I've never written a review on TripAdvisor before, usually because I've been pleased, or in a "you get what you pay for" frame of mind. But I must say I was disappointed with The House Hotel after reading reviews here and especially for what we paid.

For the same price, or actually, cheaper, seeing as we stayed in the "classy" rooms, you could stay in The Park House Hotel which is superior in every way to this place. Our stay was OK, but thats it, I expected more than OK. The room was comfy, spacious, nice bathroom, but I didn't like the style of it, fine, personal taste. My girlfriend found it very homely so I guess that's good. One thing that wasn't homely was the serious lack of privacy, you could hear everything from the other rooms, which was pretty funny last night with whoever was having a good time across the way!! Also, on the first night we were out, we returned to find our room had been lit up, jazz on the tv, a little custard tart by the bed, all very nice, but the heating turned up! We nearly passed out, the room took 20 minutes to cool down, nice on a freezing december evening, but a mild october one? Nice!

We also returned on the second day in the evening around 6pm, ready to relax, to find our room being cleaned. A minor annoyance as we had told the cleaners it was fine earlier, as we had to wait in the lobby for nearly half an hour. Breakfast was very average. On the first day we got room service. I got a fry, but no tea? It was all OK, nothing special. The second day we went down stairs, and sat and then served our own continental brekkie, while sitting we thought we would be offered a hot breakfast, but no. Maybe you had to ask for it?

We had dinner one night in the hotel. Again disappointing. Admittedly it was extremely busy with some big family dinner, but it's really no excuse. They seemed understaffed, the very nice waiters were sweating and falling over themselves literally in Fawlty Towers style. We waited 30 minutes for a very poor starter, and another 30 minutes for an average main course, and 20 for a nice dessert. The couple beside us seemed to be having awful trouble with wrong orders so it could have been worse.

Finally, upon leaving, very early, and half asleep, I almost overlooked the fact we were overcharged €70. They had included our meal even though I had prebooked the "1 dinner for 2 people for €80" option, it was bad enough having to pay for it once! I pointed this out, but it took a while to get this through to the receptionist, she was claiming, "yes but nothing is paid in advance", no but that doesn't clear up your bill being €70 overpriced, she finally admitted "oh yes I see your point".

All in all, lots of minor quibbles. Very underwhelmed, and I'm only comparing it to its price like competition, the Park House Hotel, which was so much better in every way. If you were to stay here, choose the cheapest room, don't get fooled by their packages which actually work out more expensive, and eat out, so many nice restaurants in Galway, Nimmos, Vina Mara, The Park House etc etc. Won't be coming back here.