Richard Garbutt

Review of Rockliffe Hall Hotel, Golf & S...

My wife and I recently stayed for 3 nights in the ...

My wife and I recently stayed for 3 nights in the 2 bedroom Armstrong Suite. We have been frequenting Rockliffe Hall 2/3 times a year for the past 6 years; during this time we can see that it has declined in many areas, including dining, customer service, staff, cleanliness and general up keep of rooms and furnishings. We believe that the standards of a 5 star hotel you expect , are not there anymore as they once were.

We was on this latest visit, very disappointed, and here s why ...

Checking in was usual, collected the room cards and headed to the 2 bedroom Armstrong Apartment. As we have been many times before we did not need escorting there by the concierge which was kindly offered.

We found the apartment to be tired, dusty and not particularly clean. The bath/shower silicone sealant had black mould on parts of it and was far from clean or hygienic.
The Kitchen floor tiling was cracked in places and had large areas of grout missing between the tiles. The kitchen sink Tap was loose and wobbling around when in use.
All of the furnishings in the apartment are very tired; the sofas bottom out as they are well past usable and comfortable. The TV in the lounge area would not turn up and therefore could not be heard, it was reported but knowbody came to fix it.
The Hallway wooden floor is covered in thousands of heal marks and looks tatty.

Breakfast dining is somewhat limited now and can only be ordered from the kitchen; gone are the days of fresh fruit , croissants, fresh yogurt, breads, meats , etc ... from the central continental style buffet table. If you enjoy, eggs , fish , and toast your laughing! When my wife asked the waiter if they have cereals , the waiters response was yes, then he walked off and served other customers with coffee ? He never informed her of which cereals or that he could go and get her some , just left in the lurch ... very poor service indeed !

The Brasserie dining experience was poor , we ordered 2 steaks for our main medium to well. When they came you could not even see them on the plate as they were covered by a mushroom ? The steaks were ridiculously tiny ! Frazzled and tuff , the quality of the steak was terrible, like and old rubber sole. Words fail me for a five star hotel !

To top it off the last night of our 3 night stay the fire alarm malfunctioned at 00:30am and scared the living daylights out of my wife and I, whom had been asleep in bed since 10:30pm ! 20 minutes later it was switched off and reset. We found it hard to settle after this, let alone get back to a decent nights sleep.

Upon checkout we informed them of our poor nights sleep due to the alarm going off. The response was it s just one of those things and cannot be helped !!! We will ensure it doesn t happen again , sorry for any inconvenience !

There has obviously been some serious problems and serious cut backs at Rockliffe Hall, at best it should be a four star hotel as it certainly is not worthy of five stars anymore. We won t be rushing back in a hurry if at all , there s far better 5 star hotels that are much more deserving than Rockliffe Hall .