Reviews of Ye Olde Anchor Inn Hotel, Ruthin, Wales

My Husband and i have just...

Overall Rating:

9/10

Board Basis:

Bed & Breakfast

Date of Holiday:

Jul 2008

Tour Operator:

Booked Independently

Submitted By:

Mrs M Williams

Comments:

My Husband and i have just returned from a weekend break in North Wales, Ruthin Denbighshire to be exact. We stayed in a comfortable hotel, Ye Olde Anchor Hotel. Upon arrival we where greeted by Wills a young man who was not just professional but very freindly in fairness the entire staff where freindly. The food was delicious and very affordable, I had pan fried pork which was succulant and full of taste, my Husband had butterfly trout which looked incredible and was thoroughly enjoyed, We stayed in room 25 which was lovely but unfortunatly not in the original part of the building but was very clean and spacious.

On our second night we went for a drink in some of the local pubs in the town but none where as good or comfortable as the Olde Anchor. Geraint the barman was a very pleasant and charming and made us feel very welcome throughout our stay.



Our only critism would be the apperance of the seating in the bar area as it was stained, and looks a bit worn and tired.



We thank Wills and Geraint and all the team at the hotel for a weekend that we will never forget.



kind regards Mrs Davis

A really pleasant place to stay...

Overall Rating:

9/10

Board Basis:

Bed & Breakfast

Date of Holiday:

Apr 2008

Tour Operator:

Booked Independently

Submitted By:

Mrs SM Upton

Comments:

A really pleasant place to stay with clean - really clean - rooms and cheerful, hard-working attentive staff. Good food, intersting menu, good wines all at reasonable prices. Less boring breakfast sausages would have raised our score to 10!

Nothing was too much trouble - they even posted us back some stuff we left. Would recommend highly to anyone wanting to stay in the area.

stayed at this hotel bank...

Overall Rating:

9/10

Board Basis:

Bed & Breakfast

Date of Holiday:

May 2008

Tour Operator:

Booked Independently

Submitted By:

Mr L Wilkinson

Comments:

stayed at this hotel bank holiday weekend . every thing was spot on at this place and my stay was pleasent and comfy.the staff made a real genuine effort to help out . they made a fuss over my 2 year old daughter ,playing and joking around with her .she loved the attention she recieved .as strangers they made us feel like old friends .a great place if u have a young child with you on your stay over.parking a little tricky for large cars.great stay will book again with them in september.power showers in room had a real blast behind them,wakes you up a treat.thanks to all .lee wilkinson and family.

Stayed at The Olde Anchor for...

Overall Rating:

1/10

Board Basis:

Bed & Breakfast

Date of Holiday:

Jun 2007

Tour Operator:

Booked Independently

Submitted By:

Dr John Embridge

Comments:

Stayed at The Olde Anchor for two nights. Brochure showed a beautiful flower- be-decked exterior: all lies - the withered stumps had been there for at least three years. Room was small, with a sky light; hadn't been decorated for a long time. Bed was a three-quarter size, lumpy and well past it's sell by date. TV was terrestrial only.



Food - ok; in a fish and chip shop way! In fact, I went for fish and chips two hours later. There is a good pub nearby - The Feathers, and if I was looking for a place to stay here in Ruthin again, I would go there, because the Anchor staff served me a pint in a dirty unwashed glass, and when I complained the girl didn't even apologise! Bitter were poor, pipes giving it a sour, musty taste. Bar staff explained that the locals drink lager, but during my two nights, I only saw one local, and he told me to go to the Feathers!



Decor was old and dusty. Same school kids serving, cleaning, cooking!



You pays your money; you takes your chance!

My husband and I have just...

Overall Rating:

9/10

Board Basis:

Bed & Breakfast

Date of Holiday:

Aug 2007

Tour Operator:

Booked Independently

Submitted By:

Mrs A Hodges

Comments:

My husband and I have just stayed at this charming hotel in Ruthin.



We were staying to attend a wedding and decided to add an extra couple of days to relax and explore.



The staff at the hotel could not be more helpful and the rooms were well appointed and clean and tidy.



The food was reasonably priced and good value. I had fish and my husband had a steak.



Having read the previous review before writing this I can't believe that the lady stayed in the same hotel. All the staff were mainly Welsh and some English and there is absolutely loads to do in and around Ruthin which is a town full of character.



