Last weekend I went on a big family weekend away to Camelot Castle in Tintagel on the Cornwall coastline. The actual weekend away was lovely mainly due to the nice weather and the scenery. The hotel on the other hand was laughable. Camelot Castle is a big, imposing building that is over looking the Altantic, almost a blot on the landscape but it was built in 1899 before planning permission laws was in force. Unfortunately most of the hotel feels like it hasn’t been decorated since the 70s and all the nice Victorian features that are left are falling into ruin. The cloakroom/toilet by the bar area was a mixture of pink tiles (some of which were falling off the walls) and a beautiful original Victorian mosaic tiled floor. The bar area was straight out of the 70s and most of the communal areas were thread bare. The bedrooms didn’t fair much better either. We had a deluxe refurbished room but for the price we paid for it, it sure didn’t feel like deluxe. There was non of the extras that normally is provided in a hotel like a box of tissues, shower gel, a floor mat for the shower, an alarm, welcome pack, biscuits, beds made everyday. My in-laws had cheaper rooms at £40 a night each and they were hideous with 50s style wallpaper and 1940s furniture. The furniture could be nice if it wasn’t in such bad shape.
The owners had decided that to spruce up the place by hanging lots of art work by one of the owners. Now if it was good art then I wouldn’t have minded but it wasn’t. Basically most of it my nieces could have painted. Also there was abundance of photos around the place of the two owners – John Mappin (heir to the Mappin & Webb jewellery empire) and Ted Stourton (the artist). Also, lots of poems and newspaper articles about the owners were all over the lounge areas. One evening I did some research about the place and found out that the owners are members of the Scientology. No wonder there was photos of Tom Cruise and John Travolta about the place. Maybe also explains why the place has been in a refurbishment program since 2001 without much success – all their money must go to the Scientology. I wouldn’t recommend this hotel to anyone but I will say that the staff were really nice and helpful and if the rooms were a bit cheaper instead of £130 a night for a fairly decent room then I wouldn’t be complaining so much.
Some of the art work…
hi,
i have to say i wish i had read your review before we went 1st june.
only one night, but what a disappointment, we even changed rooms
but no better,
wallpaper hanging off, carpets frayed, no little coffee table
terrace funiture from b&q, no shower gel etc, tv not even freeview looked like tv i had 20 years ago – no remote
curtains didnt meet decor out of the dark ages, bedspread from
a nursing home(no sorry, ive seen better there),no steak on the menu, pictures appalling and just stuck up anywhere, spacepod
showerroom you cant even move in, should like to see my 23 stone
husband try to get in it, hour wait for evening meal, music to slit your wrists by, no magic of king arthur any where except
lounge round table which had reviews of artist on it who got upset when i took the crap off to get a photo, absolutely awful
place, and i wonder where the lovely rooms and menu are that
are advertised on the website, as i spoke to other holidaymakers there who had booked deluxe rooms and they were just as appalled as me. do trading standards or hotel inspectors visit, do they have any star ratings, if so – who was blind and possibly deaf?
do you know who to complain to?
look forward to your reply
brigette
I also stayed there,I cant believe the amount they charged and how disgusting the rooms were!!
Im a little person and I could not move to get changed in the bathroom!The beds where hard and so old they looked 2nd hand.
They artist whom I also met was very rude and the hotel was used more for his own exibition of work than anything else.
Artwork in which it looked like a child had done.
There website is very misleading!!
The place was a joke I do believe if a hotel inspector did come through they would shut that place down in a second…
Brigette – thanks for the comment. I’m not really sure who to complain to as the hotel isn’t part of the English Tourism or AA award schemes. Maybe you could write on TripAdvisor as that is a popular place to voice your opinion.
Pocket – thanks for your comment too. I completely agree that the website is very misleading or I should say it has been designed in a very clever way. At least it gives us something to talk about.
Hey, I’m not surprised at all with your opinions about that hotel. I worked there for a while and hated it. Hotel’s owners are freaks. I wouldn’t recommend that hotel to a foe. cheers
I took my partner to stay at Camelot Castle over the New Year, which is about 10 months ago. The price was outrageous and in fact, we should have left once we saw the room.
The food was delicious though and the fireworks spectacular.
To be paying £ 750 for 3 nights with half board in such a grumpy room was unacceptable.
I totally agree with the other comments, it is a shabby place and I do not care whether it is the private playground for John Mappin, the heir, or any other people or indeed the scientologists.
There needs to be an urgent control about the Camelot Castle’s standards as a hotel.
We were not pressured in any way, either to buy artwork nor to join the scientologists but it felt a bit strange with the owners being moddy towards the guests.
All in all an experience we would not repeat but if the hotel were refurbished, its location is such, that we would stay again.
Do not be fooled by refurbished rooms. We worked out that there were only 2 refurbished rooms and when we stayed they were given to some Middle Eastern businessmen who felt right out of place with the celebrations going on.
Oh My God. Wish we had found this website before we left. Have just arived back today, couldn’t get away fast enough. Frankly I think everybody else in this blog, has been too kind and too easy on Mr Mappin who is nothing short of a complete fruitloop.
We were unlucky enough to endure an hour of his company whereupon he explained to us everything he was ‘involved in’ only using the word scientology in the last ten minutes. We thought it was funny before he mentioned it, but just plain frightening afterwards. Especially when we challenged his views and he got rather annoyed, only to interupt out dinner half an hour later to apologise.
It is clear that this venue is some sort of breeding/training ground for his ‘religion’.
We will not be returning until he has been safey removed.
The accomodation was in fact horrendous, although speaking with some other guests, understood that they were willing to accept the ‘lack of’ standards as they brought pets with them. We can accept this, although do not feel that the £120 extra charge to stay in a room that was still below par was acceptable.
Had this been a chain hotel, we would have been upgraded for free, or at least discounted. Instead, we had to argue with the receptionist, whose English was not the best, before we could get an upgrade and then, on our departure attempted to charge us a further £44.
We would love to know if there was someone to complain to regarding this hotel.
We will not be returning and will also be posting this on every website we can find.
we spent a night there recently –
i feel mappin and the so called artist – ted – are very dangerous –
they are part of a dangerous organisation –
ted is simply frightening –
the light box is a form of hypnosis to get you to buy his crap paintings –
please do not go to this awful place -