Bellinter House Hotel and Spa — Hotel in The Municipal District of Ashbourne

WARNING Not only were our valuables stolen, but the General Manager Liam Corr accused my wife of making the story up!

To say myself & my wife had our weekend ruined by an untrustworthy hotel and a disgraceful GM is an understatement.

After our stay we checked out the next day at 12.30pm. Locking our room & handing back the key to reception we headed back home to enjoy our weekend. We arrived home at 2.30pm when I realised that I had left our coats in the wardrobe of our room E4. I was not too worried as I knew the room was locked and that housekeeping would pick them up and mind them for us. I rang the hotel & spoke to the receptionist & explained the situation, I asked her kindly to collect our coats & mind them until I returned. After 25mins I got a call back from the hotel stating that the coats were no longer in our room. When I asked where they were she said she did not know? I asked to speak to the GM, I was told she would get him to call me. Even though he received the message to call me back urgently he did not bother? I had to call him myself after 5 hours of waiting for a call back. In the mean time my wife called the hotel & asked to speak to the GM. She was very upset to hear that our coats had been taken from our room & now had mysteriously vanished. She asked the GM to explain this & he accused her of making the whole thing up. In shock at this response he was asked if he wanted to retract the accusation to which he refused. In all my years of dealing with hotels never have I come across a GM like this. He told my wife that house keeping had cleaned the room & found no items & no guests had since used the room either, he later contradicted this to me, saying no one else had been in the room except for himself & his colleague. My wife asked him if there was CCTV, to which he refused to answer? When I asked him to explain why he did not call me back, he told me it was because he spoke with my wife already & dealt with the situation?? Is this how a decent hotel manger 'deals' with a situation?

I told him I would be involving the Guards to which he taunted me saying he thought they would be here be now! I asked the manager had the door been forced he said no. I asked him had he spoke with the staff RE the missing items he then proceeded to ask me was I accusing his staff of stealing the coats. I found it very unsettling that a GM was making more efforts to accuse his customers of lying and of making accusations against his staff, instead of trying to find the missing items and to treat his customers with the respect and dignity they deserve especially when they have been the victim of a crime.

My wife has sent an email to the hotel and even though I have been informed that the owner of the hotel himself is now fully aware of the situation, she has received no reply to date?? The Guards have now taken our statements, I have received a crime incident number and their investigation in on going.

We have sent a solicitors letter to the hotel, requesting them to retain the CCTV footage for an investigation. No reply has been made to any of our request for a further investigation, however the General Manager Liam Corr, has had plenty of time to stir up friends and apparently even his husband into doing bogey reviews in an effort to hide ours. The guards have offically informed me that the hotel insists it has no working CCTV. How in this day and age a "Four Star" hotel can have no CCTV to protect its guests is just amazing.

The GM seems to do his best to avoid taking ownership of any complaint issues and also seems to push it back on the customer as he did with my wife stating that he was sorry to hear that she "misplaced" her coat. His sneaky tactics are so transparent if you take the time to read the other reviews online

How could anyone chose to stay here, or have their wedding here, when they couldn't be sure that their valuables or their guests valuables will be safe in their rooms or when they couldn't be sure that the hotel manager would treat them or their guests with respect if any...

We had the worst experience imaginable at Mother's Day Afternoon Tea. After spending a good amount of time looking around for the perfect place to take my mam, I chose Bellinter House after unfortunately being extremely misled by their website and how amazing the "Deluxe Lir Afternoon Tea" sounded. Upon booking, I chose the library for afternoon tea because it's the kind of atmosphere my mam and I like when we go for afternoon tea usually. While booking I also requested one vegetarian option. And the day before I emailed again just to confirm the request to which I was told it was noted. When we arrived we were sent downstairs and told someone will meet us there & take us to our table. A lady greeted us at the ballroom entrance and told us to follow her. She then proceeded to gesture towards a table in that room. Before we sat I told her we had booked the library & her response was "oh we had to move a few things around this morning & sure why would you want to sit in a library with views like this?!" The view she was talking about was a big glass wall along the side of the room. We'd have had to look into people's faces if we wanted to actually look out. Instead I was facing a bar in a ballroom, completely opposite of the setting I booked. I felt like I was at a wedding! The lady then asked if she could start us with tea or coffee & when asked what tea they had she struggled to come up with a few but then came over with a basket of basic flavoured tea bags. I've never been to afternoon tea before that didn't serve loose leaf. Absolutely shocking for the price of the "deluxe" afternoon tea. After about 10 minutes another lady came over to ask if we looked at the menu and if we were ready for it. She asked if we had any allergies or changes and so even after requesting a vegetarian option twice I STILL had to ask for one vegetarian. So what was the point of asking for requests? The trays looked measly when they arrived. The sandwiches were tiny with no imagination. My mam's vegetarian option was iceberg lettuce and red onion between two tiny pieces of bread. We weren't asked if we would like a hot cup of tea until we were almost finished with all of the plates. When the waitress was collecting our plates she asked if we would like coffee. My mam went for an oat milk latte. After 15 minutes of waiting and no latte in sight, I asked if we could just pay the bill. The waitress told us they couldn't find oat milk but upstairs had found some and assured us it was being made so we waited. After another few minutes another girl came with the latte and said "I'm sorry, we don't have any oat milk but I can offer you coconut or almond milk on the side" while trying to hand my mam a made latte. My mam questioned what the latte she was trying to give her was made with and she replied "oh just with the milk from the machine". I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. So after waiting 20 minutes in total for a latte, we ended up with none! I asked the waitress as we were paying what the difference was between their regular afternoon tea and the Deluxe Lir Afternoon Tea that we were supposedly "presented with Lir chocolates for an extra touch of indulgence" was, because I was struggling to see the difference between the menus for the price. She told us it was the chocolate deserts. To me they looked like any other desserts bar the one tiny little foil wrapped chocolate on the plate. So from what I can tell we paid an extra €20 for two tiny chocolates! I also told her we had booked the library to which she was shocked because she told us they only serve lunch in the library and not afternoon tea. So were we just lied to the whole booking and then again by the first lady who sat us down? €39.50pp!! More expensive than any of the incredible afternoon tea experiences we had elsewhere and all we got was appalling service, mediocre food & not even an email to say we wouldn't be seated where we booked! Oh and we went home hungry. What a shame. The setting is beautiful but the service and food needs a lot of...

