Gillieru Harbour Hotel

"Recently spent 4 nights at this hotel. On arrival at the hotel, I was really happy to see the exterior of the hotel and it's super location overlooking the harbour. Sadly my happiness was not to last too long as I entered my room I was firstly greeted by an electrician carrying out repairs to a bedside light and was asked if I could vacate the room in 10 mins to allow him to continue with the repairs. I suggested he return the following day as I wanted to unpack and get ready to settle at the pool which I needed more than 10 mins to do. Secondly, looking around the room my happiness quickly disappeared. Initial impression being it's shabbiness and dirty marks around the door frames from countless previous guests. The towels (which should have been white) were grey looking and quite rough to the touch. The balcony did have a tired looking plastic table and two equally tired looking plastic chairs and the balcony itself was more like a patch of concrete not really big enough to aspire to be called a balcony. Then there was the hairdryer. Which was located in it's holder in the bathroom. Which when I tried to use, kept switching itself off mid dry. Then when I out it back into the holder and walked out of the bathroom it would switch itself back on! This meant a battle of wits between us with me dashing across the room to grab it before it went off again. When I brought this to the attention of reception I was told that I had it on the wrong setting. So I asked the electrician to show me the setting only for him to experience the same response from the hairdryer. They did, good enough provide a new hairdryer which worked as it should. I actually also felt that the area around the rooftop pool lacked any ambience and was pretty untidy with again tired and dirty looking sun loungers littered all over the place! I could have actually worked at overlooking all of this but apart from the fact of having no sleep whatsoever due to the noise in the room itself!! This was due to a constant low drone coming from the air conditioning vents for the hotel. My room being located on the top floor and at the very end of the hotel, meant that the noise reverberated from the behind the bathroom wall and could be heard all night long. I even tried using some of the excess pillows to buffer the noise but that made no difference. I asked at Reception if there was another room I could move to but was told that every room would be the same with the noise. Really!!! Mmm And then upon checking out, the same receptionist politely asked if I had had a pleasant stay. To which I replied that I would have if I had been able to get any sleep and again explained about the air condition vent problem. Looking sympathetic she asked had I not reported it at all? Yes, to you was my reply!! The hotel is in a lovely location but sadly it falls far from being a 4 star hotel."

"In general I don't write reviews but got to make an exception on this one. It's location is very nice outlooking the harbour,but this is probably why they get away with what goes on behind the scenes. On arrival & entry to the hotel we thought "oh how very nice" once checked in and went to our given room 304 on entrance our attitude changed with "oh this is a let down" but things for us changed & i found myself picking holes ,which i never do as we are a very basic couple who don't have high expectations. I will just say find another hotel. 1. The room is a basic room ,metal beds very sprngy mattresses like children sleep on. 2. The room has no ambience, light fittings broken,not even a picture hanging ,no where to actually sit other than the bed if you wanted to spend time in. The balcony overlooking street with church very nice but noisy not a problem for us but,the chairs & table are terrible plastic that are so brittle & worn that have probably been here since word go. 3. Bathroom 😱 Basic no extraction gets steamed up as extraction fan been take out & never replace,wires still exposed, this creates terrible smells that lingers after you have used the bathroom. No where to.put your toiletries you just have again a grubby plastic stool or put them on the floor. Towels 😱 there meant to be white infact there grey & so thin & threadbare they would make good floor cloths or washing up cloths. 4. The pool area is also soulless uninviting looks like a concrete lido & as for the sunbeds so dirty ants everywhere the chairs again nasty dirty plastic. We couldn't bring ourselves to use pool as again it doesn't feel relaxing. 5. Breakfast all I can say is to save time go out to eat you will get better value. In general there is basic,but this is very below basic to us. As for value for money,this hotel is not. I did try to ask if all rooms had extraction fans but couldn't get a definitive yes/ no but hotel staff i found did not want too do anything. Breakfast staff always looked unhappy like they didn't want to be there 😕 on some mornings bread rolls ran out by 9am asked if they could supply any more only answer you rudely got " no,try eating the bread". We were here for a week & I'm sorry to say i can't wait to leave.........a very soulless hotel."

"Had a lovely stay here. Staff were very friendly and helpful. The lady on reception was particularly helpful ( unfortunately, I didn't get her name). We had requested a sea view room, and when we got there we hadn't got one. Spoke to the lady, and she managed to get us one for the next day, which was perfect. All the staff were very friendly, our room was kept clean. The Mama Mia night on Friday was excellent with excellent entertainment and food. Would definitely stay again."