We have stayed many, many times before and have had some great rooms and memorable experiences. However on this stay there was a wedding so was unable to visit the library, wine cellar and great hall and didn’t really have somewhere comfortable to sit and have a drink. We invited our son and daughter in law to experience Peckforton castle. The rooms were tired and needed attention. If this was our first visit we wouldn’t have come back or recommend it to friends and family. We were very disappointed

Beware: we booked some rooms 6 months out and they took well over £1000 just to make the booking but a few hours later one of our party had a change of plans and so we cancelled and it tools weeks to get any money back BUT when we did they deducted £50 per room for their own inconvenience and said it's IN TGlHE SMALL PRINT seriously!!

I reveiewed a few wedding sites but mistakenly booked Peckforton Castle. We wanted a May 1st date (2008) because that was our 10 year anniversary, so it fell on a weekday. Despite that we paid the full price for the venue. Little to our knowledge they sold another function room to an eclesiastical college ball. The wedding facilitator was on holiday for our date and it was a total nightmare. Drinks from the not so cheap drinks package that we had ordered didn't come through and the schedule wasn't adhered to for our 'moonlight wedding'. Big promises about keeping the other event separate and yet failed so horribly at that - that the other venue were brazenly STEALING our champagne!!! Yes, students from the eclesiastical college STOLE our guests champaign from a champaign cascade that we paid a pretty penny for and generally crashed our gig, while we were wedding outside on the lawn under the moonlight, they hung out of the window making suitably dissaproving noises at our (non christian) humanist wedding. When I wrote to Peckforton after the event to ask for the address of the relevent college so that I could write to the Dean and inform him/her of it's students transgressions I was denied - the said they would 'pass on' my concerns and considering that I never heard anything back either they didn't give sufficient a shoot about the appauling behaviour of their students (an eclesiastical college - ya know, God squad people...) to give a response or MORE LIKELY Peckforton never passed this on. This was but one small FAIL in the event that was our wedding at Peckforton, including not giving us the drinks package we ordered (yet charging us for it - moral of the story is to check EVERY detail)... oh and letting other people drink the drinks and eat the midnight buffet food we had paid for... Not only that, the room LACKED in every way. We picked the main hall because of the decor, but the dining room was subsequently booked for a ball, so we ended up with what looked like the SH*T furniture... we were told (last minute) that we could hire 'seat covers' for these... at a small (several hundred pounds) additional price tag. I was not amused and declined. (Having spent £000's on flowers and decoration I figured we would be OK..). ah long story, but the moral is - DO NOT TRUST Peckforton Castle to give you the wedding you planned. They will promise you the world, then f*ck you over.

We took our family to the "Lunch with Santa" on the 19th of December.
It was very exciting and the children couldn't wait, previously we had been there to book and the staff were excellent showing us around and told us about the development of the castle as it had changed into a hotel since we were married there 9 years ago. Ths setting is fantastic and we thought that it would be a superb place to start our Christmas holiday.
Oh how wrong we were. The food was very nice and the staff were also very pleasant but and this is were Peckforton let its self down they almost forgot it was meant to be Christmas and certainly forgot to tell Santa to come. As a waiter with as much charisma as a block of cheese stood in for Santa in his £5 Wilkinson's Santa's outfit I looked on in astonishment as the cushion was quite visible from uunder the suit, our 5 year old looked on in amazement and didn't hold back by saying that "Santa was just the waiter and looked rubbish" while the only words the jolly old elf said to our daughter was "would you like a present?" I almost finished the sentence off my self by say "or what!" This all happened even before we had taken our coats off and sat down while at the same time we were fixing a black out curtain to the window to stop the sun from burning our retina's out, not that this is a fact in the review but customer comfort is importatnt and being blinded during a meal wasn't part of the "Frolocks and Fun" advertised by Peckforton which by the way there wasn't any. It was done very much on the cheap which is a massive shame as the castle is fantastic and could have been so made magical and we would have gone back next year.
Peckforton would benefit from going to local Grotto's and garden centre's to learn how to bring the festive season to it's customers.

The plus points: Peckforton Castle is a lovely castle in a beautiful setting.

The bad points: The staff are generally unhelpful and rude. The wedding business is literally a production line of weddings day after day. The food was very disappointing. The menu was very unimaginative. The soup to start with was the worst I have tasted. The chicken for main course was fair. Dessert was strawberries and cream, which takes no skill and very limited preparation to service. Evening buffet food was wraps and a little hot food, but very little very was provided for the number of guests attending.

Although it has been refurbished parts of the hotel were still rather tatty. Also some places could do with a good clean, including the chapel which is available for wedding blessings.

Once the wedding has taken place, the staff do not want to know and do not care about any issues or concerns you may have. They have taken your thousands and just do not want to know.

If you want an indication of the mindset of the people running this hotel, do a search on the internet for the case where they sued a young couple who had to cancel their wedding because the castle has misreprsented their disability access when the couple originally booked their wedding. You will be a booking to these people, not a unique wedding.

We had our work Xmas meal at Peckforton Castle last Saturday 13th December. It was one of the worst meals I have ever had and all the staff felt likewise. The only choice of starter, the vegetable broth was like dirty dish water and tasteless with just a few bits of carrots and rice grains floating about in it. The vegetarian main, mushroom risotto had about 2 bits of mushroom and tasted like overcooked rice in milk. We thought this for £42.50 per head was very disappointing. We felt as though we were being shunted around from bar to bar, seemingly to get out of everyone else's way and packed in round the tables like sardines. The only saving grace was the jester. Never again.

Peckforton castle is a beautiful place, it's just a shame the magic didn't extend to the service. Some staff were very unaccommodating and seemed overly focused on how much profit they were making. If you expect them to help you have a wonderful day then don't, they will too busy trying to look at how much money you have in your purse.