Unveiling Gleneagles Hotel: An Iconic Retreat - A Comprehensive Review of Scottish Heritage
Overview
Our stay, booked through Leading Hotels of the World, was quite a last minute booking having had to cancel Le Sirenuse in Positano (Amalfi Coast, Italy) due to changes in Italian legislation regarding Covid-testing for UK arrivals. I had accumulated a number of points through the Leaders Club membership, so paid cash for the first night then booked a couple of extra nights using points. You can read about the LHW experience (Sterling membership) vs our next stay at The Fife Arms booked through Grand Luxury Hotels (Connoisseur status) here. There really were no LHW benefits applied (which was disappointing), even to the paid-for night - no upgrade, no welcome gift or even acknowledgement of the programme (it later turned out they had sent a gift to the wrong room apparently). WiFi was free anyway and by the time we actually got into the room type we had paid for, it was the standard check-in time so we didn’t benefit from an early check-in, nor did we need a late check-out.
You’ll see throughout the review that many aspects of a ‘normal’ stay were impacted by Covid applied restrictions (and the hotel are in no way responsible for that) but these were accentuated by the Scottish Government applying additional restrictions during the 16-day ‘reset’ period and it was very disappointing to not get a slot to swim.
Hotel website: https://gleneagles.com
Would I stay here again? The stay, mostly due to quite severe (Government mandated) Covid restrictions was certainly not what we would have expected the normal Gleneagles experience to be, yet this wasn’t reflected in the pricing. Yes I would go back again, I’d prefer to get the room choice right first time and not experience any of the niggles, and be able to swim, use the gym or take a spa treatment. Having hot water on tap would be good too, and not taking 15 minutes or so each time we needed it.
Location
Gleneagles is located about 50 miles from Edinburgh Airport (so about a 50 minute drive), situated in Perthshire. Auchterarder, the nearest (small) town is only 2.5 miles away - there isn’t a great selection of shops, but ok for a supermarket, basic essentials and a good Chocolate Galley Café where we had lunch one day. It was a perfect location to walk around the estate and easy to drive to other nearby locations like Pitlochry and Perth.
Another day we drove to the Scottish Antique & Arts Centre near Doune, followed by a visit afterwards to nearby Callander, then lunch in the Buttercup Café in the picturesque village of Doune itself.
Accommodation
The highest category of room was the Estate Room, in either the Main House (the traditional building) or Braid House (a new extension wing on the side). I’d particularly wanted to stay in the Main House and had booked this, but on checking in found that we had been allocated a room in the new extension. The website stated that all Estate Rooms had “Spectacular estate views” - to be fair, a standard request on my LHW profile is for a balcony, and only the new extension rooms had balconies, but room #587 was at the back and had a very disappointing outlook, albeit did have a balcony. We asked to move to what we’d booked in the Main House (#362), which had a great outlook from the third floor overlooking the main entrance.
The Braid House room was beautifully appointed and felt more luxurious (and bigger) than ours in the Main House (and had both a bath and shower as well as twin sinks). Our room was nice, not ultra luxurious, and the bathroom was smaller with only a walk-in shower (and I wasn’t bothered foregoing the bath) but only a single sink - it is great when you get twin sinks in a hotel. The bathroom, as bedroom too, was spotlessly clean and well appointed with Asprey London ‘Purple Water’ toiletries - there was a good shower, heated floor and double windows (albeit frosted for privacy). The only problem was trying to get hot water!
The room itself was spacious enough with a huge (massively comfortable) king-size bed, decent-sized wardrobe with iron and ironing board (always the first ask by ‘Mrs’ ThePrivateTraveller if there isn’t one already provided) and a travel-trunk style drawer unit which combined additional drawers with hidden mini-bar and tea/coffee making facilities (and delicious shortbread, which we were also given on departure). There was air-conditioning, a large ultra-modern flat screen TV and a sofa in the window recess.
Due to Covid restrictions (and there were many in the hotel, many applied by the Scottish Government) the room was serviced only once a day, with no turndown service. It was well-maintained throughout our stay, albeit on the first evening we had no hot water in the evening. We let reception know, and agreed that we would review again in the morning before having an engineer come to inspect. There still wasn’t any hot water in the morning, but it was very quickly fixed (air bubbles in the system) - the hotel later phoned to apologise and we were sent a bottle of Moët later in the day to compensate, which was very much appreciated. That said, the problem re-occurred every time we needed hot water for either the sink or shower, which was incredibly frustrating, and never fixed.
Food & Drink
Having only booked quite last minute, the hotel phoned me on the Saturday before our arrival on the Monday to book restaurants - breakfast times had to be booked too, as well as dinner. Unfortunately there were very few available slots for our first choices, but we did get every meal booked.
