The Daffodil Hotel

AWFUL HOTEL EXPERIENCE Everything with the Daffodil Hotel was a HUGE disappointment. We booked a 'valley view' room (their words), a more expensive option. I invite you to look at the view that we were presented with, from the only windows: a delightful car-park. Additionally, the curtains were entire black-out or full open, which meant when my wife opened the curtains the first morning someone even waved to us from the car-park. How pleasant. Nevermind, let's have breakfast. Hard-working staff there for sure, but the offering was shameful. Self-service under heat lamps, the a la carte options limited or paid extra. Lower quality than Travelodge. This place classifies itself as 4*. Bad Wifi. The most disappointing aspect, however, was the closed (hydro) spa. We booked via a well known travel app and I explained - and actually showed - to the front desk, when booking this way the spa closure is simply not visible. To compound this, the confirmation email stated the opening hours of the spa and zero about closure! The whole reason for choosing this hotel, in an area with many options, was the hydro spa for my wife, to relax after a difficult year of health. The pool photos are very prominently marketed. We explained this to the front desk & all we got was 'computer says no'; no good faith effort on their part to understand, escalate or remedy our situation. We were travelling with a young baby and decided to leave, but not after wasting much of the day 2 on calls, to the well-known travel platform we used, who ultimately said it was up to the hotel to compensate us. They reluctantly offered £20 off a £190 room rate and not to charge for the day we wouldn't be staying. How magnanimous! So we will be taking this up with the card company for misrepresentation. But really who has got time for all this? We were trying to relax. Heed my words and just go elsewhere, these Daffodils have wilted.

We really enjoyed our long weekend at The Daffodil - the service was good, particularly from the young gentleman in the evening service and breakfast. He was casual and attentive and it really made a difference. The rooms were clean and well presented, and the hotel itself is very modern. The grounds of the hotel outdoors are stunning and clearly well taken care of and looked after. Unfortunately we did have some small qualms - the hotel feels it lacks character, whilst clean it's very plain and minimalist which I wouldn't expect from a Lake District hotel. The evening menu lacked vegetarian options massively, which led us to dine outside of the hotel for 2 of the 3 nights we stayed, and the Sunday menu was very disappointing in the way of vegetarian options as well. Just the same pie from the regular evening menu put onto the Sunday one. Despite this, breakfast was good and provided both continental and hot buffet which was grand. All in all, we enjoyed our stay but we don't think there is anything drawing us back desperately.

We stayed in a room without a view (intentionally), it was a good size and although it looked over the main road we were not too bothered as we were out for most of the day and it was quiet at night. The breakfast was good and had a mixture of buffet and meals, we had dinner twice and enjoyed it. The spa was lovely but got very busy after 4:30pm. We both had a "work it out" massage and whilst it was more expensive than I'd usually pay it was easily worth the money!

We had a wonderful stay at the Daffodil in Grasmere, the perfect location in the Lakes District and in Grasmere itself. The entire staff was friendly, professional, and very helpful. Our room was spacious with a lovely view over the lake. Our visits to their restaurant were also very good. The only negative is their carpeting throughout everywhere in the property we visited is in dire need of replacement and should have been done some time ago. Other than that, I highly recommend the Daffodil the next time you visit the Lake District.