Grasmere, Wordsworth Hotel Review

Overall Rating

Proximity to Grasmere village - but then lots of other places have as good a location and offer better standards of food, accommodation and value for money. The entertainment was quite fun: the assistant manager having a row with the waitress! I suppose the likeness to Fawlty Towers might be considered a good point if you are a fan of the show....

The service was dreadful. Half the staff can barely speak English. We had to wait hours for our dinner in the dining room. Even getting a standard English breakfast with coffee and toast out promptly seemed to present problems for this lot!

Quite simply, the Wordsworth Hotel was the most disappointing hotel experience ever.
Weve stayed in Grasmere lots of times, at various different hotels, B&Bs or rental cottages but we'd always fancied trying the Wordsworth. The occasion was my Dad's 80th birthday.
The worst thing was the service, but the rooms weren't much better.
At dinner, it took hours to get everyone served it was like something from Gordon's Kitchen Nightmares. The food wasn't that great over-fancy and way overpriced. We'd expected good, wholesome Cumbrian fare. My mother ordered steak and her face was something to behold when three tiny pieces of meat in a fancy sauce arrived. It would have been funny if it had been a very special family event getting ruined. And if the whole thing hadn't been costing an arm and a leg. They could't even manage to serve breakfast promptly and efficiently. We had to ask for everything at least 3 times: tea, toast and so on.
The rooms were really dingy and in need of a good lick of paint. We had blood-stained wallpaper in ours. My sister and her boyfriend had a shower that didn't work and worse still a toilet that didn't flush. There were no tea and coffee making facilities in the rooms.
The pool was grubby too. It had that uncared for feel about it. There were two unwanted, shabby old sofas in one corner. The Jacuzzi was stone cold despite us and other guests complaining to the management. In the gym, the rowing machine didn't work either.
We did complain several times whilst there as did other guests. In fact, I sat in reception for ten minutes and witnessed three different sets of guests complaining about various things. My mother wrote to the hotel in September, immediately after our stay. My mother has phoned the Wordsworth several times to ask why they have not had the courtesy to reply. It's now over two months later and we haven't heard a word.
I really wouldn't recommend this hotel. There are some lovely hotels in Grasmere, many cheaper than this one but with a much higher standard of accommodation, food and service.