Reviews
Beautiful place for wedding ceremony. Good spot for quality pictures. Nice atmosphere
I got married 16th September this year and throughout the whole weekend they were very attentive and made everything run smoothly. It was perfect from the start to the end. Food was stunning couldn't fault any of them. Staff where friendly, helpful and supportive. Best weekend of my life and the master of ceremony for the weekend Simon made it perfect and we got everything we wanted and more. Definitely would do it again
Nice place. With beautiful surroundings. Staff where good also. But the rooms were overpriced for what they were. Maybe a thought of a bar food menu.
Be warned: If you are familiar with 5 star hotels/venue's and their services, don't expect to find any of that in Auchen Castle. Lower your expectations, I have been in 3-star hotels with far better service and quality.
In Auchen Castle you pay a high price for the fact that you sleep in a castle, that's it. They awarded the 5 stars to their Castle themselves, it doesn't have any 5 star standards.
This is what we noticed during our stay (and apparently we had one of their top rooms!):
- Upon arrival: no welcome (nobody at reception), no butler/suitcase service to the room. You have to carry your luggage up all the steps yourself (... 5 stars basic service). No welcome drink or anything like that.
- Room completely cold upon entering, you need a separate electric heater to heat the room more or less (very unpleasant)
- Spiders in the room (window in the bathroom doesn't shut)
- No water and later no hot water first 24hours, so we couldn't shower the first day and also not the next morning.
- No separate shower, you have to shower in the bathtub.
- Water completely yellow, we didn't want to drink it, but there is also not water supplied to the rooms, so we had to ask. First they came with a jar of yellow water again, after pointing out again it's yellow, they finally brought up some bottles (we asked for still, but got two sparkling and two still bottles).
- Nobody at reception telephone, sometimes you had to call 4-5 times and wait for about 2-3 minutes on the phone each time to get a hold of somebody
- This is not only over the phone, the entire weekend there has been nobody at the reception, so it's impossible to locate personnel, you just have to bump in to them by accident.
- Most personnel seems under-age or at least very young (family business?), but - except for one older man - the rest of them has little to no skills in hospitality services (definitely not what you would expect in 5 star hotels)
- Every time you ask for something they contradict you or ask why. Really?! It made us so mad, as if we were lying or making things up. Your guests are king.
- All (bar) personnel I asked was not Scottish, so they can't explain about traditions/food/whisky etc.
- Bar options very limited, no more then 20 Whisky's to choose from... this is Scotland we are talking about...
- No food available for purchase, so the entire stay I was hungry (because the catering was very limited) and had to eat the cookies they provide in the room.
- Quality of the food provided very poor and small portions.
- You like Coca Cola Zero? They only have Pepsi Max...
- Breakfast very limited, typical English breakfast: overcooked beans, undercooked bacon, disgusting wet scrambled eggs and some fatty sausages and that's about it. So I went with the cereals and a bread with jam. No croissants, no yoghurt, nothing. On top of that you have little service in the breakfast room, and the coffee is undrinkable bad (filter coffee). No coffee machine, no cappuccino's, nothing....
- NO TURNOVER SERVICE (yes this still exist apparently in Hotels): we got some fresh towels, but the room was not cleaned , the shower was completely dirty, the bed was not made.
- Last but not least: no wifi in the rooms.... (5 stars people, 5 stars...)
For what you get, Auchen Castle is extremely over-priced. They abuse the fact that you have to stay there for a (wedding) event, so you don't really have any other option. I would definitely avoid this place, and find some 2-3 star hotel nearby which probably will have better service, hot running clear water and make you allot happier :)
PS: I have read some reviews online, and have seen the replies of the owners of the venue on this reviews: Likely they will respond with something like 'we had problems with this, it was only temporal that.. etc.', it's exactly what the personnel also told us when we were there. But don't be fooled, it's their standard answer to avoid problems.
I was here as a guest on a wedding. The ambient was great. The personnel was very helpful and supporting. Food was delicious and plenty. Thanks for a few very nice days.
The people who work there pulled out every stop in order to have my son and his bride be maried when paperwork became an issue, replacement was necessary on the day of the wedding, huge thanks to all, well beyond thier jobs, thanks for a wonderful time
We had the most amazing wedding here for our daughters wedding. The staff cldnt do enough and the rooms were magnificent. Thank you to Simon and all the staff. Xx
Classic rooms in a timber annex are modern and we'll equipped with a beautiful view. Food throughout our stay was exceptional. Bring cash as cards are only taken at the bar for purchases over £10, a tab cannot be run and you can't charge drinks to your room bill.
Lovely! Road was bad for my tires though but lovely area and castle.