On our first evening we ate in the Dormy (the golf club house), located a few minutes walk from the main hotel. It’s open throughout the day from 7 - 7:30am depending on weekend/weekday morning through until 10pm (during our stay the Government imposed close time). No alcohol could be served, which wasn’t really a big issue for us (although I do like a G&T before dinner and there would have been loads of great Scottish gin options - and the International Scottish Gin Day was approaching) but the hotel had provided a good list of non-alcoholic options. There was a good choice of food options (lots for vegetarians), service was good and social distancing wasn’t a problem as the restaurant area was spacious with lots of tables available.
We also had breakfast in the Dormy the following morning, service was ok but the (breakfast) food choice was quite limited and completely lacking in atmosphere - definitely felt like we were getting the secondary breakfast experience by not getting a suitable time slot in the main (Strathearn) restaurant in the hotel itself. Thankfully we did get ok times there for the other two breakfasts which was a much better dining experience.
We had definitely wanted to eat at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, the only restaurant in Scotland to have been awarded two Michelin stars - unfortunately, on initial booking of reservations, the hotel advised that there was no option for any evening. They did pass our details to the restaurant (where bookings seemed to be handled independently) and were promised that we would be called if there were any cancellations. To have a reservation at least as backup, we booked the Birnam Brasserie for the second night and the Strathearn Restaurant on our final night.
During the day on our second day, Restaurant Andrew Fairlie called to advise there was a (perfectly timed) vacancy that evening, which was great. This was such a great dining experience that it deserves its own blog post - so you can read all about the meal here.
During our time, again because of (Government) Covid restrictions, the American Bar, Blue Bar and Auchterarder 70 (in the Dormy clubhouse) remained closed throughout, as was the Century Bar in the evenings. We did notice on the second morning that a canopied outside area was created next to the Garden Café near the Spa - on enquiry, we found that this was a hurriedly executed new bar area (the Garden Bar sponsored by Moet) to allow guests to have alcoholic drinks (when resident) after 6pm in the evening, and before the final 10pm curfew. Thankfully they were able to organise a spot for us one evening before having dinner in the Birnam Brasserie.
Facilities & Service
Again, very disappointingly, when trying to book swim times in advance of arrival there was basically nothing available to us during our stay. We did check again on arrival, but unless we wanted to swim at either 6am (first slot) or 8:30pm (last slot) we couldn’t use the pool. Similarly, gym sessions were available at very limited times. I always love to try different spa treatments when away, but although there were some (very) limited beauty treatments available in the separate Bob & Cloche beauty lodge in a gatehouse in the grounds, the Spa was not available for any treatment.
We’re not golfers, so not the blog to read about golfing options at Gleneagles, but if you are - this is the place to be. While I explained that the activities we would normally like (gym/swim/spa) were basically unavailable, there were options for great walks around the estate and you could horse ride, play tennis, fish and shoot, or do off-road driving or have experiences with gundogs and falcons.
ThePrivateTraveller’s top tips (any areas for improvement?):
I would amend the description of ‘Panoramic Estate Views’ on Braid House Estate Rooms to reflect that any rear-facing rooms look straight into trees - front facing (towards the Main House) could easily be described as Panoramic though.
Quite a basic requirement, but we had quite a few problems getting hot water - only worked when running the shower and the bathroom sink together for a long, long time. To be fair, a fix was attempted (we were told it was just air bubbles) and they did send some Moët to compensate, but the problem continued throughout our stay.
We had specifically booked a room in the traditional Main House, not in the newer side extension (Braid House) - our preference should have been confirmed at check-in (albeit I do acknowledge my LHW profile asked for a balcony where possible).
Acknowledge membership of Leading Hotels of the World - we went through our stay without any, nor any membership privileges. You can read all about my comparison with Grand Luxury Hotels here. It turned out later, when flagged in the LHW departure questionnaire, that the welcome had been sent to the previous room and no one had sent it on.
ThePrivateTraveller’s absolute highlights:
Once relocated to the room type we had booked (Estate Room, Main House) this was much more what we had expected (great view); albeit the room itself was a bit disappointing compared to the standard of Braid House, albeit no view.
The grounds are exceptional, even if you’re not a golfer.
Was a nice surprise to find that a non-Tesla electric car could use the two Tesla branded charging points in the car park.
Dinner in Restaurant Andrew Fairlie - what an experience!
Useful website links:
Hotels:
Other:
Chocolate Galley Auchterarder
International Scottish Gin Day (24th October 2020)
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