What a lovely place to stay. In June I stayed at the Dial House for three days; my purpose for being in Bourton on the Water was to take the Cotswold Perfumery Course, a one day course creating your own fragrance (highly recommended for perfume enthusiast) and the Dial House was recommended by the owner. I liked the idea of staying in an old English home that was built in 1698! The entire residence was immaculately clean, the service was very warm and friendly, the outside was gorgeous with beautiful gardens and the home is in the very center of town.

My reservations were made four months in advance and confirmed before my arrival but when I arrived I was down graded because the room I was supposed to have was not available. I had corresponded with the Dial House months in advanced because at the price of 140 GPB (over $280.00 American) I decided I would rather pay "more" for a room if the rooms were bigger.....so my reservation was for the "double deluxe" but when I arrived I only got a "deluxe" room that was very small! My suitcase would not fit anywhere in the room without being in the way; it was very obtrusive. Being a lone traveler I have found that there is a tendency to put lone travelers in smaller rooms or rooms that are not close to the lobby, etc. Being the room was VERY small I asked to be upgraded but they were full and unable to oblige. The owners (Jane and Adrian) were extremely kind and very earnest to make things right. Although I did have to pay the very minimal (still $200.00/ daily) for the room, I was squashed for three days.......Jane and Adrian kindly helped me out with transportation to the city I needed to make a connection for Birmingham. That helped a lot.

I would like to add that the breakfast was a highlight of the morning! Excellent variety of breakfast choices.

The staff....from the servers, house keepers, office management to Jane and Adrian were the friendliest I have come across in years! My international travels have spanned over 40 years and it's rare to encounter such wonderful people!

Well, this is a tale of two halves. The Dial House is a lovely Hotel in a great location, sort of picture post card material you could say. It is a pretty building with a small but pretty garden and a car park at the rear of the property. We were staying for my mother's birthday and at the time of booking not many rooms were available on the dates required. However, having read all the great reviews we took a chance and booked the rooms that they had left.

The management were kind enough to metion that one of the rooms we booked was small, however nothing could prepare us for what that really meant, DON'T under any circumstances book room number 4 in the main house! They say it is for two people, maybe dwarfs, as the room was ridiculous.

The bed could only be accessed from one side as it was raised off the floor and attached to a wall making getting in and out very difficult, if not dangerous. The bathroom was also tiny, clean but very impratical for two people and the area in between which contained a table with mirror,chair, tray with cups and the cupboard was a farce. We found it very hard to accept that they could really call this room a double, yes it looked over the garden and being at the rear of the property it was fairly quiet. But, when two people have to co-ordinate their movements in the room so as to not bump into one another or cause injury you know you have problems.

The rest of the hotel is nicely decorated, however, I was surprised to find that when the hotel is busy, say over holidays and weekends, there is not enough chairs in the sitting room for all to sit at one time, so its a little like musical chairs - just prey you are sitting down when the music stops!

We found the food to be of a good standard and really enjoyed our meals, in particular the Goats cheese salad and dessert. The dinner turned out to be big hit and breakfast also had a good choice of tasty offerings. One point though, at our dinner we didnt finish a good bottle of wine and the waiter offered to cork it so we could then take it with us but they never gave it back even though I reminded the manager the next day which was rather disappointing.

Overall we would say the hotel is nice with good service and tasteful decoration from what we saw, at a resonable price provided you make sure you have any other room except no 4, located in a very pretty village which must be even more beautiful in the spring/summer.

But to be fair to the owners, we were shown other rooms not in the main building, which were much bigger, although at that time, a little shabby looking, eg. not recently renovated, especially the bathroom.

Overall, this is a lovely place, but it is definitely a lottery as to which room you may be (un)lucky to get. So do your homework before
staying here (oh, by the way, the village is super tacky, if you like
that sort of thing, like really "tasteful" shops with "lovely" souvenirs), and have a good stay.

I came across this hotel via TripAdvisor, and liked the look of it from the start. Obviously, no hotel that has been or will ever be built will please everyone.

For my part, though, it was truly exceptional, for many reasons; the specially prepared canapes (my girlfriend is gluten-intolerant), the fantastic cooking, the excellent location, the beautiful, spacious room, a birthday card for my girlfriend...

Unreservedly recommended.

Regular users of Trip Advisor will be very aware that hotels can get widely different reviews from those staying - and I always tend to look at the average view - hence I think the current reviews posted could lead to too high expectations of this hotel!

We found the decor a bit to 'modern' for our taste. The brochure shows the lounge and restaurant how it 'used to be'

A lot of the seats in the lounge are a little uncomfortable so try and get one of the two settees. We found the dining room a little unwelcoming - harsh wall lights, no table cloths, 'different' wallpaper, lots of weird mirrors and a laminated style wooden floor. We were only offered two types of water with our meal - still or sparkling - but on our second night I asked for 'iced' which was perfectly alright and a lot cheaper!

Our room was large and very nice - the 'red one' in the brochure - but the 'wash room' fell very short of what one would expect from a hotel with the reviews detailed. See previous review (100% correct) of this room and 'saniflo' waste system.

Go by all means but do not have too high expectations. There are certainly better hotels (and a lot worse) - perhaps a little overpriced.