Macdonald Aviemore Resort Review

Aimed at families with young children. Noisy. Restaurants not cleaned properly. Small rooms.

Very nice accommodations
Nice bar staff and very friendly

Jakes bar & restaurant are highly recommended
Great food staff and surroundings

I was from 7.09 -9.09.2017 in Aviemore Mc.Donald Hotel, old box, better hostel, staff friendly, messy unlearned, uncomfortable to eat, food: breakfast, supply, meager service helpless.Dinner inedible z.b Haddock loin; Breadbroel from Haddock no trace, you only got 1 roll, without butter., You had to get drinks yourself. Shower ok only the water came only in droplets, iin den3. Stick as the pressure is too low. For the price the hotel is too expensive, only with *** stars to rate. There are better youth hostels. Steer clear of this hostel!

The hotels are great location to explore the Cairngorms

Very comfy and breakfast very good. Not pricey at bar

Edit. Back on High Life so all good again. Well done.

No more hi-life no more visits. Expensive shop

A complex with a lovely location in Aviemore.
However all hotels are ugly modern buildings, however they have now undergone refurbishment and have well appointed rooms.
Unfortunately my repeated experience in 2018 is one of repeated poor service.
Rooms allocated that have not been serviced at 18.00, others poorly serviced, poor staff communication, clearly unhappy staff trying to do the best.
It was evident that the management was not taking in, nor addressing, recurrent problems.
They could do better, need to do much better.

We have a day out in the retail building here about once a year to see what the latest stuff on offer to visitors is. There's quite a good selection of Highland themed gifts, plus a licensed bar serving coffee, tea, with seating, for that inevitable spell when the more interested family members peruse the fashion counters. Occasionally we've had a meal here and it's good quality hotel fare. No doubt the breakfasts will be good and feature Stornoway black pudding as do all the Macdonald hotels, but haven't tried it here as we live nearby. There's always lots of parking available as the hotel and retail complex shares a large car park with a variety of holiday activities.

Just spent the weekend at the Aviemore hotel resort. We love it there. It's great having the cinema and pool on site and the restaurants and bars a great too. Just a shame the shop isn't open later or on a Sunday as we never saw it open. Love Aviemore high street which is a 2 minute walk from the hotel. Hotel staff are helpful and friendly. Not many of the staff are locals though. An all round great place to visit and make your base for exploring the surrounding area. The breakfast is also so amazing.

Excellent place to stay, lots of things to do, staff are very friendly and helpful, special mention to Gary, deputy manager for all his help in making this trip extra special.

Really enjoyed our time here - came with a newborn baby and everything worked out perfectly! Staff were amazing and the room was exactly what we needed

Really nice place, beautiful scenery but reaort is a bit disjointed and some of the staff quite ignorant.

Lodges are super clean, breakfast is good, the waiters and waitresses are really good

Had a fantastic time here in one of the Woodland lodges. Accommodation is decent with good sized properties and dog friendly. We even got to take 3 well behaved spaniels in for breakfast in the morning. All the staff we met couldn't have been nicer. Will go back.

Beautiful place. Inside the Cairngorms National Park. Very nice bedroom with a beautiful Scottish blanket. Cleanliness and courtesy. Beautiful also the dining room, with large windows, from where I saw a small hill with birches, and some bunnies that came out every now and again..Good food, especially breakfast, very rich!

Hotel was lovely and staff friendly. A little disappointed with the dinner service though, seemed a tad slow.

A great hotel, they helped us in everything, the room was not at the indicated time and they gave us some tickets to be at the bar. It has a spa, swimming pools and shops around. Everything very beautiful.

Tesla Superchargers were all ICE d. Avoid at all costs.

Superb place for families with young kids. Friendly staff and state of the art facilities!!

Great space with good food, shopping and facilities

We have had a timeshare here for 31 years, customer service has declined to zero since MacDonald took control. Now takes a whole day to clean and b4 we can get keys. Disgrace, staff blaming agency staff not working fast enough. NO, just bad management. AND they expect me to pay them to relinquish ownership.....f..k off.

The main Macdonalds shop, is closed on Sunday which is unbelievable. Although a nice resort, ideas and amenities change with little notice.

Bed comfy, room a bit small (especially the bathroom) but warm, breakfast so so. Overall a bit tired looking ie things falling out the wall etc which let's it down

Conference Centre serves cold, undercooked and tasteless food. The hotel at best is like a run down social club from a rough area. Overpriced rubbish with staff who don't understand English and can't perform the most basic of tasks. I get the impression there's no interview process and zero training. Run down hotel that is filthy for the most part. I wouldn't stay there again even if it was free!

Seemed a bit disjointed. Rooms in one place eat in another building. Offices could not communicate between themselves if it was after normal hours. Rooms were tidy.

Drove 9 hours to find the room not ready for check-in time, not enough staff available and some of the staff that were, are unhelpful. Not a good start.

Not sure why this is a 4* hotel, it is very tired and not changed over the years. Room felt damp, no hot water in the shower in the morning. Service in Giovanni's restaurant was shocking. That said, the staff were friendly and made the restrictions work and breakfast food was very good.

Room was clean, check in went ok. After the first night we realised there wasn't enough towels and no tea bags despite asking at reception for 2 days this wasn't put right. Breakfast was basic but ok, the evening meal in the main building buffet restaurant was appalling how a professional kitchen can produce food that bad is beyond me.

