Carbis Bay Hotel & Estate — Hotel in Great Britain

Stayed at the carbis bay estate in a beach house, not much signage on where to go so ended up entering through the restaurant rather than the reception, straight away the reception staff were friendly and helpful, the gent on the desk showed us to the beach house, once in the room tried to book a table using their Tablet rather than a phone or information book, tried to book in at the gannet Inn and it gave a note to say they would contact us, 30 minutes later walked to Walters on the beach and was told there was no tables available for the whole evening, tired to book the orangry restaurant on the tablet and had the same message they would contact us, after not hearing anything, we decided the only option was to order room service as ide had a drink already and didn't want to drive, staying with a child there was no kids food on the menu, so shared food we ordered which came to a total of £115 for 3 course room service( turns out they ring your mobile to tell you the restaurants are booked but being down on the beach there was no signal so had a voicemail when we went out the next day and had signal as no phone in the room, next morning we had a breakfast hamper which would be delivered to the room, turned up at the time ordered but unfortunately the bacon was tough, some items was missing but we chose to ignore that, there was no option to order drinks so had the choice of tea or coffee from the room or we could walk to the main restaurant to get a drink then take it back to the room, might as well eat in the main restaurant which was our choice the second morning, the second evening we chose to eat out after the experience of trying to book at one of the restaurants on the estate, breakfast the second morning was met by what seemed an unhappy member of staff who I felt found every request by guests to be a choir, and I believe by the way she spoke to other members of staff in front of guest was possibly restaurant manager or head waiting staff, asked for a bowl of watermelon for my child as we had this in our hamper the morning before and was told no it will be a bowl of mixed fruit with watermelon mixed in, no choice of cereals seemed to be offered but maybe if we had asked there might of been some options but this wasn't shown anywhere, the same staff member got quite frustrated when another mother and daughter was joined by her husband and son and asked to move to a table for 4, she made it seem quite a big issue, she also told another member of staff to get on with her work after she had been talking/ entertaining a different couple for more than a few minutes (I'm my eyes they are the to entertain and interact with guests) but still wasn't impressed with the breakfast we both chosse an omlet and found both to have no seasoning and very bland, the room itself was tired, broken tiles throughout shower had black mould around the bottom, no curtains in the room or kitchen just blinds meant at 5am the sun lit the whole room up, the covering on the wardrobe was peeling off, outside the paint had rust marks from metal and random nails left in the decorative brick work, on check out the receptionist seemed embarrassed that we didn't 100% enjoy our stay but did offer us to sit and wait for a manager to discuss our issues, but not knowing how long they would take wnd with a 4 year old who wanted to get going to the theme park we chosse to leave as didn't believe it would really make much difference, if it was a big issue for them I'm sure the would ring or email to discus any issues we had, amazing location right on the beach and great view from the room, bur it was always overshadowed by the fact we paid £1200 for 2night just for the room, on check out also noted after mentioning the disappointment the food bill was not the £115 displayed when ordering, not sure if the prices were wrong on the menu or they discounted for the disappointment there was no mention of it, they also add on a £10 donation for the cornwall air ambulance which they do advise they can remove if you wish not to pay, but we...

Location was great but the stay was not great.

We booked for the spa swimming pool and hotub facilities. When I called about our stay to check on things two nights before we were told there is no spa facilities . This infuriated us as this was our honeymoon and we were paying in excess of £350 per night . We were offered a refund but At this stage in August there was no way we could change location to another hotel. This was supposed to be our honeymoon. Anyhow we thought let's just go with it but then.......

.....No AC as building is old Victorian. Which is fine but when I said it was warm there was no offer of a fan etc to cool down the room. The staff at this point were not helpful and we felt very uncomfortable speaking to the ones on the first night. We just had to make do . So the nights and sleep ended up being uncomfortable, so rather than come back refreshed felt more tired when we got home. So much for a relaxing honeymoon.

We also had three nights where we had several bees enter the room, again can't do anything about nature but there was no offer of any assistance, I couldn't get hold of any staff at night either. Phone kept on ringing and ringing . So I had to some how get rid of them. Being nature conscience I did not want to harm the bees at all so it took me a long time to get rid of them by opening the room door windows , and then turning the lights off. Almost 45-60 mins on all occasions and at 12-1am . They came back on another night but by this point i gave up asking for the staff for any assistance, I did feel one of the staff members were rude on the first day, so this set the tone in the beginning. Actually felt like a lower class customer but I had to pretend to keep up appearances as my wife was already very unhappy especially as we were on honeymoon. I have to admit there was some pleasant and nicely spoken staff but a couple I didn't feel comfortable talking to.l, especially when we complained about not being told the spa services were unavailable and this was not due to any sort of lockdown but because they were being refurbished!!! And we only found out when I called two days ahead of the trip.

