Smallwood House Hotel, Ambleside

Advantages: Location, pool, nice rooms, excellent food, excellent service
Disadvantages: None that spring to mind

...distance of the many pubs and excellent resturaunts of Ambleside and many shops also. It has nice gardens to the front and rear and a good size private car park to the rear also. The downstairs at the front used to be a tent showroom but I believe this is now the pool and spa center, you enter through the front door which is actually to the right hand side as you look at the building. The Public Areas ******************* Our dog was not allowed in these except to go up to the room and back outside and had to stay in the room, but I think any hotel allowing dogs will specify this, and I think it is a good thing really as the last thing you want when on a weekend break is a load of dogs barking at each other. The main entrance is very traditional in decor and furnishing and is quite grand the main hall leads to the front desk, stairs... Read review

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Advantages: Good location, great rooms
Disadvantages: Bad parking facilities, smokey bar

...Even before you arrive at the hotel, you discover you can't fit down the steep alleyway to the 'car park', which has a severe lack of room and is virtually inaccessible by anything but a bicycle, even if you can squeeze through by folding the wing mirrors in, you have to inconvenience local traffic by having to turn several times to get in the gap. Upon entering the hotel (at the time of my trip, this was done by dodging scaffolding which was not at all used for the duration of my stay) you enter a disgustingly smokey pub, only to have to queue behind drinkers at the bar to be checked in, and you find yourself having to shout over the lager louts, loud music, and the football match on the large projector to be heard by the staff. There is no real check in area and payment for the room was made in the dining area, with no opportunity... Read review

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Advantages: Posh hotel, it looks nice, but...
Disadvantages: The staff

...I went to stay here in 2006, I think. For my sisters wedding. It was a nice hotel, the architecture inside I knew wasn't real, but it was meant to look posh. Which it did, but only in one room... the reception. So, I stayed here for two days and one night. I didn't sleep on a proper bed, because the room was full in which I was sleeping in (Since its a wedding and all). So in the corner of the room, I had to sleep on a horrible, tiny, lumpy bed. Which can be folded again into a bag. Of course, I can't blame the hotel for the poor bed, because this was my own fault. I'm sure that if there weren't so many people I could of slept on the double bed, which is better. So, in the early days, considering to be the 1800's - Alton House Hotel used to be a house. Not a hotel. Rich people used to live in this house. It was only in the 1940's that... Read review

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