The Pillo Hotel Ashbourne

All 40 of us had lovely things to say about the food at my daughter’s recent confirmation celebration in the time bar and restaurant. The two waitresses, Ciara and Ella, were professional and efficient, and their impeccable service helped the evening run smoothly. Thanks again for another unforgettable experience.

Breakfast had a very good range of choices, and we enjoyed dinner too, though the restaurant was cool and the food went cold quickly. The hotel’s in a great, easy-to-reach location, and the rooms are spacious. They could have been cleaner, though.

The purse was in the hotel’s hands the whole time, but it took us half an hour to get staff to find it when we drove back to Ashbourne. We had to cut our daughter’s day short to collect it ourselves. She’d left her communion purse, with a lot of money in it, in the room after we checked out, and we called just ten minutes later to ask that it be taken from the locker and set aside. I was reassured and told I’d get a call straight away. By noon there was no call. When I rang again, they said the right department would call; at 2 and 5, I was told instead that another department would be emailed. By then the room may already have been cleaned and someone else checked in. Nobody called to say housekeeping had found the purse and put it aside. The money could easily have gone missing, and we couldn’t have replaced it for her. If it had been something precious and irreplaceable, I’d hate to think what might have happened. There seems to be a serious communication problem between departments, and staff appear understaffed and unwilling to step beyond their own duties. The next day, someone who’d apparently been handling it called and asked me to email the hotel describing the missing item.

The pool check-in girl was lovely, and the location is fab. We had a nice, large family room for our December trip to Emerald Park at Christmas, and the hotel itself is nice. But the staff put me off coming back. From check-in to check-out they were so rude, apart from the young woman at pool check-in. The woman checking us in was dismissive, and staff at the restaurant and breakfast were just as blunt. We tried making conversation and got ignored; the kids said please and thank you and were ignored too.