Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort & Conference Centre — Hotel in Parksville

Stayed on a weekday night, lodge room (104) next to the pool.

Growing up on the island I have heard about tigh na mara for years and i0t was a bucket list item. My sister flew in for my birthday and took me for a night, and treated us to the 2hr experience at the Grotto Spa.

Maybe I went in with too high expectations.

The lodge room (at nearly 300 a nigh, weekday off season) was just okay. Don't get me wrong - it was nice. The bed was comfy, the toilet flushed, it was clean - but I have stayed I'm hotels that cost half that much that are just as nice. There was no shampoo/conditioner etc available as the resort focusses on being environmental. A good tradeoff - as such amenities are common in high end hotels - would have been some snacks, or perhaps more than 2 black tea bags. It felt very cheap as opposed to environmental.

We had a 530 booking for the grotto. The woman who greeted us was amazing, I wish I had gotten her name. She was genuine, and friendly, and definitely made it seem like we were about to enter a very upscale experience. We were shown our very fancy lockers, and changed.

The grotto area was definitely smaller than I expected - their photography is amazing at disguising this. As we found seats - I noticed at least 10 empty glasses around. I figured they have back to back bookings and maybe hadnt had a chance to tidy things. The mineral pool is an excellent temperature, as is the hot tub. The indoor rain shower is very meh, with very little water falling. The outdoor saunas and shower were wonderful.

We had the space to ourselves - I am told they only book up to 8 people, and even 8 would seem like a lot. I am VERY glad we had it to ourselves. In the two hours we were there we saw staff wandering restocking towels. Not a single staff member talked to us or asked if we needed anything. I assumed they would ask if we wanted water and serve us - but perhaps this doesn't happen. No staff was available at the refreshment station at any point. When a robe got wet and needed to be exchanged - no staff could be found.

They have an outdoor sitting area where you can order food - but because it was raining we couldn't sit there. We were told to go upstairs to the lounge. At the top of the stairs, the spa concierge had her head in her hands and looked bored. She pointed us to the lounge. Every spot near a fireplace had empty trail mix bowls and dirty glasses. We cleared one ourselves and sat. We wondered if we were allowed to order food here, since the outdoor area was unavailable. After seeing no staff for about 10 minutes, we went and asked the spa concierge what the protocol was and she said someone would come over to talk to us. No one did. We eventually stuck our head in the tapas bar area (which can be seen from the lounge), interrupted a waiter, and asked. He told us they only serve the limited menu in the lounge, but there was fruit and trailmix available as well. The trail mix was tasty, the fruit consisted of a few very shiny apples and a half empty bowl of warm and wilted grapes. We ate trailmix and went back to the pool.

I will say that the shampoo and conditioner available for after the spa is high quality, and they had many things - qtips, deoderant, hair dryers etc - this was a very nice touch.

The grotto was nice. But for $95 plus tax a person, plus a mandatory 15% gratuity per person, it wasn't worth the value and I struggle to understand why it is as famous as it is. I made an assumption, perhaps incorrectly, that a place that comes with such a high price tag would offer a high level of service - but with the exception of the initial employee who greeted us at the grotto - the staff seemed bored and uninterested in interacting with us.

Perhaps i went in with too high expectations. However, I feel there should be high standards when someone is paying over $600 for a single night in a motel style room (doors on the outside) and a soak in a pool. I left feeling disappointed. But grateful to my sister for enabling me to cross something off my...

We came here for our honeymoon and were so excited. WHAT a GONG SHOW. Where to start!?

We booked "The Forest Room" as we wanted a forest view. The photos online which depict lovely forest views were obviously taken at deceiving angles. We arrived, and the rooms are on a parking lot that happened to have a few trees around it. So a nice afternoon relaxing watching the parking lot and cars coming in and out.

The room was not air-conditioned (This was end June) which we were aware of, but the fan, which was on a vaulted ceiling, was so high we couldn't reach the puller. Even if we could, the handle was ripped off and wasn't usesble. The fan was spinning the WRONG way, only sucking up air, not creating ANY wind, even on full speed. It was SO hot, we barely slept and were already exhausted.

The bed had a huge sag on one side we had to stuff pillows in to not roll off the bed!

