Macdonald Hotels

I stayed for a long time at the Botley Park. During that time, a false fingernail right by the door greeted my arrival. During that week, it stayed there until I picked it up and took it down to reception. In the last three weeks I was there, a long blonde hair was left on the drinks tray (I stayed in the same room). I wanted to see how long it would remain there, but relocated to another hotel. A month later, I'm sure it's still there.

Three times I left something in my room and until I made a fuss the third time, none of my items were returned to me.

We arrived at Macdonald Botley Park looking forward to a relaxing break which our daughter had paid for as a treat. My husband was booked for a massage and I choose a manicure both at 6pm. At 5.30 the spa rang to say we had missed our treatments I pointed out that our booking form clearly stated 6pm but was told this was not what was arranged with them. No manager was available to speak to do we decided to take dinner early and try and make the best of the day. The food was appalling I had to send mine back because the potato was frozen. The staff were sloppy and rude and we will now tell everyone what a disaster this hotel is. Had we not had a drink on arrival we would have driven home and abandoned the trip. Bad show for a large hotel chain.

I am very disappointed with my stay with you this weekend, mainly because of your extremely unwelcoming receptionists!

I arrived at the hotel with a friend of mine at around 4pm on 6th July 2013. We went to Birmingham for a weekend break. We had booked two single rooms online for that Saturday night 5 days in advance. For some reason the two bookings were not linked together although they were booked at once using my credit card. When I checked in with my friend, the staff simply asked my name and my home address and routinely asked if I wanted a morning call or newspapers. He then gave me two key cards; I thought they were for two rooms. So we went upstairs before realised that both cards were for the same single room. So we came down and collected the other set of keys. The staff again routinely asked if my friend wanted morning call or newspaper. Throughout the check in, I didn’t hear one word such as welcome! If the IT system is not intelligent enough to link the two bookings together, human common sense can surely make up for it! If the staff had been a little bit friendly and asked if we were both staying at the same single room (which is highly impossible), this inconvenience would have been avoided completely.

When we checked out, similar drama happened again! Although this time, there was an extra issue with the payment. I thought the two rooms were both paid for when I booked them online. But the staff impatiently told me that was just a credit card confirmation not the payment. So I paid, and left the hotel with my friend. None of us were asked if we enjoyed our stay. None of us were given any word such as welcome! I was simply given my receipt and didn’t even hear they say goodbye! I was mortified! I never ever in 10 years living in the UK received such service. I felt something wasn’t right, maybe the check out was not completed yet, so I asked the two receptionists if that was all. They said it was. Again, no goodbye, no welcome again, no nothing!!!

The room and everything else was about average. Nothing stood out. That wasn’t important. We were there just for one night and the location was great that was exactly why I booked it. But after this horrifying experience with your hotel staff, I doubt I would stay with you again nor would I recommend you to any of my friends!

I wasn’t around when other guests checked in or out, so I am not sure if we were the only ones received such horrible services. What I am sure is that we are both Chinese however I really hope this is not a case of racism!!!

I stayed on 8 Sept 2012 at a cost of £130 b&b - the room ( 14) was shabby, tired & in need of a serious update.

The grout and tiling around the bath was loose & grubby

The bath handles were dirty

There wasn't a fridge, tea bags or a radio

Breakfast turned out to be a buffet, self serve

Coffee in your room was £4.65 plus a £3 tray charge plus a 12.5% discretionary service charge

A £3 charge was added to your bill if settled by credit card.

Beautiful location but very underwhelming, shabby hotel

We planned a weekend break and chose the Roxburgh after a lengthy search on the internet. It looked good on arrival and staff were pleasant enough. The lift to the room, a delux room!!, was the most painful sounding lift we had ever heard with wails and bearings screaming in distress. The room was small with a kingsize bed made up of two singles and as we discovered no cover over the join so the nights were uncomforttable. Room service was aweful and hard to connect with. The service in the dining room was terrible and food generally very poor. It would take far too long to list how bad the weekend was in this hotel. The bathroom had fungus between the tiles, there was no bedside table on the left side of the bed and so the weeknd saga went on. "We will forever remember being asked "How would you like your chicken cooked?" mmm! My steak was aweful and was returned to chef! Needless to say we ate out apart from the once!

We were contacted 4 days prior to our arrival at The Old England Hotel on Lake Windermere to be advised that they could no longer accommodate us due to their current refurbishments, but that they were willing to move us to one of their other hotels in the Lake District at no extra cost to us. This was not ideal as we had originaly planned to spend our time looking around Lake Windermere and the surrounding areas as we have found in the past that Windermere is the best base when in the Lakes.

However, as it was too late for us to amend our time off work as we were not called until Friday evening and we were travelling up on the Tuesday following a bank holiday, we had to make a decision as to which hotel sounded the next best option.

We chose Leeming House on Lake Ullswater, which has an AA 4* award.

Upon our arrival we checked in and were sent the wrong way to our room, which left us asking passing staff as to where we were supposed to be going, this alone would not have caused concern however, the hallways had masking tape over the joins in the carpet and in places the carpet was thread bare, our room was also not what I expected from a 4* hotel and there were cracked tiles on the floor in the bathroom and the sealant had come away from the bath. Also there was quite a lot of damage to the door surrounds where cases and such like had bumped the walls. I know that this kind of damage is inevitable but I felt that the hotel was generally in need of repair. Also although the room did have a TV it did not have a video or DVD player, you could if you wanted ask reception for a Video player but that seemed like too much messing around.

We chose not to dine at the hotel and instead had a lovely meal at the Inn up the road and when our breakfast arrived in the morning we felt that we had made the right decision as it was tasty enough but a little on the small side, now I do not eat a lot but I felt hungry after my breakfast which is quite unheard of.

Overall, we were dissappointed as we expected more from our stay than we received, it may sound that we were being picky but when the cost of the hotel is £105 pp B&B I do expect more.

Macdonald's Highland Resort at Aviemore is a beautiful venue, with accommodation to suit several different budgets. The accommodation was very clean and spacious. The food was excellent, well-presented and very well served. The staff could not have been more helpful, and the resort offers many facilities, from swimming to night time entertainment. Aviemore is ideally located for the Cairngorms and Inverness, and it is a beautiful part of the country.