, no entry, and no argument at the door.
Name your limit, in hours or in money, before the first hand. The floor team will then enforce it for you.
A pause, or a written exclusion for a fixed term, is set up quietly at the cash desk in about five minutes.
No credit is given, no tab is run against the casino, and there is no cash machine anywhere on the floor.
Ski boots, phones at the tables and photographs of other guests all stay outside. Collars are optional.
Open Daily 19:00 – 03:00, Fridays and Saturdays until 04:00. Tables close fifteen minutes before the floor.
Eat and drink
Two kitchens, a bar and a pastry counter
Cheese, beef and rye come up the valley from four farms we have bought from for decades. Fish is freshwater and arrives twice a week. The dinner menu is rewritten every Monday.
Dinner, dining hall
Langtisch
The long hall, panelled floor to ceiling, with an eleven-metre larch table down the middle that seats thirty-four strangers and usually ends with them talking. Smaller tables along the windows if you would rather not. Barley soup, venison from the autumn cull, dumplings, a short list of valley wines and one very good cheese trolley.
Breakfast and day kitchen
Bergstube
Breakfast from a quarter to seven for anyone catching the first lift: rye bread, mountain butter, eggs cooked to order, ham sliced at the counter. After eleven it turns into the day kitchen for soup, rösti and one hot plate chalked on the board.
Bar and fireplace
Kaminbar
Eight armchairs round an open hearth between reception and the casino stairs. Local gentian spirit, mulled things in January, a proper non-alcoholic list that the barman actually believes in, and a kitchen window that sends out small plates until midnight.
Pastry and coffee
Konditorei Zirbe
A counter by the ski room, named after the pine the shelves are built from. Nut tarts, plum strudel and a dense chocolate cake sold by the slice until it runs out, which on a cold Saturday is well before closing.
What’s on
The week at Kaiserhof Alpen
The same shape every week from the first snow to the last. Residents and visitors from the village are equally welcome. Three of these need a table, which reception will hold for you.
Monday
Zither in the Kaminbar
An hour of valley music by the fire, played by a retired forester who has done this since 1998 and takes no requests.
17:30
Tuesday
Cheese table
Eleven cheeses from the four farms we buy from, cut at the long table with rye bread, pear mustard and a glass of something white.
18:00
Wednesday
Lantern walk to the chapel
Forty minutes up the old mule path with storm lanterns, hot blackcurrant at the top, and back down before the casino floor opens. Boots lent at the ski room.
16:45
Thursday
Beginners’ evening on the casino floor18+
Casino hosts open two slow tables in the Adlersaal and teach French roulette and blackjack from the beginning: the bets, the odds, the etiquette and when to stop. No stake is expected and nobody is pushed to play. Adults aged 18 or over only, photo ID at the door as always.
19:30
Friday
Dance in the gallery
A four-piece band in the musicians' gallery above the casino floor, loud enough to hear at the tables and quiet enough to talk over at the bar.
21:30
Saturday
Grill night on the south terrace
Fires lit under the awning whatever the weather, sheepskins on the benches, whole cuts carved to order. Moves inside to the Langtisch if the wind comes over the pass.
19:00
Sunday
Long lunch and bread baking
Four courses at the long table with no hurry at all, and from two o'clock the baker lets children shape rye rolls in the back kitchen while the adults stay put.
12:30
The programme thins out in the shoulder weeks of spring and autumn. Reception chalks the current week on the board beside the ski room door.
Felsenbad
Warm water inside the mountain
In 1968 the owners took a decision that would never get planning permission today: they blasted eighteen metres into the rock behind the boiler house and lined the hole with pale stone. The result is the Felsenbad, two pools in a vaulted chamber where the only daylight comes down a shaft cut at an angle to catch the afternoon.
It is the quietest part of the building and we keep it that way. No music, no screens, no telephones past the second door. Towels and robes wait on a heated rail at the entrance; swimwear is required in the pools and optional in the steam room, which has its own hours.
Two pools33°C indoors and 38°C under the shaft, 07:00 – 21:30
Steam chamberCut into the raw rock, scented with spruce
Snow benchA cold ledge outside the north door, for the brave
TreatmentsDeep massage for tired legs, booked at reception
Good to know
Before you drive up
The road is cleared through the night in winter, but it is a mountain road. Tell us your arrival time and we will watch for you.
