Cairngorm Hotel

The service was perfectly fine, but the food wasn’t anything special. Then, to my surprise, I got a parking ticket. We’d driven to the restaurant, had a reservation, and I hadn’t seen a sign saying parking wasn’t allowed. That £60 added a lot to the cost of the meal.

The breakfasts were genuinely great, with excellent food and service. The bar and live music were lovely for a short visit, and the bed was cozy and very comfortable. The room itself was adequate, but two people couldn’t open their bags on the floor at once. There were no suitcase stands, and the drawers and armoire weren’t enough for two travellers. The bathroom was awkward to get into because of a step, though the shower and tub were nice. One server with dark hair, maybe Australian, wore such a strong scent that it made it hard for me to enjoy my meal. I’m sensitive to perfume, and it was a lot. Reception was cool at best, and quite rude at checkout, with no warmth or appreciation. The hotel is rustic and charming and well placed for hiking around Glenmore Forest, but there’s no lift or porter to help with bags. It was a good basic rest in a great location, with some inconveniences. We’d stay again, perhaps if travelling light.

Being right across from the train station made arriving by rail very easy. The rooms were small, with old-fashioned Scottish decor and lots of plaid, and there was no fridge. A woman at the desk reluctantly agreed to keep some of our items cold. The staff came across as unfriendly. My impression was that the busy bar and restaurant mostly served locals rather than visitors from abroad. The included breakfast was generous, and the staff there were the friendliest we met.

We paid £224 for one Thursday night with bed and breakfast, which felt far too much for a tiny room and bed with no view. Some sockets didn’t work, and the room was too hot. We might have left the window open, but it could be reached from other rooms or from the stairs onto the lower roof, which was what we looked out at. That seemed very real when a receptionist knocked at about 9 pm asking to get through our window into the next room’s window because those guests had locked themselves out. There was everything else in the room except coffee. We skipped dinner at the restaurant because prices had gone up a lot and, in our opinion, the menu had changed for the worse. This was our second stay and will probably be the last. At checkout nobody asked how the stay was, which would have been the chance for me to mention these problems.