The Craighaar Hotel - Aberdeen, United Kingdom 

I am writing about my stay over Easter at the Craighaar. We arrived at the hotel on Friday 21 March about 10am. We were greeted, or not, by the receptionist. She was very rude totally ignoring us until we point out that we were talking to her. We realised that it would probably not be possible to have our rooms this early but were told that they were ready as the hotel was not busy. We had come straight from the airport as we did not want to leave our cases in the car whilst we were out. She assigned the keys to our party. We proceeded to our rooms on the first floor. We had booked 2 double bedded Executive rooms. On arrival at the room we found that we had a double room with an adjoining door. Our friends had a room which contained two single beds the other side of the adjoining door from our room. These rooms were more suitable for a family with children and not two sets of adults. We had no robes or mini bar as we were expecting. We called reception. I was told that the manager would be coming up straight away. We waited a while and nobody appeared. As we wanted to explore Aberdeen, the reason for the break, I decided to go down to reception. I was met by the same receptionist, who seems to have an attitude problem and not at all customer friendly, saying that we did have the executive rooms. I asked to see the manager. The manager appeared, she was much more professional in her attitude. I explained that we had not got the rooms we had paid for. After showing the confirmation I had she believed that there was a mistake between the online booking company and the hotel and at once said she would move us to the correct rooms. We had to then pack up again and move to the new rooms. These were the executive rooms that we asked for but we were disappointed in these. The bed was on an upper level and the TV was on the lower level. We only had one robe instead of two and it was not really cleaned properly. My wife found a dirty tissue under a chair along with crisp crumbs and our friends found a pair of socks in a drawer. The rooms had a plastic fob to put in a slot by the door to get the electricity on. This was fine but in our room every time that you left the room and removed the fob the electric heaters turned off. We stayed over one of the coldest Easters in years with snow and freezing winds and when we returned to the room it was freezing cold after a day out. On the last day we had a flight at 9am and when my wife went to have shower at 6.10 the water was cold. We decided to eat in the hotel’s 'award winning restaurant' as we had had an early start that morning leaving our homes at 3.30am. Two of us had the fresh crab starters which were disgusting and are sure that the crab was frozen or tinned as it was very watery and only consisted of white meat. The other starters were soup which was not much better. The main courses were of similar standard. Two had rack of lamb which when it arrived consisted on 3 very small separate chops. I have eaten in many restaurants and have never seen a rack of lamb with less than 4 chops and they are always joined together. The others main meals were steak which was tasteless. The vegetables were overcooked and unpleasant. This meal cost us ?120 for 4 people which we would not mind spending if the food had been to a high standard. The experience did not get much better. Breakfast was a disgrace. Over the three days we never had a hot breakfast always luke warm or cold, overcooked eggs and toast cooked only on one side and cold. On the last day we went into breakfast at the time the restaurant opened (6.30) only to find a cold breakfast again which suggests the food had been pre-cooked. The only good part of the stay at the Craighaar hotel was the bar staff who were very friendly and helpful. The reason we booked this hotel was because of the website which stated that there was an award winning restaurant on site and the close location to the airport. We were expecting the level of service to be much better than we received and felt that it ruined an otherwise enjoyable trip to Aberdeen and Grampians. The only good thing about the break was the different routes around the area i.e. Castle, heritage, whisky and coastal trails which were extremely good and an excellent meal at the Silver Darling fish restaurant in Aberdeen.

I have just returned from sunny (yes, it really was!) Aberdeen and, once again, found the Craighar to be a great 'home from home' hotel. I was most surprised to read some other recent comments as - if you check out the rest of the reviews - the food is brilliant, can't fault it. The restaurant menu is full of fresh local produce and even details the Aberdeenshire farm the beef comes from!! Anyway, am pleased to repot that they have a new telly in the bar area (the old one was decidedly past it's best) and my room had a great new loo with amazing power shower. The only thing I could fault is the lack of gym facilities but, hey, suppose I can always go out jogging..... P.S My breakfast was brilliant too!