We had booked for birthday weekend away Drawn in by the very professional website, and the promise of friendly, luxurious accomodation and a fine reataurant.
The room we booked was good - old fashioned (but in a good, homely way) and with a wonderful large bathroom with fireplace and freestanding bath.
That's all to recommend it though. The restaurant was closed. We were informed that if we'd told them in advance we were thinking of having dinner there then they would have made provision. You can pick the economic arguments apart yourself. Also, considering that there's nowhere else to eat for 8 miles in either direction I don't know what they were expecting. So, we settled for the very restricted bar menu. The only thing which really appealed was steak pie which, in fairness, was very good indeed. What was less good was that the barman (singular - indeed the only staff member we could see in the hotel at this point) then disappeared for 20 minutes leaving guests waiting to be served drinks. Some were getting a bit annoyed.
Ok, so next day we went out walking. What a beautiful area.
We came back for dinner (again in the bar). We ordered steak pie again (if it ain't broke, eh?) but there was only one portion left! I ordered something else. The meals arrived, but my girlfriend's steak pie was a steak(?). We pointed out the error and it was taken away, without a word of apology. Not far though as it was given to a friend/local(?) sitting at the bar. We waited, my meal getting cold. When the barman finally approached I asked if we could have our meals at the same time. He then took mine away without either a word of apology or an indication of when we might finally eat.
We decided there and then to leave and asked for the manager. We outlined the very poor service we had received. At least he apologised and settled our complaint very efficiently (waiving all charges). We just got the impression that no-one really cared. A shame - it's a beautiful location and the hotel could be something really special. It isn't though - not with the staff they have. And we're not really complainers either, but this was just so bad. I couldn't recommend this to anyone.






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