Macdonald Pittodrie House

I recently attended a wedding at Pittodrie, and while the ballroom was beautifully decorated and the grounds were truly stunning, the rest of the experience fell short of expectations. The rooms and the hotel itself are in dire need of refurbishment, with a noticeably dated appearance and evident signs of wear, including cracks in the ceiling. It's clear that the venue hasn't seen significant updates in years, leaving much of the property looking tired and neglected. The service outside of the wedding event was disappointingly slow, likely due to understaffing, which made it difficult for them to accommodate both wedding guests and regular hotel guests simultaneously. The double rooms, unfortunately, are quite small, no larger than a standard bedroom, which felt inadequate given the £150+ per night rate. For this price, I expected more spacious and modern accommodations. In comparison, nearby options like the recently refurbished Premier Inn, just 20 miles away, offer rooms as low as £60 per night. Given the current state of the rooms at Pittodrie, I would much rather pay a similar price at a venue that meets contemporary standards. If the rooms at Pittodrie were brought up to 21st-century expectations, it might justify the higher rates.

The hotel is an oasis of peacefulness and the staff are so accommodating, we booked to get a breathier from the busyness of working and the hotel ticked all the boxes, we had a lovely room and both evenings sat in the garden with a beer, the place is near to Inverurie but sits out in lovely surroundings in the countryside.

Booked afternoon tea for 4 people. We were with friends from Halifax Nova Scotia. Received a warm welcome on arrival. The afternoon tea comprising of a selection of savories’ Scones and multiple desserts. The quality of the food was excellent and the service was also excellent. Our Canadian friends were very impressed with hotel and magnificent grounds. Many thanks to all of the staff for an excellent afternoon.

Very very poor, service was poor and prices were an absolute rip off. Extremely embarrassed with the service when took friends out for supposedly a nice meal but ended up as a complete disaster. There was no atmosphere within hotel and the hotel was cold. Staff certainly didn’t look happy or just didn’t want to be there. I will certainly not be returning to hotel if that’s the standard I receive. We were supposed to staying with you for a week next month with friends who are coming up to see us. But with the experience we had recently we have decided not to book with yourselves as we were considerably let down. We have decided to book somewhere else in order to receive better service and reasonable prices for drinks and happy staff.

Great setting at the foot of Bennachie. Beautiful old building with a great deal of history. Rooms were well maintained, as were the grounds. Very good dinner and breakfast, staff very friendly and accommodating. Would certainly recommend for a night or two as very peaceful surroundings.

Booked a table by phone, in advance, for an evening meal for 2 in their dining room. Was using a gift voucher and phoned the number indicated and was told Pittroddie do this directly and I was put through and made the booking, reading out the voucher number as requested. On arrival the hotel did not appear to be busy. Upon entering the reception there appeared to be no-one about. Then a voice from nowhere shouted "I'll be with you in a minute" A couple of minutes later a clearly flustered member of staff appeared. We explained why we were there and gave her our name. From there on in it became a comedy of errors. She didn't know what to do. She told us to wait and then disappeared for a couple of minutes. When she returned we were told to take a seat in the drawing room then she disappeared again for another couple of minutes. This time she returned to tell us we had no table as the "tables were a bit squiffy" tonight, what ever that meant. She then offered us our meal in the drawing room where we would have had to sit on the edge of a sofa hunched over a coffee table or in the bar. Not wanting to miss our meal and to try and make the best of a bad lot, we chose the bar. We were then taken to a very dark and dingy snug bar. The only saving grace being, it was empty. We were then repeatedly asked if we wanted the TV on. Why on earth would we want the TV on when we had gone to what was meant to be a 4* hotel for an evening meal in their dining room? We were given one menu between us to choose our food. The meal itself was average at best. Not nearly the quality I would expect of somewhere award winning. On looking at the menu again when we came home, we also realised that we did not get the artisan bread with the soup. Just before our dessert was served the member of staff who had greeted us at reception appeared and said "As a consolation prize would we like a drink" Clearly as patrons go we were second best.... Not feeling particularly welcome after that we had our dessert and went to pay. The same member of staff was at the desk. She didn't know what to do with the voucher which we handed over. This time she admitted it and gave the excuse of not normally working on the desk. She gave us £4 change from our gift voucher which I'm sure isn't meant to happen but we took it anyway. As we left she said she hoped to see us again sometime. I'm afraid she will be hoping in vain. The only good part of the whole experience were the waiting staff who were excellent. The only reason we didn't walk out when it was clear there was no table for us was because of the voucher and we certainly didn't want to go back a second time.