Glendorgal Newquay

Lovely location, shame about everything else!

We booked for 2 nights at the Watermark having loved the look of it from their website. We were told we could have a special rate of £55pppn DB&B in a sea view room. At the time of booking we had a big hoo-hah as the only room with double bed had only a bath, no shower. My husband is 6"2 and doesn't really "do" baths so I agreed to a twin room with shower instead.

Arrived on Friday afternoon. Lovely location, hotel looks great from outside but already the interior is starting to look a wee bit tatty. Receptionist checked us in, all fine. Get up to room to discover we have double room with bath. Go down and ask to change as not what I booked to be told that there is no alternative and nothing they can do. Decide to put up and shut up. Later ask to be given the correct room for our second night. Am told she will "see what she can do" and it is never mentioned again.

Go for a drink in the bar where the most miserable people on earth are manning the area. Go to book treatment in the health club to be treated as though they're doing us a favour. Eat in the bistro that evening and are massively disappointed. As we're on special rate we have a small selection to choose from. The food looks great, but just doesn't taste. Really really bland and disappointing. Still haven't had any smiles from any of the staff in the restaurant.

Woken at 5am by every single door/window in the place being slammed shut and this slamming then went on regularly until I got up at about 7. No notion that perhaps their guests are, gasp, asleep! Go down to get our newspaper which has been taken by another guest. " Oh,sorry". That was the sum total of what the receptionist could do.

Went in for breakfast to see the lovely surly staff again. Still no smiles. No welcome. "sit where you want, help yourself". No please, no thank you, no "can we get you anything else?".

I mentioned to my husband that I had a dream that we changed hotels and we decided that was just what we would do.

Lovely location, massive potential, shame about the total lack of interest in their customers or willingless to go the extra millimeter, never mind mile!

Almost like the Glendorgal!!

This is a hotel that is unsure of its past. Although the glossy brochure and website state the watermark, even the hotel information folder and menus refer to the Glendorgal( see Tripadvisor comments under this name !). I stayed here on 23-24th August on business travel, (and was slightly worried by the previous Glendorgal reviews*) alledgedly with a discount rate for B+B of £80 / night. The hotel occupies a super position on a headland, but arriving in the dark is a tricky business as you're not sure where the reception is. After nearly falling over on the unlit steps down from the carpark to reception, I was safely in. I'd lucked in with room 1, directly over the reception, unfortunately for me, as the receptionist vacumed at 0600 - which was nice to ensure the foyer was clean for the morning rush !! The rooms are contempoary with plain subdued colour walls and a good array of cupboards etc. However, as previous reviews* note the curtains are incredibly difficult to close, the curtain rail is marginally narrower then the rings, net result you have to pull each ring individually to close the curtains. Thats maybe why the curtains were left closed when the room was cleaned after my first night?

The bed was a bit lumpy when sat on, but gave a good sleep. Theres a small TV and tea and coffee facilities. The 'bathroom' didn't have a bath but has been modernised with 'slate tile' floor and shower. Again you get a good initial impression, but then let down by tatty workmanship- shower ring coming off the wall, sink grouting falling away etc. All the toiletries are the large bottle bolted to the wall type, but are good. However, the 'fluffy white towels' had seen a bit of use and were of normal hardish quality. As a tall bloke 6ft 4in I found the long horizontal mirror in the bathroom too low as I had to stoop to have a shave. Due to working I wasn't back to use the off-peak health club, which costs £5 after 1600, so can't comment there.

I was a bit taken aback to find that breakfast didn't start until 0800, fine for holidays, not good when you have to leave at 0745. The hotel info is confusing as it states breakfast starts at 0730, and the menu states 0800. I managed to get the 'continental' breakfast ie cereal , juice, coffee on the first day- never did find the toast advertised. Having queried the breakfast time and asked if it was possible for an earlier cooked breakfast, I was told it was not. On the second day I had time for a cooked breakfast , poached eggs/ parma ham/spinach/ciabatta - very good, certainly looked better than the standard english. Due to earlier comments* I took my evening meal in town- more fool me at the decidedly ropey Maharajah indian ( crap), but enough people were turning up for a meal here. The restaurant has a nice location overlooking the bay, but isn't a great sized room with a bar and v.large plasma TV over the serving hatch. The menu had some interesting food, but seemed expensive, paying for the view- or is the food that good- see earlier reviews*. Another oddity is having to walk outside from reception to reach an external door to the restaurant, not good as it chucked it down one morning.

Overall its not a bad place to stay by two beaches, yet 10-15 minutes walk to the centre, with contempory styled rooms and my one cooked breakfast was tasty, but was let down by minor faults in the room and inflexibility on breakfast time,.......... would I have paid £80 when there is healthy competition out there????????????

Beware!

Actually, we never made it! Made the booking on Saturday 20th August for two / three nights the following week. Were given a price, made the deposit etc. When the confirmation of booking came through they hiked up the price by £100. When we phoned to question the error they spoke to us like total dirt!

