Breaffy House Hotel - Castlebar, Ireland     

I have stayed at this hotel twice in the last 18 months and have been very disappointed both times. It seems to have gone very downhill since taken over by the Lynch group. It was cold and dirty. The staff were rude, unhelpful and didn't seem to care when we drew their attention to problems with the rooms.There was wet paint everywhere with no warning signs.You can get much better for your money in the area.

Wild horses will not bring me back here. For the record the rooms were clean, and the staff for the most part pleasant. We stayed here for a wedding, and our hassle started when booking, 4 months before the event! The bride and groom had said that we would be receiving a reduced rate as we were listed on a list that the hotel had. we were told to ring the hotel directly, and not the central reservation line. It took over 6 calls to finally make our reservation. We specifically requested a room in the House hotel and Spa, after being warned that there were 2 hotels on the site, (the international sports hotel) and serviced apartments (known as the Breafy Lodge). After the 3rd Non returned call I felt I did not want to stay here, but as is was a wedding of a good friend of my boyfriends, we persisted. 4 weeks before the wedding we decided to stay an extra night, and my boyfriend rang them back, confirmed the reference, and the fact we were staying in the House hotel and booked the extra night. When we arrived to check in on the Sat we were told that we wold be staying in the lodge, the serviced apartment about 5 -7 min away from the hotel we had booked into. We complained, as we had not wanted to stay here, the guy on reception said fine, could we stay in the lodge for the sat night, and he would move us on the Sun. That seemed o.k. to us. We watched him write our details into a diary behind the desk, and went to the apartment. We had been assured that someone would call us the following morning, and we would be moved. The following day being tied up with the wedding we didn't have a chance to pop into reception to check on our move. (we had however managed to re-pack all of our bags in anticipation of the move.). When we got to the desk, nobody knew that we were to be moved, and told, that all of the rooms were gone!! they went even further to say that they had no record of us wanting to move! Eventually the guy who had dealt with us the night before came on, and the issue was resolved. we had to stay a 2nd night in the lodge, and then got to stay in the hotel we had booked for the last night. They did by way of apology upgrade us to the bridal suite (I wouldn't pay the alleged money they were charging to stay in it) and didn't charge us for the room service (A whopping ?14). So that is just the room and booking hassle. The breakfast was a disaster (nice food, but was 45 min in the room the 2nd morning, and none of the staff came near to offer tea, coffee and toast, despite our waving for them for the full time we were there) and the lack of hot water on arrival at the lodge (you are supposed to hit a booster and wait half an hour for the water to heat!). During the wedding, we found out that every other person at our table had been contacted to see if they would move to the international and the lodge, as the house hotel was overbooked. All the others had refused, so it is obvious that the just stopped calling, and moved the rest to the other hotels. Not a good way to operate a hotel. I will not be staying here again, I will find a nice B&B nearby if I attend another wedding in this hotel. I should also point out that the bride and groom ad a lot to say about the way the finer details of the day ran (un-chilled wine for one), even if the meal service, and food was great. Don't stay here, and don't get married here. There were a lot of unhappy guests on the day with how the hotel treated them, and while relatively minor, the issues did put a dampner on the stay for some. I wouldn't like to think that people were unhappy on my wedding day (Unless it was an ex!). It wasn't cheap, and not deserving of 4 stars.