Crieff Hydro Hotel — Hotel in Great Britain

Crieff Hydro is personally one of my favourite hotels. I think the location is fantastic, the staff are normally great, the facilities are out of this world. The new adventure park that has been added over the last few years is excellent. We love going walking with the alpacas and spending time outdoors on the nature trails and around the animal enclosures. Great for kids with one of the best play parks I’ve seen. The staff at the adventure park are second to non with the best and most welcoming vibe and have always made us feel welcome. I normally stay at the hydro for multiple nights with my family but decided last minute today to go and have a spur of the moment day with my friend and her baby. As usual, we had a lovely walk up to the adventure park and the staff greeted us. We walked round the animals and hung out there for an hour and a half before heading down to the hotel to get dinner. As I’ve stated previously, I’ve stayed at the hotel multiple times before on the weekend and it wasn’t particularly busy on a Sunday, so didn’t think this one off not booking a restaurant reservation would be an issue. Upon arriving at the reception desk to the hotel we were in the company of AJ, a trainee receptionist. At this point I would just like to emphasise how fantastic the staff at Crieff hydro normally are. Last year, when my mum was waiting to start her cancer treatment, they went above and beyond to help me make that trip as special as possible. My mum even gave her feedback via review as to how fantastic the stay was including all the restaurants and facilities, along with the staff. However, this time there was a change in the vibe when greeted. When I went up-to the reception desk, I was questioned if we had a booking, when I said no the lady scoffed and said that we would be lucky to get a table at such short notice. We were then questioned which restaurant we wanted to dine in - the fine dining one is closed today - so that meant the terrace. Personally if the hotel is so packed out, I would expect both restaurants to be open to accommodate such volume. We were asked did we have a hotel reservation, as if that would have made a difference if we got a table and replied “no not this time but have stated many times before”. AJ then found a booking but without telling us the time questioned “how long am I willing to wait” I found that really quite patronising to be honest and when I said about half an hour tops, I was greeted by yet another cheeky remark in the form of “well good luck with that the only table we have available is half past 8” this was 5pm. All of a sudden a table became available, but when she “so called” went to book it it froze and flashed up unavailable. At this point me and my friend just looked at each other in disbelief. Having both worked for 2 of the biggest luxury brands in the world, we appreciate good customer service and how to provide it and this wasn’t it. Not believing that there actually was any effort or attempt at booking a table, we went down to the restaurant ourselves and were greeted by an 80 percent empty restaurant, lovely staff and were shown to a table straight away. Good food, good service was a really great time. I am lucky enough to travel for a living and have stayed in many hotels, I have never really been left to feel so in shock before. When leaving the hotel we seen that she was serving 2 older ladies at reception and they were laughing and smiling. That made us question if it was because we were 2 young girls with a baby that we were treated this way. My age isn’t something I expect to be judged on at any hotel, let alone a luxury one like the hydro so I really hope this wasn’t the case. Tried to phone 8 times to speak to a manger when I got home but it appears phones aren’t answered after 9 pm. One blip that put a damper on our opinion...

The end of yet another cornerstone of an upmarket scottish holiday.

I've been staying at the hydro now, on and off for years, also popping in for lunch/dinner as a day guest.

I've enjoyed my time there, the hotel itself stands within magnificent grounds and location.

I'm lucky enough to work in the travel industry and have stayed in hotels around the world ranging from good to outstanding.

Creiff Hydro is a shadow of its former self. My girlfriend and I actually left mid-stay.

We paid for an "upgraded" room, which was tired. There was stains on the unhovered carpet, a curtain was hanging off it's rails, there was a dirty towel in the bathroom.

We tried to overlook this as the hydro would come through and deliver in other ways right!? It ceartingly didn't.

Every door closing in the corridor, and general banging from next door ensured we didn't even have a decent sleep.

Breakfast!?

It's a buffet - for a 4* "premium hotel"!?

Now I get that some "top end" hotels have gone this way, but TBF most supplement the buffet with an additional order menu for items like poached eggs and salmon (don't expect the latter). The buffet was chaos, we were taken to a table and abandoned.

On approaching the hot plate, I pulled out two plates in a row that were obviously stained. The rest of the plates looked barely washed, same as the cutlery. The rest of the breakfast could only be described as "premier inn" - legitimately.

