Macdonald Resorts Timeshares

We expected what we paid for.

We booked a two-night break at this hotel in the New Forest to end our all too brief trip to England. It was expensive £464 for two nights, 2 adults and one child. Our arrival was a little disappointing as the welcome at reception was mediocre, 2 staff members, the woman more stressed than the man, telephone ringing interrupting their ´flow’.

In the blurb I had read about the beautiful views over the Lymington river……it is very small, if you are standing in the garden…..but certainly not from the rooms.

Agh! The rooms….very dated, bathroom very small, bed not as good a quality as a Premier Inn……needs replacing. Linen was good quality and clean, which is why I give them a 1 star review. If you wish to have privacy in your room, you need to close the curtains, especially in the evening. Perhaps we were unfortunate in being given room 22a, because above this room it appears there is a room inhabited by a slightly eccentric gentleman who wandered around with his bathrobe flapping all evening…..we even encountered him in the Scottish Steak Clube. Be warned he walks like an elephant.

The first night we ate in the Scottish Steak Club. The service was lovely, the staff merit that star alone. The atmosphere was dire…….think 1970’s pub in the suburbs. The food might be made from the finest ingredients but somewhere along the line, it lost its ´fineness’……..mediocre pub food at best.

The biggest shock was yet to come. Breakfast time we duly presented our selves in the same Scottish Steak Club. We found that our £464 did not include breakfast. We could pay for the full English buffet at £19.99 a person, or go continental at £13.99 each. Imagine 3 of us…..that’s another £60 onto our bill…….the fabulous breakfast we found in Lymington the next day cost £17 for all 3 of us, including some extra toast, tea and a strawberry milkshake!

My daughter and I did use the swimming pool and thus the changing rooms and showers. Dirty, sand in the pool, hair on the sides. Not a member of staff in sight…..we signed ourselves in at about 6pm on Saturday afternoon, We just helped ourselves to towels. Still, no one to talk to at 7.15 when we left.

When I went to the reception to settle our bill, for one dinner (x3 and continental breakfast x3) I willed the man to offer the minimum amount of courtesy and ask if I had enjoyed my stay…..nothing……just the bill, no courtesy whatsoever. It was I who wished him a happy Easter as I left…..to no response.

That’s it! I am done with trying to treat my little French family to a good British break……embarrassed that I ever had the audacity to say that British hotels know what service is…….. Never again will I use the Macdonalds group, that is how disappointed I am.

The room we got was not in the main building but outside with its own access. The room was clean and spacious with an extra room with bunk bed for kids which was nice. The decor was terrible very dated but that didn’t bother us much. The issue was that there was hardly any mobile reception and wifi didn’t work properly. There was no aircon, and no sockets … yes sockets that are usually near the night table so you can charge your phone. We had to search the room and only found 1 socket in the kids room. Great if you need to set your alarm to wake you up and charge mobile at the same time and not having it next to you. So who got woken up first… my son.

The MAJOR problem in this place were breakfast. It was the worst experience ever. DAY 1 – 2 waiters serving very busy restaurant with one chef cooking breakfast on order. People had to queue and wait till the busy waiter came and offered them seat.

He was stressed as this would be too much for anyone. He very briefly explained that there’s a “buffet” and the cooked breakfast had to be ordered but that there’s about 20 min waiting time due to full restaurant.

We got seated just opposite the kitchen where we could see chef sweating and running around with too many tickets. It didn’t bother us until we found out that the mentioned “buffet” that we were meant help ourselves had no food.

The 2 people serving the whole restaurant didn’t have time to even top up the food. I found last croissant, last slice of bread. There were only cereals and juices left. Few small Nutelas spreads left and one slice of cheese. Some tea selection and that was it. Jam was on the table.

When the waiter asked us what we want to drink i asked for mint tea, he quickly replied help yourself and only brought hot water. As we were hungry we ate and share the last croissant and slice of bread among us and my son had some cereals.. thanks God at least they had this as not sure what i’d feed my child. We ordered cooked breakfast and waited …and waited and were watching the kitchen, The chef was sweating more and more under the huge number of orders and wiping his sweat with his hands and then picking up the lovely crispy beacon with it and plating it. “YUM!” No glows or tongs were used …great hygiene indeed.

Despite that we waited but when it has turned into an hour we lost the patience and left. We saw people leaving hungry as they couldn’t get breakfast and couldn’t be bothered to wait. We were furious and went to complain and speak to the GM. Yet again nobody at the reception. Finally the receptionist turned up. She of course couldn’t get hold of any manager and GM was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly a man that was just hanging around in the lobby came and introduced himself as F&B manager. WOW instead of being in the restaurant and overlooking the service he was fiddling his fingers and doing nothing and standing in the room next to the lobby. Great job!

