We stayed in the Spey lodge as a family of 4 with 2 very young kids. The lodges are beautiful and for the most part are also very clean. This is the 3rd time we’ve stayed at pine bank chalets but we won’t be back. The walls where the bins are in the kitchen are splattered with all sorts, a wipe clean is all that’s required. There were dirty plates in the drawer that were covered with crumbs and bits of food. The kitchen cupboard doors don’t close properly and are in need of repair. There’s also one part of the kitchen which doesn’t have a door on it at all, not sure if that’s on purpose or not but it looks silly. Cob webs in the lights and beams, it’s high ceilings but doesn’t take much to dust the cobwebs. The couch is super uncomfortable and is covered in stains. We think it’s the same couch as the macdui lodge which we also found super uncomfortable. My in-laws were staying in one of the new lodges and said they also had the same uncomfortable couch so it’s not just us! The Christmas decorations were a bit poor and a winter blanket was strategically placed in the couch to hide yet more stains. There was no tv in the master bedroom so we couldn’t watch tv in bed either, we were stuck with the couch. The Christmas decorations included wooden candle holders but there was no candles anywhere to put in them which rendered them useless. The under floor heating doesn’t seem to work in the back 2 bedrooms where the kids were sleeping, we take a thermometer that doubles as a nightlight and their rooms were sitting at 16 degrees when the doors were shut and that’s with the heating turned all the way up. We stayed for 3 nights and on our second day we had been out in the morning and returned to the lodge for the kids afternoon naps only to find a key in the door and when we entered the lodge a stranger was poking around in the cupboard - turns out it was an engineer to fix the heat pump. I had 1 missed call on my phone, no voicemail, no text message, no email. The missed call was apparently someone from pine bank telling me they needed access but when I didn’t answer they decided to let the guy in anyway without our knowledge or permission for an issue that clearly wasn’t an emergency and nobody from pine bank was there to supervise him, the engineer could have been rummaging around in our stuff, stealing valuables or god knows what. If we hadn’t happened to come back when he was there we wouldn’t have had a clue that anyone was ever in our lodge. That is just completely unacceptable. When I contacted Simon to complain I was told he made a judgement call to let the engineer in and that was basically that. I didn’t feel safe there with my family for the rest of our trip, who knows who these people are letting roam around the lodge without your knowledge. I couldn’t possibly trust them with our safety again. What if we were all taking a nap, didn’t hear anyone knocking at the door and woke up to a complete stranger in the lodge with us!! Madness. Simon’s response really irritated me, he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal but it’s a huge deal and ruined our trip. The issue didn’t appear to be an emergency so it could have waited, and even if it was an emergency, we should have been informed if there was an issue with the heat pump particularly since we had a 2 year old and a 6 month old with us and there should have been safe guards in place such as the engineer being supervised by a member of staff when we weren’t there. I also contacted Simon before arriving to ask if there were any Christmas events on in the area and he didn’t give me any new information and more or less told me to Google it. The lodges are incredibly expensive and whilst they are outstanding lodges they are not quite clean enough and the service is definitely not good enough. For that price, I would expect Simon to research what’s on, contact local businesses and get me the relevant details as they live in the area and should have better access to that information. I would also expect some sort of welcome package as well, like a wee carton of milk, breakfast cereals and other necessities but there’s nothing like that. There’s also about 40 light switches, each individual spotlight seems to have its own switch which was pretty annoying. There are a lot of lodges on that land so they’re packed in like sardines. We had full view of the living room in the lodge next to us when we were entering our lodge. They’ve done their best to provide privacy but there’s not really any outside space to sit at. There’s a little balcony bit with a table and chairs but it’s tiny and the Spey lodge balcony is right next to huge trees which is obviously for privacy but also blocks a lot of the sunlight in summer I’d imagine. Wouldn’t go to these lodges in the summer (we went in June last year and the beds still had thick winter duvets on!), they’re definitely equipped for winter. They would be worth the money if the service and cleanliness were impeccable but unfortunately they’re not, the service in particular is really pretty poor. Really disappointed as it’s the best accommodation in Aviemore by a million miles but sadly highland accommodation always falls short no matter how much you pay. Definitely won’t be back as we just weren’t safe. …
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.