David Lusty

Review of The Onich Hotel & Lochside Gar...

The Onich Hotel has a wonderful position on the ba...

The Onich Hotel has a wonderful position on the bank of Loch Linnhe and many rooms (but by no means all) have a view over the loch. On-site parking is free, the towels are white and fluffy and some of the staff are committed and work hard to please guests.

Having said that, there is little else to praise. The whole building is of an indifferent standard, and has not been refurbished or decorated for far too long. The signage on the wall outside reads "Onich H tel Lochsid Gardens", the "o" and "e" having presumably fallen off. The resemblance to Fawlty Towers doesn't end there. Peeling wallpaper, threadbare and fraying carpets and worn, chipped and faded paintwork are everywhere. We paid extra to upgrade to a loch view so the first room we were allocated had a view of the loch. It was on the second floor, and there was no lift, so we heaved everything up the stairs. When we looked for some sockets to charge our phones, we could find only one, on the wall opposite the bed.

The TV was tiny. The basin taps delivered only a dribble of water and the shaver socket was too high to plug in our electric toothbrush charger and still rest it on a surface. The room also had all the smells of the kitchen, especially of frying which turned my wife's stomach so the staff offered us a different room, to which we moved all our stuff. The very limited breakfast menu was further restricted because neither the Fruits of the forest, the Fruit salad nor the Dried fruit was available "due to a refrigerator failure". The coffee was not very hot, and by the time the hot milk we requested had arrived, the coffee itself was even cooler. After waiting about half an hour for it, my cooked breakfast arrived only faintly warm.

In the new room, the WiFi wasn't working. We could connect to the WiFi network but it didn't deliver an internet connection. If we needed the internet, we had to visit the bar. Then we realised that in the new room we could not close the curtains. They were hanging onto the plastic rail by a fraction of the original hooks, and the rail had come away from the ceiling. The main light in the bathroom did not work and the bed mattress was very uncomfortable. We were offered a different room, and we moved all our stuff again.

This third room came with operational curtains. It was bigger and had a similar tiny TV even further away from the bed, and the WiFi still didn't work. The bed was even more worn out than the first one with springs that could be felt through the mattress, and the light switches were hidden behind the headboard. There was a socket outlet hidden there, too, right in the middle of the bed, so we slept with our phones charging between us. The basin taps were more dribblers and there was no shaver socket. The electrical connection to the heated towel rail was bound up with tape, and a separate wire, coloured as earth, emerged from the tape and into the wall, heading for who-knows-where. For our second breakfast, the fruit options still weren't available, but this time the refrigerator wasn't mentioned; they just hadn't got any.

Although the Reception staff did offer us the option of moving from one very poor room to another and assured us that the hotel was under new ownership and due to be completely refurbished very soon, we could in no way recommend this hotel. The view was lovely but the accommodation substandard. A blot on our stay in Onich.