We have been here in the lodges for a few days. The stove doesn't have a rope seal and is at risk of spilling carbon monoxide into the room. Staff have been really slow. Whether it was at the entrance to the swimming or the costa and bar. More

Good value place. Handy for the Cairngorms for walking, skiing and climbing.

Great place to stay with the family. Have stayed here a number of times around Christmas. Nice rooms and loads of places to go for the family. A soft play area and a child minding service, cinema is great as well.
Nice friendly, relaxed atmosphere and even allowed dogs to stay if you want to enjoy the open space for walks etc.
Great variety of restaurant dining all of which is good quality.
Will be returning very soon.

Love the place. Stayed at the log cabins with the family recently and it's a great place to get away for the weekend or longer.

We visited the cinema. Brilliant cinema. But a little understaffed. 1 person to sell tickets & drinks etc. We have been before and been the only ones there, do it may be difficult to gauge demand. But this was the first weekend of the school holidays and the film was a popular one. Despite a large queue of people yet to be admitted they still started the film. It is difficult to see why in a single screen, indipendant setting?

Great relaxing hotel in a wonderful location. Just one thing the changing facilities and lockers in the swimming pool need fixed and or updated. Staff excellent all round. Smiley face.

Fairly basic, but very comfortable - and in a great location

Modern hotel complex in good location for visiting the Cairngorms and surrounding area. Food in Steakhouse very good. Had the Rib eye steak which was excellent! Rooms good, but not much character to the hotel.

The location is excellent but the management of the hotels and catering services is quite bad.

Great place for food. Kids eat free from the burger menu :) staff helpful and friendly

We usually try to go abroad over New year but was too expensive this year for 10 of us. Aviemore had everything we were looking for and a nice change.. Gran and Grandad had a lovely big comphy room, the 2 other rooms for 2 adults and 2 kids were a bit cramped. Overall the food was fab, entertainment, shopping stuff for kids to do was great staff were always helpful and friendly smiling and eager to help..Think we will book up for next year but make sure we take warm clothes.
Had a brilliant time.

great place loads to do with the kids. Breakfast was fab great choice

Overall we very much enjoyed our stay. Lots of things to do with our 3yr old. The lodges are very nice with a fire place (wood provided). The only thing we found would have been nice was a small oven and some deck chairs. The breakfast More

Large hotel . Rooms clean but overall lacking any character.

Good quality but slow service at busy times, however due to the wait I was given my drinks for free to compensate, even though I hadn't even complained. So they're clearly a very understanding staff.

Known this activities centre since the 1970s
Just keep coming black

It's ok, but rooms need sorting out, decorated and some bedside lights!!! ..

Weird lighting in restaurant, but hey... to each their own... my purple tomato soup...

The room had a musty smell, due to not having an extractor fan in the bathroom. Dinner in the 1st evening took 35 minutes to deliver, of which were given a free bottle of wine. The steak was certainly not value for money. The slow cooked beef was delicious. The complimentary tea tray wasn't cleaned or re stocked after the first night. Drinks in the bar was extortionate. Would I return, No!

Given the price to rent a chalet we were disappointed by the quality of the accomodation and the customer service. Breakfast was very good as was the restaurant staff.

Place was nice but no jacuzzi working and no steam room working went to complain at reception on Tuesday before Christmas and she said we have parts two weeks not working I said this is the busy 2 weeks it should be fixed very poor I said .She said complain to Macdonald s or phone them I said I will and was going to talk to Michael the manager which she did not like.i said I have been here a owner from the start 34 35 years and I am due to pay for next years fees maintenance ones and do I get a refund probably not,next day jacuzzi was working.I was also told maintenance was poor.

Lovely resort with pool and spa was very good. On site bar overpriced at a tenner for a gin and tonic.

Amazing hotel.. Comfortable room and a amazing breakfast. Close to a good little village with lots of decent shops.
Also a cinema onsite too

fantastic stay again this year for the Xmas weekend all the staff from the cleaners , Elves , waiters etc cant do enough for you all very well mannerd and helpful , David the hospitality manager was great see you next year.

Wonderful resort, great pool and facilities. Friendly and helpful staff. Dogs allowed. Excellent base for touring the country around
Breakfast is outstanding.

If I could rate higher I would very nice staff and very helpful. Rooms and lounge are so nice

Here for Santa experience weekend with daughter having a great time staff are all brilliant would recommended for anyone with kids

There are rabbits on the property and they also serve rabbit in the pasta so great for rabbit lovers

We visited the shop which is lovely except the clothing is not particularly fashionable! The prices are quite high but the products are good quality. The toilets are impressive! The snow machine had closed for the day by the time we arrived at 4.30pm but still worth the visit.

Went to see a film, nice venue, decent cinema for a small town. Unfortunately the film which was advertised as 8pm, didn't actually start until about 8.40.

Went to the Costa cafe and got drinks. Drinks were good but the cafe didn't have any vegan options to eat unfortunately. Could be they were sold out but still disappointing.

Although it is in the centre of Aviemore, it felt like a school holiday! Everything was clean but the decor, the furniture, the site itself felt very tired. There are two onsite restaurants, Giovanni's (microwave style meals) and Aspects (which had incredibly tasty food!). The staff were very friendly and helpful. We went there because it was close to the mountain, but there was not much going on other than us driving away from Aviemore to find something to do.

Well maintained, clean, comfortable and very friendly

Very nice hotel with swimming pool, golf course, restaurants. You can walk nice, some nice shops in Aviemor

Lovely items for sale. Staff friendly and helpful. Good parking. Tea and coffees hot and good quality. All in all very nice trip.