Ardgowan Hotel

Perhaps the timing of our visit between Christmas and New Year was not the time to see this hotel at its best. Apart from the price, everything seemed cheap: from the flimsy plastic coat hangers in the bedroom wardrobe, the not very substantial plastic lavatory seat that kept sliding sideways, a far too small shelf in the bathroom for spongebags, the bedroom window with a broken sash cord that couldnt be opened (is that legal?) and for breakfast, the miniscule portions of glutinous substances presented in plastic containers as jam and marmalade, the absence of any kind of fruit and porridge (in Scotland the home of porridge!) and the least appetising bread imaginable for toasting. And as for the soap! We were solemnly told by a note stuck to the bathroom mirror that We provide the toiletries for use during your stay. Should you wish to take them home the cost would be 20. I understand hoteliers frustrations when guests habitually remove such items but really: these soaps are not exactly top of the range. Our stay started badly when, having asked for a room upstairs and been messaged that we would get one, we found ourselves on the ground floor. Apparently booking.com had not passed on our request, so we were told. We had been emailed that the restaurant would be open: it was closed. And what is it with hotel decor these days? Here we were in a fine late Victorian or Edwardian building in the heart of St Andrews, just round the corner from the home of golf, for the hotel owners a wonderful opportunity to showcase real period and local atmosphere but what do we find? Off the peg ersatz dcor and furnishings common anywhere in the world. What a pity. In a small, popular city where accommodation is not always plentiful, perhaps the price is not unduly expensive, but maybe management could consider being a little less mean?