They admitted that it was their error but would not budge an inch! In fact their whole attitude was disgusting!!! - I have never been spoken to so rudely for a very long time. Really obnoxious!

Nice Website, very BAD attitude. Beware!

Stag party

On the surface this appears to be a nice hotel, however on close inspection faults soon come to light. Recent refurbishment lacks care and thought, cheap fittings such as curtain rails that don't draw, sisal floor coverings in the rooms, cheap beds that just rock as you move, kitchen taps fitted to hand basins in the bathroom.

Reataurant and bar combined make for poor dining, mind you the food is not anything special.

I thought at least we may get a good nights sleep but I hadn't taken into account the Stag Party that finished outside our bedroom at 4 am, when I mentioned this the following morning no apology was forthcoming or any concern shown, therefore I presume this is a normal occurence.

Do not eat the food!!!

We ate at this restaurant a couple of months ago. I do not usually complain but the food in this place was completely inedible.

The starters were "ok" but I ordered carbonara for my main course, the pasta was extremely overcooked and the carbonara sauce tasted like off scambled egg! it even had the texture of scrambled egg! My boyfriend ordered Monkfish, it came to the table and let me tell you, it was definitely NOT monkfish, I think it was cod.

For dessert, I had a ricotta and lemon tart which was also inedible (I had to have a dessert as I was still starving hungry after the one bite that I had of my main meal!) it was just a plate full of stodge.

I must admit though when the bill came after my complaint, the waitress hadn't charged us for my main meal or the dessert (I hadn't complained about the dessert!) which was nice of her.

The food in this restaurant used to be very good but I really think that they should get rid of their current chef!

Awful

We tryed several times the restaurant at the watermark,and every time we entered was the owner of the hotel drunk at the bar,his eyes like 2 -------- in the snow ,he was very rude and arrogant . Don't go there if you take your loved ones for a meal.

We had a lovely time

As I understand it, The Glendorgal Hotel closed in about November 2003 and reopened in about May 2004 after a total revamp to such a degree that any previous guest would not recognise it today.

The entire hotel from every exterior wall to every interior wall, bed, carpet, bathroom and sink inside is new.

We had a great time. In fact, we stayed there twice during September and November 2004.

We found our welcome to be very efficiently and pleasantly handled. Our rooms, on both occasions were clean, tidy, well maintained and best of all, spacious.

The restaurant with its spacious lounge area was lovely too with a most courteous welcome from the Maitre d' who also looked after the bar.

Dinner was excellent with good choices on the menu and reasonably priced. Service was discrete, pleasant and efficient, although we were not shown a wine list, which we did not need.

If you are looking for a memorable breakfast, you'll find that here too - very disappointing. It was "breakfast" but no more with very little choice on the buffet but an interesting selection on the menu, if you want that.

Their Health and Leisure Club, which guests can use, is really impressive with everything and more than one would expect from far larger hotels with a good sized Swimming Pool, sauna, steam, Jacuzzi and every bit of gym equipment imaginable. There are even separate rooms for boxing training and weight-lifting.

The views from the hotel, restaurant and Club overlooking the Atlantic are, as one would expect from a property sitting on the top of a cliff, with its own path down to their own private beach.

I am really looking forward to staying again.

P.S. Loads of free on-site parking too.

Beautiful and interesting place to stay

My husband and I spent a few days of our honeymoon at the Glendorgal Hotel. It's situated on one of the headlands in Newquay and has its own private beach. The hotel was once owned by Nigel Tangye, brother of the writer Derek Tangye, who wrote several books about the history of the hotel including 'The Story of Glendorgal' and 'The Spirit of the Sea'. It was very interesting to read these books and to establish which room was once the nursery (number 9) one of the rooms we stayed in. We arrived, accidentally, one day early, and were catered for very well by the staff who found us a room for the extra night. The room we moved to on the second night was fairly large with a dated bathroom but perfectly adequate and we had a good view of the cove. I have seen that this hotel has changed its name to Watermark and has been refurbished. I would like to see how it has been done up.

You must be joking!

We agreed to try the Glendorgal some time ago, for a weekend, as a family, at a reduced rate offered by the hotel, if we would look at their timeshare accommodation. I decided to write this after reading the previous review.

On arrival we were shown to a dark, dingy room, leading into an even more dingy children's room. The bathroom was a complete joke. What had obviously been dark brown walls had been hurriedly and badly painted over with one inadequate coat of cheap, white emulsion. The plumbing was so noisy, we could barely hear ourselves and, quite frankly, the place stank.

Worse was to come. The bunks for the children rocked ominously if anybody so much as breathed near them and, to cap it all, my son found a dirty plaster IN his bunk bed and a cigarette butt under it. I could go on for ever.....but you get the gist! We checked out as soon as possible and went elsewhere. Don't touch it!

Stay Away from this Mess!

Room was small, horrible beds, thin, lumpy mattress, not very clean, carpeting smelled of vomit. The breakfast was okay. The staff in the restaurant were not overly friendly and the young woman at the front desk was not welcoming at all and bordered on surly. This hotel was my one mistake in my whole trip and luckily I was only there one night.