#culloden hotel

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Belfast, United Kingdom

Absolutely stunning hotel with beauty views! The room was lovely and we stayed in one of the rooms that had not been refurbished it did not fail to disappoint us! In saying that, we ate in the lounge bar area! Firstly service was appalling! service staff didn’t know what each one was doing we waited almost 45mins for our £37 bottle of wine and the food. Well we couldn’t even eat it, I have had better steaks from my local butcher at less than half the price! The manager and reception staff have no people skills, I’m not expecting pan pipes and roses but when your staying in a room for £180 a night not including what we paid in food a drink you you expect five star service in a five star hotel! The spa area was ok, I thought it was abit dirty and smelled of a dirty mop, have been to better spas and actually local swimming pools! That’s my second disappointing visit to here, first was a wedding! So needless to say we probably won’t be back.

Afternoon tea – not 5*, not worth the money and beware of hidden charges!

cookiequeen1943 (10 reviews)

Belfast, United Kingdom

I went for afternoon tea at the Culloden Hotel for a hen party at the start of the summer. There were 13 of us in total, we were given a private function room and many aspects of the service could not be faulted. The waiter, for example, was friendly and efficient and the food served was very nice.

However for a 5* hotel and at £30 per person we expected more.

Our party was split over two tables (not a problem) but the servings per plate were not evenly distributed. There were seven at my table but we only had six servings and had to get the extra moved over from the other table. Not a big deal really, but still, you would expect more attention to detail like this from a 5* hotel.

The coffee (and tea) was not the hottest. With hindsight, we should really have raised this at the time.

We were also charged for an extra person – a place that had been cancelled that morning. We did get this sorted and the charge was removed.

The main gripe is that we were charged for bottles of water. There was never an indication we were going to be charged for these. We never ordered bottles of water, the waiter came to the tables offering still and sparkling water, and at a cost of £30 per person (which, in my opinion, is pricey enough for afternoon tea) we assumed this was included in the price. Needless to say, we were somewhat surprised when presented with the bill and discovered an additional charge of almost £30.

My friend, who made the booking, contacted the hotel to raise the issues. She eventually had a phone call to advise that they would look into the issues and we would be refunded the amount we were charged for water. That was several weeks ago now and we have heard nothing since.

In summary – a lovely hotel, in a beautiful setting but serves afternoon tea that is not 5* worthy, likes to add surprise charges to the bill and then promise a refund but unfortunately never deliver on that promise.