Two main highlights. Excellent, friendly staff who will do everything possible to help. Very good quality catering at reasonable prices.
Six course taster menu really excellent and some offers will include this in the first night of stay. Fantastic quality and value ensures you will come back and spend money the second night! Steak night on Wednesday is also excellent value for great food.
Unfortunately, the building is very dated but refurb seems to be under way. Rooms are very small by modern standards with paper thin walls. Electric heating is also very drying and not easy to achieve comfortable temperature without room feeling airless. Unusually this hotel also has lots of purpose built single en suite rooms which really are small! This also means lots of single guests who are working will be staying here.
The leisure centre is good with well equipped gym and adequate swimming pool.
Location is quiet, on the eastern outskirts of Elgin but easy travelling to all of surrounding towns and country.

We got a deal through 5pm.co.uk and went up for a weekend at the start of March.

Hotel- The hotel itself looks a bit dated from the outside (see picture) but the reception and lounge areas are all nice (see picture). The corridors are a bit bland mind you and could do with a lick of paint or some artwork to brighten them up a bit. The location was good for us as we'd never been up there before and were looking to explore the area a bit.

Rooms- We had a double room. It was smaller than the kind of thing you'd get in a chain but not too small. It was also nicely decorated and clean (see picture, taken as we were leaving). The kettle provided was rotten though and the bathroom was a bit tatty. The lock on the door was awkward to the point of being broken and there was some haphazard tiling next to the bath (see picture). Having said that the bath was a good size and the shower was very good.

Restaurant- We mistakenly booked a table in the restaurant when all we were looking for was bar food. We considered moving through to the bar area but decided we'd give the restaurant a go. It's fairly expensive and mostly seafood orientated. As neither of us like seafood we went for the chicken and asparagus. It was nice, though we just stayed in the bar the next night. That was also good.

Breakfast- We were on a B&B arrangement so popped down in the morning. There are various cereals and yogurts on offer but we went for a cooked breakfast with toast as well as tea and coffee.

Lesuire Club- I wasn't in the gym but the pool was quite good, as were the showers. Towels are provided by the helpful staff. The jacuzzi was a let down though. It was barely lukewarm when I went in. The air being blasted in to provide the bubbles is icy cold and cools the water down around it. When the bubbles went off for ten minutes I tried again and while there was an improvement it still wasn't very comfortable. I didn't use the facilities again.

Staff- For the most part they were friendly and helpful. Only one incident let them down. The day we were leaving, at breakfast, one of the waitresses was complaining loudly to another table about her co-workers not pulling their weight. Not only is this a basic customer service no-no, she had just given me a dirty fork, forgotten to give my girlfriend a spoon and given us the wrong kind of toast just a few minutes earlier. These things are easier to overlook when you don't have to listen to someone complaining about being the only one who does "the job right".

Would I stay here again? Yes I would, though only if it was at the lower price.