After our big event, we hadn't eaten a lot all day and were starving after a long drive. We checked the Cedars Restaurant website which said they are open til 11pm, but they did takeout til 9. We wanted to make sure that we could eat, so we walked by Cedars Restaurant in the early evening to just confirm what time they closed so we could come back for our honeymoon meal. The lady said they were open til 10 pm. That seemed a strange discrepancy seeing as the site said 11pm on the Thursday it was. She said dine in was later than takeout. We told her we were going to go for a walk to the beach and come back for our special dinner. She made zero mention of a dine in last call. We come back at 8:25 pm. We first stood there for 20 minutes, nobody came to greet us. Through the glass we could see diners eating and a bartender made an occasional appearance in the dining room. I walked into the dining room and smiled and waved, the bartender glanced over and seemed to acknowledge, but still nobody came. We could see some chefs, I leaned toward their area and smiled and waved and asked, "anyone around who can help us?" They looked grumpy and ignored us and continued with their cooking. We waited for another 15 minutes, starving and hopeful. At 9 PM, someone finally comes out from a back room, looked like a manager, and says, "Sorry, we're closed now." I explained how we had been waiting there for 35 minutes waiting and waving for help to no avail. I calmly and friendily explained that it was our honeymoon, we were starving, hot because of the room, exhausted after a long drive after the ceremony. She responded coldly, "There's nothing we can do." No 'sorry to hear that', nothing. I said, "Please, we are so hungry, we arrived 35 minutes ago which could have at LEAST provided us with takeout. Can the chefs (who I could see were still cooking) just throw some fries in a bag or give us some bread rolls kicking around? Anything? Please, it's our honeymoon, we haven't eaten." Another cold response, "No, the kitchen is now closed." My husband and I have both managed service industries, I've managed restaurants and accommodation. We know what hard work it can be and are patient. But this was BEYOND terrible.

We ended up driving to A&W and sat under bright lights, and just as they brought our food to the table after a 20 minute wait, told us they were closing and we had to take our food out now.

It was a honeymoon to remember.

The spa was amazing the next day and we were happy to eat some nuts and fruits there. The service at the spa was top notch. Friendly helpful kind communicative staff. Take a note from their...

We stayed at Tigh-Na-Mara October 3-6, just this past weekend for our 33rd wedding anniversary. The 5 pm check in process is interesting. We did arrive at 3:30 pm hoping we would be able to check in only to have it confirmed that 5PM was the policy but they would text us should the room come available - it didn’t. I think it’s reasonable to assume they simply do not check in early.

We booked an ocean front king ground floor which was really nice. The room was clean and huge with a very nice kitchenette and very rustic with a very modern amenities. The bed , the linens and the pillows were amazing. My only suggestion would be to book floor 2 or 3 as the ground floor has limited ocean view - in our case, none.

Cedars. This is where this resort starts to fail. Our waiter was wonderful but the steak I ordered was inedible, I couldn’t even get a knife through it. Our waiter did notice but no attempt was made to take the meal back and make it right. They did end up comping the meal but too little too late. We never ate here again.

A note - there is zero room service at the resort - if you want to dine in your room you are going to pick it up yourself and in some areas it’s a decent 2 way trek. For us , room service is a big thing when we are on a getaway and I don’t recall if we missed that detail when booking. Nevertheless, for the cost I would think this would be a normal course of business.

The grotto spa and tapas deal. Definitely not worth $380 plus the 15% tip. There is almost no service to speak of once you are in the grotto. Yes, I know it is “free range” but we did not see one staff member in the grotto the entire time we were there. The pool and hot tub are is just okay and the saunas are very nice but at 98 degrees C your time in the sauna is short. If you choose just to relax on the deck the drink and snack menu is limited to just a few things. For a luxury spa and resort my expectation was this would have included at least a full cocktail menu.

We were watered out after 2 hours and went up to the tapas lounge 30 minutes early. It’s not a lounge, it’s more like an out dated cold airport sitting area with absolutely zero service from the staff and a small self serve bar with trail mix dispenser with a Costco mix. Wow.

The tree top dining - you will not see a tree top unless you’re there in the middle of the day. The ambience and intimacy in this place is less than zero. It’s like eating in a cafeteria with blinding white lights. Total fail.

The endless tapas - well not really endless. It is a set menu and you can ask for more but the experience is so draining on time by the time it was done we really just wanted out. You should also be aware they will bring 1/2 the $380 bill just to “show” you the tapas portion with yet another tip option despite the 15% already added to,the deal.

Overall, the area is stunning and our room was way above par but for $400 ish/night they have a ton of work to do on just basic customer service, the quality of the food and refreshments they are advertising. It just seemed to us we had to chase down staff and do as much work as the staff to make our experience...