Bovey Castle — Hotel in Teignbridge

When reading this review remember that this hotel advertises itself as a "5 Star Hotel"

What's Good: Golf course is 1st class Grounds are 1st class and stunning Dog Friendly Pickup in the Defender Massage was good but very expensive.

What's Bad The Staff It was the day of my wedding and I requested a taxi at the reception for 11:30 to the venue. At 1115 I asked if the taxi took card payment, the response from the receptionist was a firm "No". I asked if the receptionist was sure and she replied "yes I'm sure". I replied "Where is the cash machine? To which she replied "Morten Hampstead" and nothing else. Bearing in mind I needed a taxi to get to the wedding venue I pleaded with her to call the taxi company and ask if they could confirm if they took card payment as I currently had no method of transport. She begrudgingly called the taxi firm and guess what, the taxi firm took card payments. No apology and no effort to help me when she found out I had no cash in my wallet.

It took me 45 minutes and 3 redirections across the hotel to order a coffee. After being redirected to another part of the hotel I finally gave up and walked into a staff area of the hotel to find someone to serve me. This member of staff then forwarded me onto another member of staff who then took my order. I asked for 1 tea 1 coffee with cold milk and a sandwich to which I got the reply "we don't serve sandwiches until 12, it was 1150 when I made the order. Also I've never heard of a 5 star hotel not being able to make a sandwich at 1150 in the morning, the waiter told me to come back and order a sandwich in 10 minutes, to which I asked if he could take the order and fire it at 12, he scratched his head and said "yeah i guess so". Also the milk wasn't cold but piping hot (burnt). The waiter who took the order was very charming but his uniform was covered in stains, creases and his shirt was untucked. He was a nice enough guy but it looked like he'd been sleeping in his uniform.

Ordered breakfast in bed and the only half the order arrived. I asked the staff member if he could bring the full English breakfast up. When it arrived it was 5 items on a plate and nothing else. No cutlery, no napkin, no toast, no butter, no beans, no sauce, no salt and pepper, no tray to put the plate on. The ingredients on the plate weren't even of high quality. My wife's continental breakfast was very basic and the pastries looked like the frozens ones you get from Aldi. After this we gave up with food in the hotel and just stuck with the local pubs.

After Sunday lunch in a pub we went back to the hotel for some drinks in one of the lounges. Which was fine, but sadly on checkout the hotel had billed another rooms drinks onto our bill. Great! 😃 👍

At the entrance I asked the footman if he could show me where Bovey Castle was on the big map above the Welly rack. His response, "I don't know" great! 😃 👍

The hotel offer valet parking with a big sign saying "VALET PARKING" by the front door. When my friends who were staying in the hotel pulled up the entrance there was an awkward 15 or so seconds where the footman just looked at him, to which my friend said "shall I just go and park the car?" To which the footman replied " yeah mate, if you could just go and park it round the back on the right hand side" great 😃 👍

I asked for a 6am wake up call and was never given the wake-up call.

When asking for the footman for Welly boots in my size, he gave me 1 of the welly boots then walked off, great 😃👍

The Decor The place is feeling tired, with scuffed wall paper, stained floors and wobbly sink taps in the rooms.

The Communal Areas They are generally quite nice but the dining rooms feel tired.

Overall it was a very disappointing 3 night stay at the hotel. If I could start over I would have spent all that money on one of the beautiful Airbnbs in the area and used the change to eat steak for breakfast lunch and dinner in the local pubs. What a shame as it's such a beautiful building in an...

