My husband and I have just returned from 3 nights at the Tides Reach. Without the location this Hotel would be nothing so I'm guessing thats what our nearly £600 B&B was for (and thats after haggling the price which I'd recommend). We decided to get away as we've sold our house and can't find another so are living in one of our letting properties which doesn't have the luxuries of our main home so wanted a Hotel that DID have them. I have to say the bathroom was heaven simply because we only have a shower at home so it was nice to have a soak & the bathroom was nicely kitted out but nothing flash.
The bedroom was a let down. Our double bed was 2 pushed together so we'd lose limbs down the gap during the night. The decor was 80's as was the furniture but everything was clean. The view was beautiful & just what we like as we live by the sea and don't like to be far from it (even having survived the tsunami). I was expecting a minibar, purely to chill our home brought drinks or the bottled water supplied by the hotel. The garden is a little small as its taken over by a huge duck pond (with no central island for them to sleep) but looks beautiful when lit up at night. Plenty parking.
The evenings are rather sedate & most people in bed by 10pm so we opted for the 30min hike up & down the vertical hills for some sign of life. Most Tides Reach residents are of the grey haired variety which we'd prepared for, but not for the funeral parlour ambience.
Breakfast was actually rather nice and the staff very friendly, except for the barman who not only accepted our cash for our drinks but also charged them to our room! Oh and for whoever had used our telephone which we were asked to pay for.
Ideally the Hotel should be knocked down and rebuilt as you can only do so much refurbishment & with so much building going on around Salcombe, its only a matter of time before this Hotel has some serious competition.
The Wrinkly Prawn at North Sands was excellent. Food everywhere was expensive but the town is a normal lively pace & the choice of fish good. I'd probably go there again out of season as part of a sea fishing trip but don't suppose we'll be allowed to after this!

We booked 6 nights here with small dog as part of a 2 week Devon holiday and had visions of early morning runs on the beach with the dog;good food in the retaurant and great views from the rooms.Wrong on all counts !!We left 2 days early
Got off to a bad start when we were put in a tired looking room in the furthest corner of the hotel with a small view of the sea if you stood in the corner of the room and craned your neck.Nice view of scaffolding.I suspect we fell foul of Hotels tendency to charge dog owners more and give them the worst rooms.
Then we found out no dogs allowed on the beach which left only a smelly footpath by the side of the hotel (not attractive)leading to an incredibly ugly caravan park without braving the roads and hills which take you to the coastal path and North Sands about 10 minutes energetic walk away.Not the Hotels fault this one;a Council decision apparantly.
As for the food - extremely disappointing.The vegetarian food was at best an afterthought so my wife ended up going to the local chippie later !Dinner lacked finesse and was overcooked although service was friendly.They seemed to operate that awful system of reward whereby you move nearer to the window the longer you stay but if you miss an evening meal you seem to be relegated to the outer reaches of the restaurant !!
Breakfast was nothing better than O.K but it proved impossible to get hot toast(or decent bread for that matter).I am staggered that this place has achieved two AA Rosettes.

Our visit got off to a bad start as we followed the hotel's own directions and were directed needlessly through tortuous unclassified roads just to get to Salcombe. When we arrived there was nobody on Reception and we were ignored by several members of staff. The bedroom (standard double) was quite clean with crisp bedlinen and fluffy towels. But the furnishings and facilities were like a Travel Inn, but with less room and a much higher price.

There was no air conditioning and in the very warm weather we were obliged to keep windows open at night. Unfortunately the artificial waterfall and ducks quacking through the night on the floodlit pond below meant there was minimal sleep to be had. The room also suffered from poor sound insulation from neighbouring rooms.

Breakfast was very limited in choice and the cooked food was partly cold and also undercooked. They have even a problem with providing properly toasted bread, and the only bread available is of the ready-sliced variety. We found that guests who were only staying B&B were treated as second-class by the officious and overbearing maitresse d'hotel (without whom they would manage much better). We did not stay for dinner as at 35 pounds per head it was the most expensive place we found in the area and there are good places to eat at nearby Salcombe and Modbury.

Quite how this place gets good reviews in many of the hotel guides is a mystery to us. Even its "ideal" location is with its flaws. The rooms and dining room have excellent views of two building sites nearby, and the road from the hotel to Salcombe is very narrow and winding. We suspected that many of the elderly guests stayed for dinner simply because it was such an effort to escape. The whole place, though recently redecorated, has the ambiance of a 1970's motel, quite lacking in charm. There are also security risks as there was no safe facility, the bedroom balconies give you a good view inside your neighbours' rooms, and we were told to help ourselves to our room key from those hanging on the Reception wall. We were very disappointed and were glad to leave after three days.

My wife and I escaped to the Tides Reach for a couple of nights of relaxation in early April.

The setting of the hotel is almost ideal, located in a small valley and fronting the South Sands beach just along from Salcombe. There's a ferry which leaves from the beach and goes round the headland to the town itself, taking just a few minutes.

We were warmly greeted by the staff who made every effort during our stay to ensure we had everything we needed.

The guest rooms as well as the public areas were well decorated, well equipped and very clean.

We booked bed and breakfast, preferring to go to Salcombe and sample the restaurants there rather than eat in at the hotel - however the menu looked appealing and we would have happily eaten there.

The price (£85 per person per night) was definitely on the high side, and being in our early 40's we were the youngest customers for sure. However it gave us what we needed and we had a wonderful break.