Loch Leven Hotel — Restaurant in Scotland

Most disappointing stay ever. Hospitality - tremendously bad. I had first-hand experience to see it leads from, their manager, Tracey. Me and my partner arrived, great 1st impression. Clean, located in a beautiful area(however the hotel nor pods offer great views, only from the dining area offering a stream of loch Leven, and round the back way from the pods of parts of mountains, the views are not worth the money and how the staff treat you.) The only kindness we received from staff during our stay, is at check in, after, we did not see that girl again. However, she did tell us that the pod is prepared for us: heating and lights switched on, which it wasn’t, but that was a forgivable and innocent mistake, which leads to my next point: the pod is not designed well. The heating is in the floors and isn't evenly spread with freezing patches. We struggled heating up the pod for a couple of hours. During the night the ventilation flap must have been broken or wrongly fitted and it was a windy night so as you can imagine, not a very good sleep which we reported to the staff the next day, we had literally said to them after they said “we’ll see what can be done” with no urgent intention to fix it that we are happy to buy tape to tape it ourselves we just need to know whether someone Will fix it before the night or not, which we got the exact same response to. Back to our first night, we went for dinner, the food is completely tasteless and not seasoned well, if you are going to charge £16-£18 for a dish, make it good, and definitely don't bring olive oil and bread to us with a fuss after we've asked nicely for it, it is not a big ask. From our entire stay, only two dishes we had were actually worth the price and it was the Gnocchi’s (after adding salt) and a chocolate and coconut cake slice. Forward to the flap fixing, eventually after emphasis they fixed it. Every dinner was served with the same passive aggressiveness when asked for olive oil and bread (which we got charged extra for - £1.60 per two bread slices). We still made the most of it, continued being nice to staff, wanting to enjoy our time there hassle-free.

Our last day we had booked a breakfast slot however we had slept in, went to the main building in the hopes of moving it forward, went in and said good morning to Tracey who was on reception with customers so we thought we’ll head to the dining area where the other waitress will be to ask her instead. To our shock Tracey is shouting to us down the hall in front of the other customers with a agressive tone that "You've missed breakfast the kitchens closed” We were so stunned by her unprofessionally shouting to us that we looked at each other, walked back up the hall and left the building, then I realised that she offered us a later slot the night before and also we had breakfast paid for prior, so I decided to go back to ask if we could rebook to a later slot, I came in, reception was empty, I walk to the dining area with the kitchen to the left, to my surprise overhear Tracey talking about us and decide to listen in. She was bad-mouthing us and to end it she stated “They were asking for olive oil and bread and asking for stuff so I was like “Nah F*ck off”.” I said Excuse me that’s me you're talking about, she came out stumbling, shivering with embarrassment, the treatment we received from her until that point was already completely atrocious but that was completely unacceptable.

She should not be in a position where she has direct contact with clients as she is trashing and destroying the hotels’ reputation and the rest of the waiting staff need customer service training.

Wont be back and don't recommend this hotel to anyone, better off tent camping than having to deal with staffs’ passive aggressiveness and their rude attitude towards you when you've been nice to them and done nothing to deserve that type of treatment, especially when you're paying to have...

We stayed here for 5 nights recently, and although it was the most expensive hotel of all the ones we stayed in (even more expensive per night than a 4 star hotel) it turned out to be the worst experience.

First, the good.... the location was perfect for trips out to Glen Coe, Fort William, Oban and Ben Nevis. It's right next to the Lochs, and while the property doesn't front the water there is a path that goes down there with walks alongside the Loch. The staff were also, for the most part, very friendly, especially Karen.

The Not so Good..... x We stayed in a Pod, which although it commands a premium price, is in no way a premium experience. It's high price glamping basically. x The pod on paper is quite roomy, but in practice the bed and the shower fight for space at one end with both ending up feeling extremely cramped. x The shower/toilet/sink combination is actually a wet room, and through an unfortunate combination of a 90% blocked drain and bad ventilation it always had a musty, humid smell that fills the room and needed a lot of airing to get rid off.... which then lets the midges in. x The lack of ventilation also meant the pod turned into a Sauna on the one hot day we had with the temp going over 30C inside.... x There is no room service as standard, so towels, cleaning etc is only done when requested. x The hot water was not working and took 2 days to fix - somebody had turned the heater off in a cabinet, but even when it did work the dribble of water that came out wasn't worth it. x The pods are starting to show their age. Some of the planks inside are starting to separate from the others and doors and locks stick. x The air vent on the outside of the building at the back of the pod is a 3 slat design, and the slats bang against each other if it's windy and the wind is in the right direction. It's Scotland so this happens a lot, and it's right next to the bed, so expect sleepless nights. x Managements response when we raised the issues was not stellar. A plumber was promised for the drain but never turned up in the 4 days we were there. x Other guests also told us about non working stuff in their pods. x The whole place feels and looks very run down x The food is average. We only ate here one night though, but breakfast was ok. x Checkout experience was also bad. No sympathy or interest in the issues we had.

We had excellent meals at The HollyTree (https://hollytreehotel.co.uk/) just down the road, and the location is excellent.

All in all, one of the low lights of the holiday that we'd hoped would have been...

Reading the reviews are so interesting! I stayed here last night and had such an odd experience…||I’ll start with the good stuff: ||- views are beautiful |- food was lovely |- great selection on whiskey|- we could park easily |- there’s a fab kayaking place on Loch Leven a few minutes away which is magical (called Rugged Coast Glencoe) ||Now the ‘interesting’ stuff:||- we’d ordered a standard room, but were given a pod outside, which honestly was lovely, but just not what we’d paid for or wanted and there was no explanation as to why they’d changed it up (it was because they’re having renovations) ||- underfloor heating sounded great but took an age to kick in and we were freezing for ages when we first arrived |- from reading other people’s reviews I 100% know who others are talking about when they mention the rude staff member I don’t know if he’s the owner/ manager, but he was horrendous:|| - when we arrived to check in the sign at the door said to go to the bar and check in with a member of staff. We did so and ‘he’ shooed us away, telling us to wait back in reception for 5 minutes until he was ready to check us in. || - he took us to our pod outside with no explanation as to why we weren’t in the room we booked (we were gutted) | - his attitude to us when we were sat down for dinner (which was lovely) was very dismissive.|| - after dinner we went to the bar and asked if we could have 2x Rusty Nail cocktails (literally just a shot of whisky and Drambuie in a glass and stirred) and he said he can do them, but won’t as he was too busy to. So our issues with this were: || a) he was rude| b) it takes a second to make hose drinks| c) he was absolutely not busy| d) he proceeded to chat with another couple at the bar for 40 minutes… ||At breakfast my partner asked for his bacon and sausage to be well done, which honestly can’t be too weird a request, and we were told with an eye roll 🙄 “I can ask..”||Same server proceeded to be mega rude to a group of American tourists who had asked to be sorted together and were basically told no and if it’s a problem them can sit outside (it was raining). ||We also heard same server tell a couple that he puts price up by over 3x in busy season and it’s a much better deal in the winter. ||Overall, the hotel is actually lovely and the views are beautiful but the one person front of house was a real put off (I’d like to stress al other staff were lovely)… I think some people just aren’t cut out for customer...