We’ve explained the situation and were quite furious (still hungry) and he was lost for words. If you don’t have enough staff then DON’T DO cooked breakfast on order !!! We’ve suggested to keep it all as buffet or get more staff into the kitchen and more waiters if you are trying to get the 4* standard across. He assured he’ll sort it out.

DAY 2 – i didn’t even want to go for breakfast and wanted to go elsewhere but my husband said let’s try it. The same waiter now knew our name and greeted us and was extremely polite and helpful and the tea i wanted the day before was now possible to be brought to my table without me picking it and making it myself. Flash news! the cooked breakfast were no longer on order , no menus on the tables but they have put out all in one of those warming trays and the only thing you had to order were the eggs. There was new chef there as well and using tongs this time to plate the food. The “buffet” was still poor but was few more croissants left this time and loaf of bread. All worked out well. DAY 3 – arrived and the same waiter that was so specially sweet the day before now no longer knew our name and said the breakfast are as per order. SO basically back to a one big mess as it was on day one.

He had few helpers this time, a guy from a gym that was serving tea, and was dressed in sports clothes. Totally inappropriate for hotel such “quality” Then a new waiter blond older lady who when taking our order for those lovely cooked breakfast called my husband darling. Plus another waiter. Of course the sweaty chef was back and on his own again rushing to complete all the orders.

My husband ordered smoked haddock/egg but after like half hour of waiting the lady came back saying they don;t have haddock anymore…surprise surprise, i doubt chef had even time to cook such breakfast. I ordered 1 soft egg and one hard egg. But guess what we got both cooked hard. This took about 40min to get by the way. I called the lovely lady and said i got hard egg instead the soft and I said to her no to bother getting me another one as she wanted as I wasn’t prepared to wait another 40 min for it. Her response was appalling simply OK and walked off, no apology nothing,

So you can imagine if breakfast are like this would you want to go there for dinner? Never! We made sure we ate out. I’m not sure how this hotel received 4* as it is very very far from it. I’ve been to other MacDonald hotels but none of them was this bad. The room rates are very high to what the hotel has to offer to their guests and if it continues like this it won’t have any. This was massive disappointment,

When we arrived there was retiling work being carried out by main reception and along the bar/ coffee shop and steps up to the car parking area. The landscaping around this area including the fish pond was empty as well and it looked very sad. The main outdoor lido was completely closed and drained with extensive work and what I can only describe as painfully slow work being done by 1 person. The Sky satellite service for Sports and movie channel stopped for 2 days owing to the subscription expiring.

The indoor male changing room had a shower out of use for the whole week while we there for some re-plumbing and tiling work. On the plus side, the reception staff were helpful and the resort manager was polite and keen to attempt to promote the facility.

The quality of the apartment Room ((Elizabeth 212) was generally good and clean. However for a 5* RCI resort it was frankly very disappointing. I strongly suspect that in the busy holiday Easter and Summer periods this resort is really good but in quieter Winter time especially January all the maintenance is carried out and I would definitely not recommend it for a holiday in the Winter.

Firstly, booking on the website was a bit of a nightmare, trying to select an offer (with dates selected) kept looping me back to the same screen, then when I eventually managed to price the deal I wanted, it was double the price of the offer advertised… I decided to check alternative dates to find the price advertised was not available on any date whatsoever… I did email MacDonald Hotels to query this but they were not helpful.

The scenery around the hotel is fantastic and showcases what Scotland has to offer wonderfully well, unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the hotel. Check in was fine but no assistance offered up to the room, ok no big deal.

On entering the ‘Executive’ double room (No. 202) we discovered it to be dirty with cobwebs on the ceiling. The windows looked like they hadn’t been washed in months and all surfaces were thick with dust.

Strangely, there were two TV’s in the room, one mounted on the wall that did not work and another, sat in front of the vanity mirror (preventing my wife from using this area to get ready for dinner) with a cable draped from the back of the first television over to it, rather unusual and unsightly.

Other things to mention about the room would be the broken ironing board, broken plug whole in the bath/shower and the leaky / dirty shower – in general, the room was just dirty, disappointing and extremely tired.

They charge over £100 a night on a Sunday and more on a Friday & Saturday for this. Dinner and drinks in the restaurant were nice but the hotel did try to overcharge us at dinner, the additional items that had been added to our bill were removed after we pointed them out.

Breakfast was nice however charging a supplement for a slice of haggis which costs the same as a slice of black pudding in any shop I’ve been in to just reeked of trying to take advantage of foreign tourists who may like to try it when they were in Scotland. To top things off, on check out, the hotel had ‘forgotten’ to take the £10 discount of our bill for booking directly.

This hotel is shoddy at best and dishonest at worst, I definitely would not recommend visiting this hotel any time soon, Fonab Castle in Pitlochry or Airth Castle on the other side of Stirling provides a great example of how a Scottish countryside hotel could / should be run.

