Stayed here at the end of day 1 on the Loch Lomond and Cowal Way long distance walk. My room was lovely - one of the front ones looking over the bay and the room itself was absolutely fine, well equipped and with a comfy bed. Goof food in the restaurant with a good few fishy options which were well cooked and presented. Breakfast was equally good with plenty of options featuring ultra fresh eggs from the hens that you could see running about outside the breakfast room! Overall, no issues and would recommend and return.
On arriving, we were welcomed by Alex who was charming and profession. He showed us to room 19 which turned out to be in a 1950s extension block. The room looked like it had recently been refurbished to a degree with a clean and updated bathroom. The bed although in two and linked together was a medium firm one and comfortable and the pillows were ok too which is a positive. The view from the room, being on the loch side was impressive. That evening we decided to eat in the Resturant which is also in a 1950s extension and in my opinion too big and soulless. The music was along to playing death metal music at a funeral. It was not conducive to a formal dining setting. We both had beetroot smoked salmon with apple. The salmon was far too light a flavour for me and it wasn’t a balanced dish. There was some oats of sort sprinkled on it and that added no flavour just confusion. We then had muscle and monk fish tail dishes. Whilst the muscles were tasty, it was an extremely over priced dish and the two small bread roles “plonked” on top of them without any bread knife, side plate or butter was an interesting concept. The monk fish came with succotash. The succotash was bland and the monk fish over salted. No bread, with this one ! So on the whole the food was edible, expensive and bland. Breakfast on the face of it was ok but often they didn’t have many of the dishes. The food quality at breakfast appeared of lower standard in my opinion as for the scrambled eggs I hate them over scrambled and that’s just what they were and why on earth everything has to come with pea shoots on it god only knows. Now for the room in more detail. Staying there in October brought with it a major challenge. The room was freezing cold to the point we used a hairdryer to take the chill off. It wasn’t the cleanest of rooms either with a large amount of dust. Next to the room was a fire exit and that was covered in bird droppings and the laundry rooms along the corridor leading to room 19 looked dirty too. The hotel is really a tale of 2 halves. The original beautiful one and the unloved eyesore. The picture I have added of the beautiful part ! In essence this hotel needs staff and management to look at the hotel and guest experience from the eyes of the customers because that’s the only way this hotel will improve. Does it need to? Well with occupancy of this hotel I would say perhaps not however all that means is it’s resting in its laurels and isn’t looking to improve.
Lovely looking hotel great friendly staff food is good but repetitive room 206 was awful but we was moved to a very nice updated room next door with no bother, beautiful views I would like to see local info in the rooms of interest to visitors good selection of tea coffee in the room but small extras of biscuits would be nice No room service Buffet breakfast is well stocked Tea and coffee not available until 12 noon until the bar area opens No snacks or light meals available throughout the day which is a shame I would say that although the hotel is walking distance from the ferry it’s not for anyone with walking issues, taxi is £4 To sum up, it is very tired and needs major updating in areas of the out side and carpets in rooms really do need cleaning Beautiful garden to the front with gorgeous views I would return with updates