Our main gripe was the approach of the management of the hotel. This seems to have been highlighted by other Tripadvisor reports, namely AMC (May ‘22) and OLD S (February’22). So, we are not unique.
We stayed in ‘Knockando’ for two nights, dinner, bed and breakfast.
Our particular experience was how we were spoken to. We advised the lady on reception on the first evening, in very polite terms, that we did not have a (UK) King Sized bed. The lady on reception was very very adamant (“brusque”) that we did have one. I politely invited her to measure it but again she very strong affirmed she was right and we [the customer/ guest] were WRONG. We know the difference as we have a King Sized bed at home. Needless to say, we went and purchased a tape measure and measured it. A UK King Sized bed is 150 x 200cm (5ft x 6.5ft) See photos.
We were advised the room was usually a single occupancy room, and indeed we knew that before arrival. And we were advised this was a ‘bijou’ room. We had absolutely no issue with such. But we were also advised in writing before arrival that it was a King Sized bed. Our issue is NOT whether it was single occupancy or not. That’s not got anything to do with our issue.
Our issue was that a a simple apology which would have sufficed, even the word “sorry”, was not forthcoming, especially having been told in no uncertain terms that we were WRONG. This apology wasn’t forthcoming at any point, infact nothing was forthcoming considering we’d paid for a King Sized bed, and this was again the case when I mentioned such on check-out. All we got was “we thought it was a King Size”, “that was our belief”, well in a hotel of 16 rooms or so, the management should know such facts about their own hotel.
Interestingly it’s still being advertised, some three weeks after this was brought to their attention, as having a King Sized bed.
We also thought the en-suite bathroom door (from the bedroom) should not be semi-transparent, so you have to put the light on when using the bathroom!
We don’t know, but we suspect management have never slept in this room, if they had then they would not need a customer to advise them of the above!
We would stress that we also found certain aspects of the hotel and our stay to be good. Namely the food at breakfast and dinner. There’s a good choice and food is of a good quality. Service at both breakfast and evening is fine. We weren’t expecting a dress code in the evening dining room (not breakfast as such is more casual) but we would say though that this is casual dining (which is fine) but we were slightly surprised that shorts and T shirts were worn by several guests, irrespective of the weather.
We liked the hotel decor, and position and grounds. We spent quite a lot of time on the small terrace overlooking the gardens enjoying drinks.
c £520 for 2 nights, (double) bed and breakfast, and dinner and various drinks during the stay.
