Holbeck Ghyll Country House Hotel

Brilliant location for just watching the weather pass over the Langdale fells. Beautiful breakfast and top class service.

The hotel itself was lovely and the service was excellent. The locations and views were stunning. However the Spa facility was not very good. The treatment area was not very inviting, a bit small and dingy. Hot tub had to be pre-booked and wasnt anything special. Most importantly we were not expecting such an expensive dining experience. It was very good but cost over £72 per head not including wine. It was a set taster menu of 4 small courses. It may be partly our fault for assuming it would be a regular menu we can choose from at the time of reservation but there was lack of transparency from the hotel.However we cannot fault the service and quality of the food just the price and lack of choice!

we were upgraded to a big room with amazing view. Service was excellent both at the reception and in the dining room. Location was rather secluded but a few walking tracks at the door step.

This was our 5th stay at this hotel, but our first under the new management. Our welcome was excellent and staff attentive. We had very good rooms. There have been some structural and decorative changes since our last visit a few years ago. These have been done sympathetically without altering the country house hotel feel ,which we liked, too much. The food was very good indeed .the wine list was very good too, but I think less extensive than in the past. Service in the restaurant was generally good, however our wine was not poured either to taste first nor to top up, until a final top up when the wine was nearly finished. I did not complain, however there was a 10% service charge for the restaurant and bar bills, perhaps I should have said something. Our room was above the bar/restaurant and although not too loud, we could hear the music playing below us during the early hours of the morning and before breakfast, This was enough to disturb our sleep a little.Overall we had a very good stay. I think there has been a little drop in standards since our previous stays, however the previous standard was very high to start with. I would still recommend staying at this hotel which is still a favourite of ours. Perhaps the new management needs a little leeway intheir changes.

Hotel very reluctantly agreed to look after our bags on the day of check out (our train home was not until the evening). I subsequently found that my designer bag had been stained. I sent two emails to the hotel (including pictures of the stain) but have not heard back for two months. I've wasted money trying to get the stain out to no avail. There were also other issues regarding customer service as well. I made a complaint to the manger on the first day because the staff didn't know anything about the getting round the local area other than advising that we get around by taxi if we did not have a car. This cost a fortune so we ended up having to figure out the local transport on our own (frustrating as we were only there for two days). The manager did not ask for our name or room number so appeared to have little interest in this issue. Furthermore, the night we stayed at the hotel, there were drunken hotel goers using the communal areas and making noise into the night. When we pointed this out to the hotel, they said they would have been "delighted" to sort out the issue had we informed them on the night in question - either it was a poor choice of words or they were not really taking us seriously. I've stayed in hundreds of 4/5 star hotels (16 in 2017 so far) and do not think this hotel is up to the standard. The Lake District is a beautiful area and there seems to be plenty of hotels that offer better customer service and don't damage your belongings.