During my summer holidays I embarked on a great holiday to Scotland for 10 days. I am going to review the Apartments and the complex and the surrounding areas.
The Trossachs is located around an hour northwest of Stirling and within an hour of Glasgow. The are a number of small towns with lots of pubs, shops and Edinburgh woolen mill shops around. There is Aberfoyle and Callender within 10 minutes drive which both have an array of shops and tourist centers. Around the area near the hotel is a number of large rocky mountains and mountain streams all within walking distance of the hotel. There are also three beuatiful lochs within 5 to 10 minutes that can be cycled round or just to sit by for a picnic, we took advantage of the picnic sites around the lochs quite frequently. Nearby is one loch that is know to be the best trout fishing loch in Scotland 'Loch Venachar.' The view from the front of the complex is of Loch Acray and the lowlands in the far distance. The wildlife are roaming free around and we often saw and eagle of deer on the feild near the Loch.
Tigh Mor Trossachs has: - A well-stocked library which I made use of as I found a Graham Masterton Book I hadn't read before, there's table tennis, pool tables, snooker and billiards, indoor bowls and a dance floor/lecture hall with a small bar. In the grounds there are three hard tenniscourts, barbecue area, children's play area, and golf practice net. Which I made use of all.
Now that the preliminaries are done here's my experience.-
Driving up to the hotel didn't really give much away. It was 4:30 in the morning and we couldn't see anything except the 2-3 feet in front of us. As we got out of the car we walked up to the front door. A sleek looking Victorian wooden door. That I could tell before I tried to open I was going to squeak horrendously. I punched in the key code to unlock and opened the door. It opened with a CREEK SQUICK!... We tip toed across to the main reception counter in almost complete darkness and grabbed our room keys that had been left there for us to collect. Meanwhile my dad found a light switch and as we looked around the reception was decorated with tartan carpets and lovely paintings of the glens and lochs on the walls. There were a number of comfy easy chairs and a fireplace with a bouquet of flowers on the hearth. We looked at the signs on the wall and look the corridor down to our apartment. As we opened the door the sensors switched the lights on. We saw the tartan carpet that flows throughout the buildings. We walked down the corridor and turned left down another corridor trying to be as quiet as possible. We then found our room door on the west wing. We unlocked the door and my dad and I went in to secure the room with the en-suite before my mum and grandma came in.
************************ The apartment ************************
The apartment was initially a long corridor with a number of doors going off into a twin bedroom, the bathroom, the second twin room with en-suite and at the end the kitchen-diner-lounge room. The first twin room was elegantly decorated with white drapes and tartan throws on the beds. There was a modern dressing table and mirror and a spacious wardrobe. The bathroom was gorgeous and the shower. Phwooor What a shower. If anyone who reads this has a power shower think of how good it feels to use on a morning. .... Thought about it? .. Double it. that I how good the shower was. In the bathroom was also a large towel heating radiator and a bowl sink with a large oak wood area to the side for toiletries. The second twin room with the en-suite had the same furnishings as the first room and the bathroom (and shower) was a replica of the main one.
Lounge-kitchen-diner This is a fabulously designed place and by far one of the things that really made the apartment feel like a proper home away from home. The Kitchen had everything you would expect in a kitchen including cooker, microwave, Sink (obviously), built in Fridge freezer, Kettle, Oven/grill, toaster, and a full set of the usual kitchen utensils. Basically it had anything you could need. The lounge part was super, there was a 3 piece suite with tartan coverings centered around a coffee table with a 21inch TV with channels 1-5, sky one, CNN and 5 in house movie channels.
*********************** Bar and games room ***********************
In the family (games) room there is a licensed bar serving fosters and a number of other local lagers, bitters and ales. They also serve an array of soft drinks and spirits. As well as that like any bar they serve crisps some chocolate bars and peanuts. Note due to the Scottish law there is no smoking allowed anywhere inside except in the rooms.
Also in the family room there are a number of leather cushioned seats and seats around circular tables. There is a 42" plasma screen sky TV. There is a large dance floor on which there are 2 half size pool tables and a table tennis table.