Have wanted to stay here for a while. So was very much looking forward to staying here in early June for a family birthday celebration. Mixed accommodation between lodge and hotel. Location is amazing, the wildlife of Dartmoor is truly on your door. It made our stay. Main restaurants staff are lovely and the food in the Great Western was really good. But oh my goodness! They have so much to learn! Definitely not 5 star. They miss all the details. Where to begin, the Spa. After a lengthy discussion with reservations they still made my Mum pay for her birthday Spa treatment when I’d asked for it to be put on my room, the worst part being they made no attempt to apologise even though I chased them 3 times. Terrible attitude. The rooms are dated - broken head boards, broken lights (requested fixing a flickering light, no one ever came even though I chased twice), terrible decor, the kitchens in the lodges (suitable for at least 6 people) have a kettle for 2 people, no knives for cooking, no drying up cloths! I mean we must have annoyed them so much because we rang reception non stop. No room service to lodge without 24 hours notice - this is not 5 star! And more than that it doesn’t say anywhere that 24 hours are required to order. But when do you know you want room service 24 hours before you do? The lodges are not cheap, so why the second rate service? Ordering from restaurants and bars outside of the actual restaurants was really difficult. We couldn’t order certain drinks at the bar, even though they were served in the restaurants, we were denied ordering from the kids menu when sitting outside (?!), so we walked to Smiths asked them and they said of course! It just felt everything was a ball ache for them. Cocktails were insanely expensive and I could have made them better myself. Poor quality. They also have a parrot who is in a cage in one of their lounge rooms. Awful. Poor bird. Tiny cage, on its own. Shame on the hotel for this. Really not acceptable. No kids club outside of holidays, why is this rated a family hotel? Late check out is charged £75 an hour, and there is no flexibility here whatsoever, so our 1 year old had to miss his nap. All of the above is them missing the finer details that makes a 5 star hotel. I’ve worked in one, I’ve stayed in many. But probably the most frustrating was their obsession with plastic. Every drink had green plastic straws - staff were obsessed in giving my children straws even when asked not to. Single use plastic straws make your hotel cheap. Ask your guests if they want them, and if they do I know for a fact there are excellent quality paper straws that look and feel nicer than plastic straws. Single use plastic cups in the spa and swimming pool for drinking water, no recycling in the lodges. Bathroom products from miles away, in tiny plastic bottles destined for our oceans. Look at the environment surrounding the hotel? It’s beautiful and special, why are they ignoring that? I think people who choose quality appreciate a sustainable approach. Overall wonderful location, good golf course (from what i hear), good food but the rest? Disappointing, I just wouldn’t bother. Old attitudes to hotel management. Many better...

Absolutely beautiful, peaceful place. Our family stayed in one of the spotless lodges and loved it. Visited during Easter break when it was quiet and a little rainy and felt as though we had fallen into Narnia. Took part in several of the activities which were very professionally managed with top quality equipment (husband thought the clay pigeon guns were a little on the small side). Went on the deer park tour which was very interesting and the kids very much enjoyed. The castle and grounds are beautiful, and there is a walk through the woods to the quaint and perfect Devonshire hamlet of North Bovey with a nice pub, Ring of Bells, and medeival church to explore. We had an excellent tea by the lounge fire and a children's tea upon our arrival, which the kitchen held for us as we arrived late. For the most part, the staff were lovely and could have walked off the set of a movie about Eton Collge or Oxford University :) Harry, the activities director was great. We had one not so good experience with the guy who took us out to feed the ferrets and chickens who was a little grumpy with children...but maybe he was having a bad day. Lovely indoor swimming pool, nice play room for younger children. We wished we'd had more time to just chill out at the hotel. We also enjoyed exploring the surrounding area, the tors and villages, and had a completely delicious lunch and tea at the Old Forge in Chagford. For the most part, the hotel food was very good, Smith's Brasserie had solid pizza and great fish n chips. There is also a menu that can be delivered to the lodges if you are staying there (including Italian and Indian themed menus). Breakfast is held in the Great Western Grill and we found it was a bit too posh in there for children (we wanted them to enjoy their porridge instead of worrying overly about appropriate table manners) so we requested take out after the first day and they were very accommodating and even made hot chocolate to go for the kids. Breakfast had a selection of English and American foods (although the American pancakes were overcooked and would advise trying the English foods instead). The lodges look like a little fairytale village and are very nice inside and out. We stayed in G4 and it was 3 stories, spacious, clean and home-like. The beds were very comfortable, and the kitchen well-appointed (take your own seasonings if you plan to cook). Note to tourists: plan your driving routes before you leave the hotel using an old A to Z or Google maps using as many B roads as possible. Once you get out on the moors, both Google and sat nav can lose service and start taking you on a wild goose chase down, very narrow, windy, country lanes as they try to reconnect and find the most direct route (which is not necessarily the most driver friendly). Having to get out of the car at night to open and close gates on a misty moor, not sure if the sat nav is going to find the castle by morning, and imagining the Hound of the Baskervilles coming around the corner at any moment can be a little intimidating! On one such road someone had lost their wing mirror on a narrow, walled road and just left it there, I guess they decided to cut...