Channel 4 invites you to trade your eggnog for champagne wishes and caviar dreams with Alpine Hotel At Christmas, a peek behind the velvet ropes of the Gstaad Palace. This isn’t your average holiday inn; nestled in the Swiss Alps, it caters to a clientele for whom “budget-friendly” is a foreign language. Rooms clock in at a cool £18,000 a night—or roughly the price of a decent used car.
Forget visions of sugar plums; this documentary focuses on the meticulous preparations and high-stakes pressures of delivering a flawless Christmas experience to the one percent. Led by third-generation owner Andrea Scherz, the staff tackles the holiday rush with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. After all, in this rarefied world, a misplaced ornament or lukewarm cocoa could spark an international incident.
One of Switzerland’s last grand hotels to maintain the tradition of closing between seasons, the Gstaad Palace reopens its doors in mid-December, primed for the influx of discerning guests. The Scherz family has overseen this bastion of luxury since 1938, and the program aims to capture the unique blend of tradition and opulence that defines their reign.
While most of us are untangling Christmas lights and arguing over who gets the last roast potato, the Gstaad Palace offers a glimpse into a world where extravagance is the norm. Alpine Hotel At Christmas might not inspire warm fuzzy feelings, but it will certainly offer a fascinating, if voyeuristic, look at how the other half decks the halls.
Alpine Hotel at Christmas airs Sunday, December 8, 2024 on Channel 4.