The bacon & sausages were of Aldi quality, and at 0915 they were completely out of poached eggs. I returned at 0945 only to be told by the chef that "there's nothing in there buddy" and when I asked if there was supposed to be poached eggs, he replied "you have to order that from your table!" - strange I guess the pots with hot boiling water were for morning broccoli!? The reality was, he quite clearly couldn't be bothered to cook up a few more poached eggs. Infact he started switching off and clearing up at 0945, breakfast is advertised until 1000.

Later, I heard three members of staff moaning about "demanding" customers - I know right, imagine expecting poached eggs in a 4* hotel !?

Additionally, the "hydro" has started charging for using their "hydro" facilities, even for paying guests 🙈 £30 each for 2 hrs. Whilst most that can afford to pay £200 + per night won't blink an eyelid at these charges - it's cheeky. Imagine Cameron House charging you to use the very facilities that attracted you to them in the first place.

For complete transparency, the duty manager did offer to upgrade our room on the 2nd night due to the poor experience of the "upgraded" room & provide dinner on the 2nd night after the woeful breakfast experience.

However, we were so utterly disappointed in the place that the offer of an upgrade and dinner wasn't enough, and we packed our bags and left.

Closing comments by the duty manager, although apologetic, was that "their hotel wasn't for everyone" I think that utterly speaks for itself.

Yet its clear demise, is symbolic of the greater decline in the hospitality sector in Scotland and the wider UK. No longer can you spend a significant amount of your hard earned money and enjoy a premium Scotland/UK stay - you'll probably have to go full blown and stay at Gleneagles to do so.

Premier inn breakfast. Some cheeky staff. Tired rooms. Overpriced meals & additional charges to do anything other than go for a walk (I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to charge for that next 😬🤣)

We'll take our...

I'm surprised I'm even typing this level of review. Really looked forward to a couple of days of luxury but the first issue may have been out own fault. Never realised how children focused the hotel was and having no kids with us perhaps we would have been better booking elsewhere. The kids entertainment was outside and it didn't seem to matter where you went, you heard the entertainers through the very large speakers. Maybe that was out fault but if you aren't taking young family don't go. Obviously things with COVID have caused various issues but my experience was not good. The hotel seemed to have lots of activities and entertainment but nothing was advertised in the the hotel and on arrival nothing was explained. There is a website but its not great and sometimes the entertainment didn't match what was on the website anyway. We had a standard room and it was large and comfy enough etc. There was a kettle but no proper cups or glasses in the room. There was however 2 sealed takeaway drink cups which had several sachets of tea and coffee but only 2 pots of milk??? What a waste, you could only have 1 coffee each and then needed another pack to get more milk. Dont know where they were buying these but it was horrible having disposable cups. The resteraunts were ok food wise but really nothing special. The service was however was awful. You had to book times for dinner and breakfast which is understandable at the moment but one night once we were seated and ordered we still waited 25 mins to get our bottle of wine! It sat on the bar during that time and i could see it. The supervisor passed it at least 4 times, the barman never did anything about it and our waitress never noticed either. I then said something and we got the wine. The supervisor then gave us 2 gin cocktails to apologise without asking, but my wife doesn't drink gin so we gave it to another table. It wasnt just us, at least one other family walked out that night and others were waiting a long time for food. We were chatting about it even. Even being booked in for breakfast, we were asked to sit and wait before we got in. 20 minutes it took. Bins were full, no bowls for cereal etc. The cooked breakfasts were not good and it felt like a Spanish all inclusive family hotel. Nothing wrong with that did it for years with our kids but at the Crief Hydro, that's not what i expected. The front of house staff were nice and friendly but were young and inexperienced or obviously new to the hotel. So either the management took a chance when booking out the hotel and didn't get the staff returning as they had hoped, or didn't care. Its either greed or bad management. If there had been an explanation when we arrived, a reduced rate or something to manage expectation, as the service was not going to be as good as expected, you could understand but there was nothing at all said or done. Even when we booked out it was obvious. A supervisor took our key card and said thank you. No asking if we enjoyed our stay and no engagement. TBH i think the staff were embarassed. My wife has replied to an email asking about our sray 2 weeks ago and has had no reply. Very expensive, over rated and 2 very disappointed guests. I imagine it could've been a great stay but this was a long way below a standard i...