The Airds Hotel and Restaurant

We really enjoyed our four day stay at Airds. The location is just beautiful, we loved the garden walk down to the shore, our room was so comfortable, smart and well equipped (love the small touches like a clothes brush!). Food is excellent, fresh and served in a charming dining room. And the staff, super friendly, accommodating and helpful. We felt at home and look forward to coming back.

We must be missing something reading the 5 star reviews…Sometimes it can’t be helped arriving early when you’ve been driving for 7 hours…When we arrived about 2.30pm it was strangely dead. We rang the bell at reception twice whilst waiting over 10 mins. Eventually we were told that check in was 4pm (we did know this!) which by the way is the latest out of the 6 hotels we stayed in during our holiday in Scotland. We were not offered any kind of welcome, no offer of a drink, no offer of ‘would you like lunch’ no hospitality at all, just ‘check in is at 4’, although they do advertise lunch and afternoon teas there was absolutely no sign of life anywhere, no guests, no staff. The hotel was dead (we do appreciate hotel guests could be out and about). We only saw one member of staff our whole time there until the morning where there was another one serving breakfast. We felt like we were not welcome, like we’d been told off for turning up before 4pm so we went and had lunch at The Pierhouse and stayed there all afternoon until we felt we would be let into Airds. Our room was like visiting the ideal homes exhibition in 1981 and it smelt. The heated towel rail was so old it was a dirty looking yellow. The white towels were grey and so off putting. The door handles on the wardrobe were not a matching pair. The creaking floor was unbelievably loud and made us feel uncomfortable walking around. As we did not see anyone at all eating, drinking, socialising, we decided to go back to the Pierhouse for dinner. For breakfast it was dilute orange. The eggs and toast were ok. Some of the skirting board in the breakfast lounge was off the wall. We had a walk round the hotel before we left and saw ‘clean’ bedding and towels dumped on random tables and chairs in public areas and the large vase of dead flowers in stagnant water confirmed that there is not anything that can be classed as luxury about this hotel apart from the setting. We couldn’t wait to leave, check out was also the earliest out of our 6 hotels. Beware - their website does not reflect the hotel in any shape or form, it is extremely misleading and why a photo of a helicopter? The one star is for the view.

I’ve stayed in this hotel a few times in the past but hadn’t had the opportunity to come to Scotland recently. I booked and paid in full a few weeks earlier for a couple of nights in August. I know this is peak season. To my horror a couple of days before I was due to arrive they sent me a matter of fact note cancelling and offering to credit my payment. It was almost impossible to find anywhere else to stay and they would have known this. The apology didn’t begin to match the inconvenience and quite frankly I don’t think they really cared. The receptionist claimed they had the builders in but I noticed rooms were available before and after and it seemed to be running as normal. They then proceeded to send me further emails and enquiring whether I wanted to have dinner on the first night. I was then sent a welcome note on the day I should have arrived and then sent another email after my dates to see whether I enjoyed my visit. Unbelievably incompetent. Thank you to the management for totally spoiling a 600 mile journey to your hotel.