We are staying at a friend’s place in Galway while they’re in Australia and after our trip to the Cliffs of Moher we figured that it was just too far to head to Newgrange (minimum 2 ‘Google’ Hours drive) spend 2-3 hours there and then another 2 google hours drive back. But we really wanted to visit Newgrange so googled ‘Hotels close to Newgrange who take Dogs’ - WOW! Best of fortune that saw us find Bellinter House - that not only took our booking with a chihuahua/Jack Russell for a fee of €20 (€10 per night after the first night) - but was also OUTSTANDING! I hesitate to use capital letters usually - it’s so dreadfully shouty - but since I’ve been singing Bellinter’s praises since we checked out, it’s worth getting shouty about. We had a warm, spacious, stylishly decorated room in the stables (the dog friendly suites). It had a massive bath tub with shower over which was much appreciated. We initially thought hmmmm - stables… but had no need to worry (and with the tiny number of places that even consider taking dogs… it was a no-brainer). We arrived at 4 pm check in time after a great visit to Newgrange. We’d already had a great chat with Laura on the phone when we added our dog to the booking and requested a bathtub. We were met and welcomed by Emer and requested a table for 7 pm for our Drawing Room dinner (heavens knows why but the dining area was packed at 5 pm and we needlessly worried we wouldn’t fit). By 7 pm it was just 2-3 tables and gloriously peaceful. We had the midweek Bellinter Bliss package deal of €149 which included our room, a main course dinner for two with a wine or beer and breakfast the next morning in the swish Prestons Restaurant. As the woman at the Trim Info Centre said - for two of you???!!! We know - we were raving about it - awesome value in Ireland these days and we’re hoping we can return for a very special birthday in January. That’s right - it’s that good! Before dinner we tootled over to the Spa area to use the hot tub under the stars then had a luxurious hot shower with fabulous shampoo/conditioner/body wash in the spa changing rooms. The hot tub was super clean, well chlorinated and just perfect for two people and we soaked for a good while. Trundled back to our fabulous room taking photos of the Christmassy exterior of the main house on the way and changed for dinner. Which was also fabulous - I am running out of superlatives. We ordered the fish and chips with chunky chips and the burger with chunky chips. Both very yummy - well cooked, beautifully presented and had a Guinness and a lush red wine as our drinks. Perfect serving sizes. We were well looked after by the staff who were friendly and welcoming - Sophie and Aaron from memory. It had been a long day and the the bed was comfortable - which I almost never get to say about accommodations. Not the most comfortable bed ever (that is a lot of beds) - but if I say it was comfy then that is one exceptionally comfy bed. Also loved the vintage Art Deco furnishings in the room - glorious, big, stylish furniture and crisp white linens and soft, fluffy pillows (again a bugbear - so often hotels just keep using pillows long after they’ve died and gone to pillow purgatory). The amenities were great - chocolate nibblies, nespresso coffee machine and we requested a kettle as well and a couple of blankets - nothing was too much trouble (the room was cosy and warm - but I find hotel duvets are warm enough for an iceage and switch to a blanket eventually). Ger (Geraldine) in Prestons made our breakfast a delight - ample continental offerings and for a change we went for the poached eggs, smoked salmon and avocado option - though the full Irish is available. OK. We don’t normally prattle this long with a review and very, very rarely do I need the imaginary 6th star on Google - but I wish we had it here. We had a superb stay at Bellinter House and highly recommend it - great for visiting the area or for locals, a nice night out and a meal in the Dining Room. The only bad thing about the stay? Leaving. One night...