Cave Castle Hotel

Architecturally interesting, beautiful rural location in extensive grounds with a lake and golf course. Super indoor pool, steam, sauna and steam room. Gym on site too. Friendly accommodating staff, especially Alesha! Clean, comfortable bed everything you need in a hotel room with lovely cotton bed linen and choice of pillow thickness. Bath with shower over so choice of either to use. The room had a pretty good view despite not being on the lake/golf course side. Lovely walks around the hotel, a beautiful gatehouse at the end of the drive, atmospheric old stable-block with courtyard and a cute church almost in the grounds. Plenty of parking.

Bathroom surfaces in the room dated & water marked. I don’t like shower curtains! Net curtains at the window in need of tightening up. Windows could be a little cleaner. I’m not keen on sachets of flora/butter and condiments. Salt and pepper needed refilling on 2 tables I sat at in the main Windsor restaurant, that could also do with a wipe over - little attentions to detail that are overlooked. Bistro a little dated in style and food somewhat café (caff) style with a rather uninspiring menu. Less chips more inspired super salads please! Generally vegetarian/vegan diet not catered for brilliantly in both the Bistro and Windsor restaurant.

Stunning building and definitely nice having a room in the castle for the first night of our stay.

The boiler broke down on the second night so we were moved to the Castle Lodge which was a less desirable room. Dogs barking in every other room and Kitchen staff making noise from 730am. Scraping barrels. Taking glass recycling out. Parking next to the windows blaring dance music. In general the building throughout is dated and could be doing with a deep clean. Dust all over the towel rails and toilet roll holders for example didn’t fill me with confidence that COVID cleaning involved much attention to detail.

My room was exceptionally clean, especially the bathroom & it was at the end of the corridor so no through traffic, only had to go a little way to the lift which took me directly to the swimming pool and jacuzzi. These were very relaxing with plenty of windows looking out onto greenery. The gardens were immaculate and it was a beautiful setting with a walk you could take around the golf course and pond.

It was impossible to close the door to your room quietly, it had to be slammed which made me feel bad every time I went in or out especially when I was going for an early morning swim. The bed wasn’t very comfortable for my personal taste.

On a glorious sunny morning my wife and I arrived at this picturesque hotel and was greeted by a happy and helpful receptionist for our check-in process. The rest of the day was spent, making the best use of the leisure facilities - steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, and swimming, and off course, playing a short round of golf. In the evening we dined in the Windsor Restaurant - although menu selection was limited - what was ordered was well presented and satisfying. After, dinner, was followed by a brief chat and relax in the bar, before retiring to bed. The room, including the bathroom, was spacious, clean with comfortable bed. We had a very satisfying cooked- breakfast. - served hot, there were choices of fruits and cereals.

It was a warm night, so it would have been good to have air conditioning in the room. However, an electric fan was available, so a reasonably good sleep was had.

All was fantastic for the first 4 nights at the hotel we booked directly with the hotel for my husband's birthday week. We always book a large room with a ;large bed as my husband is 6ft 4ins tall. We had to move for the last night nd although I'd phoned twice to make sure the bed would be long enough and large enough for two adults [ we're not overweight people by amy means] also opted into the castle on another stay to Yorkshire nearby to make sure the second room for there last night booked via booking .com would have a long bed in it, we were given room 16 by a receptionist the EITHER HAS NO IDEA OF HOW TWO ADUTS FIT INTO A BED OR HAD NEVER SEEN THE ROOM 16. tHE BED WAS JUST OVER THE SIZE OF A SINGLE, A SMALL DOUBLE IT WAS DESCRIBED AS BY THE HEAD HOuSEKEEPER who kindly let us view it the day before we were due to move into another room. She was very obliging and showed us another larger room and called down to reception saying she thought it was available according to her list . The young obviously untrained person on reception said no and I overheard some of the conversation that basically ran along the lines that we weren't to have a larger room. Why after all the trouble I'd gone to making sure there would be a long enough bed to accommodate both of us for the last night after moving rooms from the room we paid a lot of money to stay in. It was NOT about wanting another 4 poster bed as the untrained receptionist had sniped at, it was all-out getting a bed we also paid for but vis booking.com for the last night that fitted our needs . Georgia the lovely receptionist who fully understood what we were saying sorted out a room that had two beds linked together and was long enough for the last nights stay . If receptionists re the first port of call when either spacing or entering a hotel then they should be properly trained as Will was [ now in the offices there ] Georgia who took the time to make sure the move was facilitated properly .

The above , attitude is key in hospitality, the clue is in the word! Properly trained reception staff ar vital to a business . The rest of the staff are all great .

Lovely castle with comfortable rooms. Staff were friendly. it was raining during stay so made use of the lovely internal pool. (note: there was an extra room charge to use the poll which is also open to the public).

No view from room window. My room 10 and my friend’s room 14 on first floor both looked on to a 2-storey brick wall. The wall was about one meter from window, so little natural light. I was visiting from overseas, so would have been nice to have had the choice of some sort of a view. the property is set on a golf course and acres of park land.

Spa facilities were lovely, you just had to time it right (when it wasn't busy) If you didn't want to go out, the Bistro was convenient for coffee/tea/cake lunch etc Breakfast was exceptional. A lovely dining room for breakfast. There was a super display of fresh fruit + both continental + hot option's available and the majority of the staff were super helpful. The Golf Club (which was a 2 minute walk away) also served excellent meals. So if you don't want to drive, you have many option's for meals.

Some of the younger staff need to remember, that walking around with a smile on their face is part of the job!

building looks lovely, woman at receptiondesk was very kind

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO REGISTER YOUR CAR AT THE CHECK IN IF YOUR CAR IS’T WELCOME ??? We arrived with our group of 5 persons in 1 car, a mobilhome. We had 2 rooms booked. The number of our car was asked and noticed at the check in. we were going to eat in the bistro of the castle with our whole group, but just before that our mobilhome was sended away by a man who pretended he was the manager. The reason, he told, was that gipsy’s should come if our car would stay on his parking (!?). if he had asked to put our car on the other parking out of the view it would have been ok for us, but now our group had to split up …

Our meals were lovely, plenty of breakfast choices. It was quite chaotic at times at breakfast but only to be expected as it was half term and very busy. Restaurant staff were very helpful and friendly, Carol in particular.

We did not like the fact that we did a pre authorisation on our bank cards and although prior to our arrival I had booked and paid for 2 double rooms at £276 per room, ( one room for my husband and I and one room for my sister and her husband that both rooms were deducted a further £276 each. My brother in law had £276 taken from his bank account, his was refunded back to his account after 24 hours, however my refund didn’t show back into my account for several days. We don’t all have huge amounts of money just hanging around in our bank accounts. This would not prevent us staying at Cave Castle again but in future we will not be preauthorising payments. We felt that the lounge needed some updating and refreshing.

The room was good. We went out to a nearby restaurant for dinner together with our daughter and 3 others so we did not have dinner. the breakfast was satisfactory but not excellent. The receptionist pointed out that there is a free electric car charging point for the use of the guests. although it is a little slow it was very useful as it saved me from searching for a local charging point on the afternoon of my arrival. This was a bonus! The swimming pool in the Leisure Centre was excellent.

The corridors of the hotel looked a little dowdy and the interior seems to be something of a rabbit warren