Next to the family room is the billiards room. The room easily accommodates the two full size snooker tables in there and a number of comfy seats. This room is for over 16's only. However if you ask the lady at reception nicely children over 14 are allowed in to play with an adult which was good because I beet my dad 7 games to 3 by the end of our stay.
************************* Leisure Center ************************
The leisure center is open from 7am till 10pm but there is no lifeguard. The center is on a keypad lock which has a different code to the main door to prevent small children wandering in unaccompanied. The rules are no one under 16 unless accompanied but neither me nor my new friends paid any attention. The first thing you see as you walk into the main corridor is the sun room with sun bed in front of you. This is £2 for 30mins. On you left with be the steam room and the male changing rooms. and I didn't see but on the left I expect the female changing rooms. The changing rooms are clean and fresh and have a number of working showers. As you walk through to the pool there is the usual sign of no diving bombing running etc:. that went in one ear for the young people and out the other. As the 3 of us boys just ran straight to the pool and jumped straight in. The water was nice and warm and not too deep. The deepest area in the pool is 1m 35cm or about 4foot 2 I think. On the right hand side separate from the pool is a smaller pool of toddlers and at the back of the room is the sauna which is large enough for around 6-8 people.
The complex also has four hard tennis courts which are very nice and to be honest tennis courts. Nothing exceptional nothing bad.
*********************** shop and restaurant ***********************
On-site there is a shop that has fresh bread delivered daily along with milk, eggs bacon and sausage. The also sells a variety of tinned food, jams chocolate. wine and some frozen food like pea, pizzas and oven chips. The shop also sells thing like aspirins baby food bottles and nappies. And pool toys like armbands and inflatable beach balls. The shop isn't actually excessively expensive, what you would pay for at Tesco is about 3-4pence more at the shop. I.e. a bar of dairy milk chocolate that costs 37p at Tesco was 40p.
The on-site restaurant 'the Scott's bistro' is a lovely restaurant with high quality food and superb service. Although the menu isn't really extensive I think that someone would be very strange if there wasn't something on the menu that they fancied. They do a range of starters mains and desserts that change every 3 days. We went one night during which I had a prawn cocktail, 12oz steak with chips and veg and a tiramisu ALL freshly made to order and all delicious show that the restaurant is easily one of the good places to go found food and it is no more that 1minutes walk wherever on the campus you are.
********************* The Loch and surrounds *********************
As you walk down to the loch in front of the main building about 75-100 yards away. You start to see the football goals, the children's play area and the row boats. The rowing boat on the loch can be rented out from reception for as long as you like during the day for £2 deposit. You must wear a buoyancy aid and under 14's must wear on of the children's lifejackets. big foam lifejackets with oversized collar and crotch strap are not one of the most comfortable things to wear ever. Hence that my dad and I only stayed on the loch for about 30-40 mins and although tiring it was a fun experience. Around the Complex were a variety of bike trails and hiking routes and shorter walks for keen ramblers and OAP's. Next to the hotel is a babbling burn (stream, Brooke) that leads down the loch that you can go up the mountains and walk beside right down to wear it flows into the loch.
**************** Ho much? ****************
The property is a Holiday property bond place so for those of you who are sitting at your computer saying 'ehh holiday property bond what's that when its at home?'
The bond is a company that own a large number of properties across Europe and a few tenancies in Florida. People invest a sum of money into the bond usually around £10,000 which you can take out when you wish. and each year you are credited a point per pound. You can spend these points going to destinations. You need to book about 2 years early as places are reserved months and years ahead. So you spend the points you are credited and then pay a maintenance charge if you go somewhere. When we went to Tigh moor Trossachs the maintenance was £515 and that was for 4 people to stay for 10 days and 11 nights. FANTASTIC.
After rating I recommend googling Holiday Property Bond and finding out about it.
Thanks for reading this review of the place and if you have any comments on improvements please don't hesitate to comment as helpful criticism will be welcomed.
Sam
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