However, the biggest issue is the internet wifi has ports blocked. So could not access pop3 email or run a VPN. Unfortunately, MacDonald hotels do not value the online convenience, privacy and security of their customers. Will avoid MacDonald hotels in future.

The following night we stayed in the Marriott Preston – excellent wifi- no ports blocked. Could access email, run VPN for banking and watch some streamed sports. MacDonald hotels – learn from Marriott how to do the internet. Otherwise, no business traveller or any traveller who values their online security and convenience should stay in one.

One Saturday 28th my wife and daughter were in the swimming pool and jacuzzi whilst I was in the adjacent bar area.

I was alerted by my wife that something was wrong as she was banging on the windows, trying to get my attention.

When I went into the pool area there was blood streaming from my daughters foot and it was then she told me she had cut it on something sharp in the jacuzzi.

At this point I went to the reception to alert them and to get a towel. I then went back to my daughter to treat her laceration. The only staff who came to help was a member of the cleaning dept.

At no time did anyone with first aid experience come to investigate or to help. Once I had dressed my daughters foot I went to complain at reception and asked to speak to the duty manager. At least 35 minutes after the incident the duty manager turned up.

It soon became apparent he had little know of any procedures or procedures relating to accidents. He couldn’t tell me who the first aiders on duty were. All in it was a shambles.

At this point they ha drained the jacuzzi and it was apparent there were many missing tiles which had not been repaired.

These missing tiles left many sharp edges. I complained to the resort manager whom when she returned gave a very much less than satisfying response. I then took the complaint to customer services.

This led to a reply from Mr Simon Jackson office, Macdonald resort chief executive, who assured me that the complaint was being taken seriously and that according to their complaints procedure I would get a full reply within 7-10 days regarding the complaint.

Unfortunately, I have still to receive a reply. I have been left to refer this matter to my lawyers to deal with as the Mr Jackson has not been good to his word with any reply. I cannot believe a seemingly reputable company as Macdonald Resorts would treat such a serious matter with so much contempt.

My daughter will be left with scarring to her foot due to the negligent upkeep of a jacuzzi, however, Mr Jackson doesn’t deem this worthy of a reply. There was no first aid offered on the day in question.

The duty manager was inept to say the least.

The whole episode was calamitous.

We were very disappointed with a number of things over our stay which I will list below and have attached a number of photos:

1 – Please see the picture of the mould growing on the ceiling in our bathroom. For a property of this standard and the price being paid, this is unacceptable.

2 – The external entrance of the Topsider was completely covered in cobwebs and had clearly not been cleaned for a few weeks.

3 – The most frustrating thing about the stay was that the TV did not show a clear picture (see attachment). Despite a number of visits from the in house maintenance team, who also confessed that the TV was a problem and that MacDonald’s had made a big mistake putting this system in….. this was most frustrating as we had looked forward to watching the Jubilee celebrations over the three day period. The children could not also watch any children’s TV

4 –We paid £774.00 for this week but was then charged additional energy charges of £34.19.

For only a two bedroom property in the summer, this is a complete ‘rip off’ and a complete unnecessary ‘penny pinching’ exercise. I only pay £60 per month at my 4 bedroom house at home even in the winter so how can they justify the 34.19 pw which is the same as £148.16 We sent the above email to the General Manager and the complaints department but again a bit like their Maintenance Program, they have not got back to us……….

again nothing offered to accept that they would look into it, take a bit more than that I thought, anyway we checked out two days early and went to Lake Vyrnwy Hotel & Spa much more like it, everything that MacDonald resort should be like but will never achieve.

After viewing Macdonald resorts website which shows beautiful photos of accommodation, upon arrival I could not believe the standard of furnishing in the apartments it was like a 1970’s bedsit. The furniture was dirty, and marked, the carpet was dirty, cobwebs on the light fittings, which were hanging off, and the toilet seat hanging off. I complained to the staff who said the place had been professionally cleaned earlier!!

The whole apartment stank and I could not believe that the bed linen was even dirty in the master bedroom, and we had to sleep on a towel, as it was too late at night to call someone when we went to bed.

The management stated they have staff shortages, however that really isn’t my issue when I am paying for a holiday resort, I could have easily stayed on a caravan camp, which would have been much much cheaper.

Macdonald resorts need to start spending some money on this place to bring it up to standards of the 21st century. Having worked in hotel management for many years I was saddened to see the state of this potential paradise, with such fantastic surroundings.

Even the pool table is chargeable, and then you have to pay for electricity to power the pool table lights, the dryers in the guest laundry never get hot, and it costs a fortune to dry anything!!

It seems that Macdonald resorts just want to take from the customer with their overpriced tatty accommodation and amenity charges, and not give back, well people expect and deserve BETTER come on Macdonald group, get a grip