As a form of compensation we received complementary afternoon tea , which is £30. So this was for the facilities being closed which we were paying in excess of £350 per night to stay, I don't need to say more on what I think of that compensation.

We're not exactly well off, so we had to save for a lot of months for this package to make our honeymoon worthwhile, especially after having to cancel it three times due to covid lockdown. So when this incident happened with the hotel we were not pleased whatsoever . Again it all started off by us calling in and then finding out the facilities were suspended due to maintenance, this was two days before we were traveling there .

Honestly if I knew how bad it would get I really would have cancelled the honeymoon all together or rebooked elsewhere in the country. Really has left a sour taste. It was a bad experience for me and my wife , we thought we will make do with it as we didn't have many options two days before the trip , but can't explain how bad it got and she was in bits during and after. The area and other places we visited made up for it but not happy with the stay. Ended up coming back off annual leave and our honeymoon more tired. This isn't what you want when you have taken time off work , had a stressful wedding.

Again Location to carbis bay and breakfast area was good. Other than that I did not enjoy it due to the warm horrible uncomfortable nights and adverse effect on our honeymoon . Safely say I wouldn't recommend the place to friends which were thinking of booking too, only because the way we were treated and how uncomfortable the stay was , hot muggy room really not...

I really wanted to like this hotel. It COULD be something great - a place worthy of annual summer holidays and maybe some special Christmas holidays thrown in. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies in food, service, and accommodation as well as lack of basic services/amenities makes it hard to recommend. Cleanliness in the public areas was also a concern (i.e. I had a drink in one of their lounges one of my first nights and it left a ring on the glass table - that ring stayed there for two days). They clearly weren't cleaning the common areas which just seems incredibly irresponsible.

Accommodation: We stayed in the main hotel and the room was well-appointed and of adequate size though the hotel has seen better days. The "king size" bed they advertise is really just two twin beds connected together and, as such, there's a hard, rigid line that protrudes down the middle of the bed where the two mattresses meet (which the thin sheets do nothing to mask). Aside from this, it has to be one of the hardest beds I've ever slept on. My husband decided our daughter's little cot was more comfortable and slept on that for a week, so I shared the "king bed" with my daughter . I can usually sleep on anything but this bed was unlike anything I've ever experienced anywhere. I actually couldn't wait to leave so I could get a decent night's sleep - we left more exhausted than we came. Initially, we were hoping to come back and stay in one of the hotel's beachfront condos but if the beds are anything like this, we'll pass.

Food: 1849 was great - food and service! Breakfast was also good. It's mostly downhill from there. The Conservatory was average in terms of food quality but the service was really horrible (be ready to search for waitstaff if you need anything - from a table, to a menu to your bill). The Beach Hut was largely disappointing in both food and service (which is unfortunate, as it's the restaurant the hotel uses for their room service deliveries). At any rate, we tried it a couple of times, ordering appetizers, main entrees and pizzas. The main entrees were better than their truly sad pizzas but it was all pretty boring and tasteless. Though we were looking forward to the convenience of not having to drive out for lunch and dinner each day, we ended up eating off resort for a good portion of our stay.

Service: Absolutely, hands down, the most frustrating part of our holiday. I've never see a place so inconsistent. From not replying back to emails for days, to phone numbers nobody would answer, to forgetting to put in our order at the Beach Hut which resulted in an hour long wait for our meal, to incorrectly scheduling my spa appointment, to openly annoyed waitstaff at the Conservatory. I've never seen staff look so irritated and frustrated with both each other and guests throughout so many service points in one hotel.

Finally, with regards to amenities, Carbis Bay Hotel, again, fell short. There were no beach towels for the beach, no beachside changing areas or showers, there wasn't even a place to rinse the sand from your feet/shoes before reentering the hotel. Perhaps most disappointing - there were no apologies or any attempt to make any of the acknowledged "wrongs" right. Nobody once asked our how our stay was (not even during checkout - to anyone from what I could overhear). There was no follow-up customer survey via email. Nothing - it felt like they truly didn't care. One final note, the beach is privately-owned but not by Carbis Bay Hotel, so it can get quite packed during the holiday season.

At the end, I left wishing we'd booked a luxury...