The Daffodil Hotel & Spa

Lovely location, great staff but hotel lacks a warm Lakeland feel to it especially in the evening after dinner, nowhere to go. Beautiful views but needs something different to give it the warm feel you would hope for in a Grasmere hotel.

This was our third stay at the Daffodil after visits in 2019 and 2022 - and, sadly, standards have slipped over the last four years. I’ll begin with the positives. The hotel is in a fantastic location close to Grasmere village with beautiful views across the lake and plenty of car parking. We stayed in a lake view room which was large with excellent storage and a (slightly sterile) separate lounge. Our bed was huge and extremely comfortable - we slept really well throughout our visit. During our stay, we had one lunch in the lobby bar which was very good and we spent an hour in the spa using the steam room, sauna and thermal pool - a nice way to relax. However, it’s a shame to report that general standards have fallen considerably at the hotel since our last visit four years ago. Lots of areas of the hotel look tired and shabby, with the carpets stained and worn throughout and various bits of paintwork chipped. In our room, the curtains in the lounge area were in dreadful condition, with rips in multiple places. There was mould above the windows and several millimetres of dust on the bathroom door. This is poor and unacceptable in any hotel, let alone one charging more than £250 per night. Breakfast was a highlight of previous stays but a disappointment this time around. The number of items cooked to order is significantly reduced from our last visit - odd that you can’t order breakfast staples like Eggs Benedict, although my experience of the hotel’s ‘poached eggs’ (two basically soft boiled eggs on a sad single piece of white toast) probably explains why. My wife had smoked salmon with scrambled eggs one day, for which we were charged a £4 supplement - I’ve genuinely never come across this extra charge at any other hotel breakfast. The rest of the buffet - which used to boast a range of fresh fruit - was extremely limited. On the plus side, the porridge from the menu was nice and the pancakes very tasty. This is all such a shame. The Daffodil used to be an extremely high quality hotel which I happily recommended to other people. However, I will now opt for alternative accommodation in future visits to the area.

It wasn’t a great experience pool is tiny Staff are rude and would be happier if you weren’t there We asked to be reserved for 900 for breakfast but we’re booked for 945 without letting us know I would avoid and never recommend