Absolutely disgusted!!! If you want a good weekend ruined by sub standard overpriced food and accommodation coupled with incompetent levels of service the likes of which are seen on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares stay at this hotel.

The room we booked was supposed to be premium as you can see from the photos the only things that stood out were the unprecedented amounts of dirt, grime and mould. The bathroom clearly hadn’t been cleaned properly for quite some time. There was mould growing around most of the fixtures in the bathroom including the bottom of the shower curtain, mirror, extractor vents, toilet and the shower hand rail. The bedroom window also suffered from this. Each of the 20+ small panes of glass looked similar to the photo I’ve uploaded. The furniture was also badly in need of repair. One of the chairs had a leg missing and was very unstable. The TV wouldn’t display a picture properly and the remote control had gaffer tape holding the batteries in. To top it all off of the bed sheets were too small for the bed and had numerous suspect stains on them. If you like using a beanbag for a pillow you’ll be quite at home with the pillows that are on offer. The décor throughout the room and the hotel had seen better days and there was paint and wallpaper pealing off the walls in not just the room but on main corridors throughout the hotel. The worst of which can be seen on the main staircase leading to the restaurant from the reception. The windows in most of the main rooms, staircases and corridors were in a similar state to the bedroom windows. This is certainly not what I’d expect from a supposed 4* hotel.

Feeling pretty disappointed we took a trip to the reception as my girlfriend had arranged a surprise bottle of champagne and box of chocolates to be in the room when we arrived and she wanted to know what had happened to them. On the table next to the reception was a vase of roses. I’m only guessing, but I think a disgruntled guest was responsible for putting a cigarette end in the top of the most prominent flower and this stuck out like a sore thumb!!! We approached the foreign receptionist and discretely let her know. She apologised profusely and advised she would remove it immediately. It stayed there for the rest of the day.

We had booked dinner bed & breakfast and went to the bar for a pre-dinner drink. Even with very few people waiting to be served and 4 members of staff behind the bar it took close to 15 minutes before we were served. Later we seated for dinner and were horrified when we opened the menu to find that the vast majority of dishes available came with an additional supplement ranging from between £3 and £8. Despite being told we had paid for dinner beforehand we found we hadn’t actually paid for it at all. The service was ok to begin with but went downhill rapidly. Ordering drinks was farcical and took ages. The food was a complete rip off and I’ve never experienced such poor quality and service. I had a seriously small overcooked steak that came with a single mushroom, a tomato cut in half and approximately 8 chips carefully stacked in a small bowl all presented in the middle of a huge plate. My girlfriend had duck breast that was incredibly tough and looked and tasted like it had been reheated in the microwave. Once we had finished we noticed there were no staff about and we waited for the table to be cleared for close to 20 minutes before loosing patience and feeling completely ripped off we walking out without having a dessert.

Breakfast was a repeat of dinner. Though thankfully there were no per sausage or per rasher supplement charges in sight. I can only presume that in an attempt to cut down on staff labour, at several locations around the dining room there were stands that staff would stack trays on and on top of these the dirty dishes and scraps of food left by guests. It felt like I was having breakfast in a supermarket cafe with dirty tray and dish stations dotted around us. These piles were in clear view of everyone dining and were never moved to the kitchen and created increasingly unsightly piles close to both sides of our table and the people around us. When these trays were full the dishes were simply left on the tables and not cleared up. Clearly not 4* quality.

Just back from a short stay in this hotel. I was staying here on business - which is just as well because I would not have been happy at having to fork out for this myself.
The hotel's website gives one a good impression beforehand but I was extremely disappointed at the poor quality throughout.
This is not a 4* hotel but it has the potential to be.
Plus points - the building is fantastic and its location is unequalled. The reception staff were helpful and friendly. However from the minute you walk into the building, the impression is one of shabbyness and tiredness. The carpets were well worn and in need of a good hoovering and the walls were tatty with paint peeling off in places.
My room smelled "fousty" and the window didn't close properly which was a) draughty and b) dangerous (this was a ground floor room with easy access to a path outside). The bedcovers were dirty, worn and stained and there were dubious stains on the chairs as well. Disgusting - I felt like asking for another room but it was late, I was tired and I was only staying for 1 night (thankfully). I am slightly built but I found the bathroom claustrophobic. The complementary toiletries were of poor quality and I ended up using my own (I rarely have to do this). The walls were paper thin and I felt like I could easily have been part of next door's late night conversation because I could hear all of it.
I only ate in the restuarant at breakfast time and the service was pretty sloppy. An eastern european girl showed me to a table but didn't explain the system and I ended up having to ask another resident who was equally as bemused as me about the whole thing. It didn't exactly inspire me to use the restuarant again.
In conclusion, I was really let down by the experience and wouldn't recommend this hotel other than for its location. It could be fantastic if the owners spent a bit of money on it and put their staff through a customer service training programme (I don't include the reception staff in this critisism). Until that happens, I'll not be back. Sorry.

I'm super-late writing this review, but we had a memorable stay on our Scotland tour last July. This is an old hotel, something will inevitably not be in working order. During our stay, the air conditioning was out so the lecture room and dining room were stuffy, but the guest rooms were fine as long as you opened the window (it was July). We did not have a refurbished room, so it was a bit dated and shabby, but OK overall. The food was average-to-good, but they seemed under-staffed at times. Our waitress was very sweet and worked very hard to keep our group happy. The hotel is in a great location, a quick evening walk up to the castle by the back way was a treat in the twilight. The coolest thing about the property is that, being the old high school, they have a Victorian-era telescope! A representative from the local astronomy club came and gave our group a brief lecture and demonstration. It was cloudy (of course) but we were able to get a good look at the lit-up Wallace monument. Overall, it was a cool place to stay, but not luxurious.

My parents took our family (including my elderly grandfather) for my birthday weekend at this hotel. We had to decide between St Andrews and here and are so disappointed by our choice.

When we arrived, check-in was sloppy having mixed up our reservations. My mother had specifically requested a twin room for my grandfather and brother to share in an easily accessible location, and had specifically stressed on several occassions that as a surprise she wanted to upgrade my room. My grandfather and brother were given the upgraded double room and finding a twin proved to be a problem. Despite it being their fault as my mother had double checked and confirmed the booking, no apology was given.

The corridors were littered with room service trays and empty bottles from 2pm check-in until I finally called reception and asked them to be moved at 11pm. No apology was offered.

The rooms were ok - however upgrading is not worth the money unless you want the benefit of late check-out. Our "premier" room was worse than our parents standard room, with no free-standing light, damp stains on the roof, no working light in the bathroom and no hot water when I tried to shower at night. In the morning the thermostat obviously wasn't working as there were two temperatures: freezing cold or scolding and no amount of fiddling with the control produced anything else.

The restaurant was awful. Completely overpriced. I fully expect to pay well for good service and food. However the service here is despicable. The steak was £22 and was small coming only with a tomato and mushoom (sauce and veg were extra). This would be acceptable if it were quality well cooked steak. It wasn't. Staff had no clue as to the menu or what wines to recommend. Fine in an average restaurant, but not when you're paying through the roof. My grandfather has to walk with a stick and on both entering and leaving the restaurant (after being shown to the furthest possible table) was bumped into staff who seemed to be hurrying nowhere.

Overall a very disappointing stay. The hotel has the potential to be excellent and with some attention to staff training focusing on customer service, could vastly improve.

Sadly our highly anticipated family get together was spoiled by bad service, unjustifiably overpriced food and staff who couldn't care less.