The Spa at The Macdonald Cardrona Hotel, Golf & Spa

We were very impressed with the room and our spa experience. The staff in the spa were extremely professional and done a great job with my partner and I's facial and back massage. However, when I booked, I phoned the hotel on not one but two occasions about if they could accommodate in the restaurant for my girlfriend as she is vegan and I wanted to go for our 1st anniversary meal. I was told it'd be fine and the restaurant would be notified to prepare a few options. On the night, the restaurant manager, Peter then told us he had no note of this given to him from reception and instead had to panic and scramble to try make sure my girlfriend even ate at all. Peter ultimately found something for a main and dessert which she enjoyed, however I was still very disappointed, not with Peter as he done an excellent job in having to do this so last minute at no fault of his own, but it still made the beginning of our meal quite stressful as I found myself apologising to my girlfriend. The reception should have made Peter and his team aware as to avoid this kind of thing happening as I can imagine it would be frustrating having both worked in hospitality. We were also told by reception on arrival about the hotel's facilities, including the 'cocktail bar'. After our meal, we thought we'd have a few to enjoy the rest of our evening. We browsed the menu seeing a few 'mojito' options of which two didn't have rum which we found interesting. We decided to give the Raspberry one a bash but were informed there was no raspberry puree available. The drink still had chambord so we decided we'd still just try it out anyway as it sounded nice regardless. The drinks took 20 mins to make and when they eventually arrived they were flat and had two ice cubes each that melted within a minute or so, watering it down. We had a bit of a laugh and giggle about it, and weren't annoyed at the bar staff as much as we thought it was kind of silly to claim it was a cocktail bar if staff haven't been trained accordingly, especially when drinks were so unnecessarily overpriced compared to other hotels. We've stayed at another MacDonald hotel before, in Aberfoyle which is always excellent hence why we decided to try Cardrona, but as much as staff in the spa and people like Peter were fantastic, we couldn't help but agree that this is one of MacDonalds consistent issues in comparison with others: drinks are overpriced. It's not a massive issue, but it's not even about selling things cheap as chips for no profit, but more that if some things were just a couple of pound cheaper and more comparable to what it'd usually cost, people would be more inclined to stay and drink more, unlike my girlfriend and I who just went back to our room after the one watered down cocktail. Overall, we loved the room and facilities like spa and gym, but still found dinner stressful as a result of receptions miscommunication or lack there of. Breakfast was also very nice.

Last minute escape. Spa was lovely and relaxing. Express facial and chill out room we're bliss. Staff all very friendly and welcoming. Bar/restaurant was very busy due to it being a Saturday night with both a wedding and coach party in but staff all retained their humour and professionalism throughout. Would go again.

Excellent, chilled trip.