Glenskirlie House and Castle

Dear Glenskirlie Castle hotel, My wife and I visited on a two night stay on Friday 21st and Saturday the 22nd August. I would like to share our findings of our stay with you and I hope that you will view this from as constructive a viewpoint as possible. I would like to cover the following; Our room. The bar. Restaurant & menu. Housekeeping. Staff. Information. Room- (105) We visited on a special offer rate through “myhotelbreak.com.” We were pleased to simply get away from home for a couple of nights to relax. I have attached photos of our room and can only say that it is probably the filthiest hotel room I have ever had the misfortune to stay in. As you can see from the attached pictures the level of cleanliness was nothing short of disgusting, so much so that we did not even take a shower for the two days that we were there, opting instead to have a hand wash and use wet wipes. There was also a clear lack of maintenance in our room with plaster having been repaired but not painted. The lack of skirting boards throughout the rooms and the hotel also add to areas where dirt and dust gathers. The TV in the room is in an utterly stupid position as you can’t even see it when lying in bed due to the size of the base board at the end of the bed. A somewhat ridiculous attempt to raise this up on a couple of boxes just adds to the absurdity when simply a £30 wall bracket from Asda would solve the issue. The dressing room chair was ripped, the mattress has a large stain on it and the filth around the shower area hinges, shower beading, screen , toilet seat hinges and behind the beds and under the wardrobe was staggering! The Bar The atmosphere in the bar was totally non existent. Who wants to see a TV screen in a bar of a supposedly “four star” hotel displaying and playing a commercial radio station (Smooth radio) and having to listen to adverts every 12-15 mins. Buy a bloody music licence and create some ambience. The bar seating was dreadful except for the two booth style seats which was our third seat move. The low level couch is so low and so deep you fall backwards as you sit down and struggle to get back out of it. It has no padding and is increíble uncomfortable. Your bars prices are ridiculous. Always happy to spend money in a bar and restaurant when we go away and as you will note we notched up around £120 just in bar bills but some of your prices would put Glasgow and Edinburgh city centre to shame. £3.50 for a can of coke! Not for the lack of ambience and lack of comfort! We also entered the bar on Saturday night around 8.00pm to have a drink and despite the bar being empty and there being two young male bartenders on duty, there were three dirty tables needing cleared and the bar top was wet and needed wiped. I make a joke regarding this but they didn’t take the hint. My wife and I walked over to a table to sit down and I asked a waitress if she could clear it for us. She cleared the glasses and debris but did not return to wipe the table which was soaking wet. These are not unreasonable expectations, they are not even “four star” levels of culture practices. They are the basic standards of service and cleanliness. Restaurant & Menu Restaurant area was a pleasant enough area. The stained glass window adding to the overall impression. The menu however was as dull as a wet weekend in Inverness! Nine main courses, (three of which were burgers), haddock Goujons, fish of the day, Steak pie, Pasta arrabiata, chicken tortilla and Mac n Cheese! Four star? Pub food! Nothing more. As a result we decided to take a taxi to a restaurant in Cumbernauld Village on Saturday night and spent £130. Housekeeping. We opted not to have our room cleaned on Saturday morning due to wanting a relaxed non disturbed day, and I informed the housekeeping staff. This however was before I had noticed the level of dirt. What I did notice however was that the housekeeping staff were using sofas in communal corridors to stack the dirty sheets and laundry from guests rooms! These are the same sofas that are clearly there as sofas I would assume for guests to sit on! And you are covering them with dirty laundry from people’s rooms? This is not the practice of staff in a two star hotel let alone a four star hotel. Staff. The staff in general were all very pleasant especially the girls in the bar on Friday on our arrival and Jen on the front desk. I did however ask a young girl at breakfast on Saturday about a local animal farm and was it easy to walk to. She said she had no idea! That was it. Not, “I don’t know, let me find out!” Information. Conspicuous by its absence! Nothing to tell you anything about local walks, attractions, shopping within walking or short driving distance. You have a farm and an air rifle range almost behind the hotel yet no arrangements, no information, no collaboration between you and them. Nothing. We respectfully shared most of these points with Jen and my wife also has a conversation with both Jen and your General Manager on Saturday evening. We both have vast experience in the hotel and training & development industries and I can honestly say that this experience has been an eye opener. When people book a stay at a hotel, they don’t just want a bed for the night. They are paying for an experience. When you book a meal in a restaurant it’s not because you’re hungry , it’s about the ambience and the experience also. There appears to be a staggering degree of ignorance and awareness of how a hotel should be run. That room I’m afraid wasn’t worth £50 a night let alone a special offer of £124 per night considering the lack of cleanliness and maintenance. If I shared these picture with the Scottish Tourist Board, your Four Star Rating would be gone within the month. Your hotel has some lovely touches, some quirky layout and some great potential but it lacks maintenance, cleanliness and vision. I fully expect a response from the owners regarding these points and not from the General Mananger. What should have been a pleasant short trip away was frankly shocking. John & Audrey Elder

best feature about Glenskirlie - the staff. welcoming, friendly, chatty, attentive. sadly, let down in other areas. bedroom - seating, cramped, uncomfortable. power points, TV in awkward places, no fridge. restaurant - limited menu. in discussion above with staff, advised that they'd only assumed ownershio 3 years ago, aware of issues - 'work in progress'. hopefully, issues will be resolved by future visits, when a higher rating may be appropriate.

I was very disappointed with our stay at this hotel. We stayed in Room 106, which initially appeared well-presented, although not a four poster bed which I was expecting however the bed and floorboards were extremely creaky, making it difficult to get any sleep. The television was also poorly positioned as the foot of the bed was too high to allow comfortable viewing because the TV was not wall-mounted. While the bedding was clean, other areas of the room particularly the cleanliness of the bathroom did not meet the standard I would expect from a four-star property. Some bleach would make a difference. My partner stood on a small piece of broken glass in the bathroom obviously from previous guests which hadn’t been cleaned up properly. Breakfast was also disappointing. Several items appeared undercooked and the quality of the produce was not what I had expected. Inedible, we left gry. Finally, I found the staff to be uninterested and lacking in pride or engagement in their roles, which further detracted from the overall experience. Unfortunately, I do not feel that the hotel lived up to its four-star rating or the expectations set by its presentation.