Arrival and the ski room
Keys are handed over from 15:00 and go back to the desk by 11:00 on the morning you leave. Somebody is on reception at every hour, so arriving at two in the morning costs you nothing but a note in advance.
Winter tyres from November to April. Chains are kept at reception for the last steep bend.
The ski room is heated, holds sixty pairs, and has boot dryers, a waxing bench and a tool wall you may use.
Skis, boards and boots can be left overnight and dried by morning. Rental gear is fetched from the village on request.
Luggage lives behind the desk before check-in and after check-out, and the lift serves all five floors.
Families
Younger guests have the run of the bedrooms, both kitchens and the Felsenbad at family hours. The casino floor is the one place where the answer is always no.
Nobody under 18 may cross the Adlersaal threshold, including children with a parent beside them.
Family hours in the pools run 09:00 to 12:00 and 15:00 to 18:00. Adult quiet hours follow after that.
Cots, bed rails, high chairs and a bottle warmer cost nothing. Say so when you write.
The Kaminbar is adults only after 21:00, when the casino traffic starts coming through.
Access
An old building on a slope is never perfect. A level way through does exist, though: car park, reception, both kitchens, the Felsenbad and the casino floor, with no stair anywhere on it.
Three rooms on the first floor are adapted, with roll-in showers and wide doorways.
A hoist and a ramp serve the warmer pool. Ask the Felsenbad attendant and allow a few minutes.
The Adlersaal has a level entrance from the lift and two tables with clear space for a wheelchair.
Tell us what makes a stay easier for you and we will have it in place before you arrive.
18+
Where we stand on gambling
Nobody under 18 plays here, and for the people who do, a night in the Adlersaal is meant to end when the night ends. A host will agree an hour or a ceiling with you, pause your play, or write up an exclusion the same evening and keep it to themselves. We lend nothing, we cash nothing, and you will not find a cash machine anywhere past the gallery door. If you would rather speak to somebody with no connection to this hotel, the next page lists three organisations that have none.
No. Kaiserhof Alpen is a mountain hotel with a land-based casino floor, the Adlersaal, inside the building. This website exists to describe the house: the rooms, the two kitchens, the Felsenbad and the casino floor. There is no online casino behind it, no bet to place, no player account and no payment of any kind. If you want to play, you come up the valley and show your ID at the door.
Who is allowed onto the casino floor?
Anyone of 18 and above, and above that where local rules set the bar higher. The doorman reads a passport, a national identity card or a photo licence every single time, no matter how grey the visitor is or how many seasons they have been coming.
Can we come for the casino without taking a room?
Yes, and half the floor on a Friday has driven up for the evening. The Adlersaal, both kitchens and most of the weekly programme take outside visitors, once the door check is done and if there is room. During the February weeks the tables do fill, and residents have first call on the last of them.
Can we come with children?
Yes, and plenty of families do. Children sleep in the rooms, eat in both kitchens, use the Felsenbad at family hours and ski all day. The one closed door is the casino floor, which admits nobody under 18 at any time, accompanied or not.
Will a casino host help me set a limit?
That is part of the job and nobody will think it strange. Speak to any host before you start: they can agree a spending ceiling, come and tell you when an agreed hour is up, or arrange a break that keeps you off the floor for a week, a season or longer. The paperwork takes five minutes and stays confidential.
How do we get up to you, and when does the road close?
By car on the valley road, which is ploughed through the night, or by train to the valley station where our driver meets arrivals four times a day in winter. The road has closed for weather twice in the last ten years, both times for under a day. Winter tyres are required from November to April.
Can the hall be taken for a private party?
The Langtisch hall seats sixty for a dinner and the gallery takes a party of thirty with its own bar. Write to us with your dates and numbers. We do not hire out the casino floor itself, because the house rules and the age checks on it cannot be relaxed for a private group.
Contact
Tell us when you want to come up
Give us your dates, the type of room you are after and whatever else matters: a cot beside the bed, a floor away from the stairwell, an arrival long after the last lift has stopped, two places at the Tuesday cheese table. Reception writes back by email, most often the same working day. Nothing is booked on this website, because there is nothing here to book with.
Kaiserhof Alpen Casino Hotel, Upper Valley Road, last house before the pass
Adlersaal
Daily 19:00 – 03:00, Fri and Sat until 04:00 · adults 18+, photo ID
Reception
Staffed 24 hours through the season
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