The Boat House Guesthouse — Hotel in Great Britain

We looked for a last minute hotel for a family visit to Landmark Forrest Adventure park. Location wise, this place is excellent for exploring Aviemore and Carrbridge. But that’s the only positive to say about the place.

On arrival, the front garden is full of building supplies. Clearly work is being undertaken, but hasn’t started, and there was no sign of any work that took place whilst we were there. Check in is done via a phone call which is written on a piece of paper and taped to the front door. No one was actually present on arrival. They rushed through our arrival instructions, but on asking about the specific dietary restrictions that we had included on our booking, we were informed that they had nothing in to cater, making the ‘special requests’ section of booking utterly pointless.

The next thing you become aware of is the horrendous smell that pervades the place. Stale greasy food smell is everywhere. As soon as we make it to the room we had to throw open the window that stayed open throughout.

As a family of three, we were given the ‘deluxe’ 4 poster bed room. The bedroom itself is a standard double room, made to feel exceptionally tiny by a pine 4 poster frame that only succeeds in making the room feel very small. I had no choice but to shuffle sideways to get into bed every night. The additional bed wedged into the room for our son only made it feel smaller. We didn’t actually unpack our suitcase, as we had no where to put anything.

The attached bathroom was actually very spacious, spoiled by the poor cleanliness and mould that could have been solved if an extraction fan or window had been installed during the conversion.

The walls in the house are quite thin, so there isn’t much privacy, and we experienced this in full force with the anti social guests who sat in the guest living room talking loudly, interspersed with occasionally shouting at their children until 3 am. If any staff had actually been present to look after front of house, they may have dealt with it, but we didn’t actually see anyone from the hotel until we were leaving.

I have seen reviews commenting on the quality of the breakfast, but I can’t comment on the quality as we left early as the smell of previous breakfasts was just too off putting.

All in all, I would recommend finding anywhere else to stay...

We Arrived at our chalet 😂 caravan at check-in time of 4 p.m. We are a family of five and were led to believe when we booked that we would be in a two-bedroom chalet at the side of the guesthouse according to the pictures and description on the website.|On arrival, we were greeted by a man who was wearing dirty clothing/gardening clothes. The smell from the guesthouse when the door opened was one I won't forget.|When I asked if our lodge was ready for us, he pointed to a run-down caravan at the side of the house. I stated that it wasn't a lodge, it was a caravan. 😂 Anyway, we had driven 2 hours, had a lovely day at Landmark Forest Adventure Park for my son's 5th birthday, and thought, okay, it's one night, let's stay. Although, one night in a caravan for £150 is very steep, but we thought we'd enjoy the rest of our son's birthday.||Oh my days, the caravan... where do I start? The smell was awful, and everything looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. It was old, greasy, and in need of a match, not bleach.||I got as far as the kitchen and turned to go and cancel our night away. I wouldn't put a dog in there for a night, let alone my family!!||We spoke with the owner and came to an agreement that if we canceled the booking on Booking.com, he would agree to the cancellation if we gave him £50 cash.||To be honest, this was the best experience of the The Boat House chalet/lodge/CARAVAN!!!||Only got a photo of the outside of the caravan as didn't stay inside long enough...

We had a beautiful stay in December-January at the family room with en-suite bathroom. The room was clean, the bathroom was newly renovated! The room had everything one might need, some tea and hot chocolate for afternoon tea snack, very cosy! We also had a hearty delicious breakfast upon our special request, but also there were some other items like cereal, juice and tea&coffee available to guests. Harry and his wife were welcoming, Harry also made sure to reassure our journey as we had no winter tyres and worried for our car skidding. Took me good half a year to write this review, but if we ever go to Cairngorms again would love to stay at the same place again!

Wishing the owners all the best with their guesthouse! :)

Attached are some beautiful pictures I took (it snowed the night we stayed there!!) Sorry no pics of the room but there was a review with the exact same room...