We paid £160 for three nights bed and breakfast in a double room which I thought was excellent value.



Thanks for a great long weekend!!

We were told that the Hotel was...

Overall Rating:

1/10

Board Basis:

Half Board

Date of Holiday:

Jul 2006

Tour Operator:

Welsh Tourist Board

Submitted By:

Mrs M Ross

Comments:

We were told that the Hotel was 3 miles from Chester it was 29. So when eventually we arrived through our very long drive through the lovely Welsh countryside, we were exhausted. We got to our rooms, number 7 and 16; first thing put the kettle on......The start of our holiday.......Yuk, yuk, yuk the kettle was filthy, rust inside had to wipe it out with a tissue, the other kettle was worse, to have our first cup of tea but we got it.



We also had to clean the windows to see out with a tissue, then the window ledges as they were encrusted with dust/leaves/dead insects thick muck. Room 7 the twin room with inter-connecting door our daughter in there.



We started to unpack, only to realise that our Double bedroom had only one single wardrobe and the only draw was under the shelf with a lamp on it. There was a hole in the wall floor-level to put clothes in! But we put them on top and the cases in the hole.



6 Hangers in the wardrobes in each room, good job we took our own too. Daughters room 7 she had a chest of draws oh! But the problem was each draw would not open more than 1 inch, so it was very difficult to get her neatly ironed clothes in the draws, and of course out again without them becoming creased.



On entering her room there was NO WARNING on the outside of the door about the 2 steps down immediately on entering; at the bottom of the steep steps was the chest of draws. In her bathroom it was impossible to have a good wash because the sink had been put in sideways, to rinse ones face you have to bend down and one would bang your bottom on the bath and on coming up quick you would bang your head on the shelf above the sink!!!!



No instructions on how to work the shower in either bathroom. My experience the same as daughter was the metal hose attached to the taps when filled with water was like a fire fighters hose and so powerful it was like trying to hold an Anaconda down, the shower head spinning around hissing out with dynamo ferocity its freezing water.



Our bathroom light was very dingy and husband found it difficult to have a shave, there were no windows in either bathroom. There was a fist shaped hole high up in the bathroom wall. The carpets in all rooms were filthy, they had been vacuumed but the stains were everywhere, room 7 had a huge stain where the rug had been and stain of a ladies slipper mule. Shoe stains and scuff marks on the wall next to the bed and a big burnt patch on wall above the bed.



Screws missing out of the main lock to the room. Would have been lovely silk flower displays on window ledge but was caked in dust and crysalists embedded in the vase. The Direct Dial Telephone was split so could not dial out. Skirting board hanging off the wall in-between the twin beds, two wires going in one junction box. Key fob to room 7 sellotaped and full of gunge.



Satellite TV & VHF Radio as told would be there on the Internet site, colour brochure and hotel tariff. There was none, the hotel said it all went with the previous owners and they were changing their brochure. We found out that the previous owners LEFT IN 2003!!! We ventured down to our first evening meal, the first two courses were very good the waitress asked if we wanted to see the Dessert Menu, we did so she went to get it and came back with it over 25 minutes later!



After which we went a walk around Ruthin and eventually went to our rooms to watch TV and get a good nights sleep. We did not know that we were not to get our nights sleep because of the mattresses in all 3 beds were horrendous. We could not lie in the bed, on each move the springs poked through; the pillows had no substance and left your head being attacked by the springs also. The only way to sleep was on top of the duvet with the sheet on top and our own towels rolled up as a pillow; not a comfortable hotel.



We asked if we could change the mattresses and were told "we only have enough beds for each room, no spares". The main staircase to all rooms on each step was full of BIG BLACK foot prints and marks, no attempt to clean them was evident. On the way down from room 16 we had to go through a wooden door, just before that there was a woman coming up from what looked like a hole in the floor, she had to throw her case on each step up because it was so steep, she was telling the girl who was trying to see if the room at the top of the hole was suitable, the woman said "no one living should be put in a room like that"!!!.



And then there was breakfast the first day---The breakfast room was ok, dust on the window ledge, but it seemed ok. Oh, but the spoon for our cereal was bigger than the cereal bowl, so we used teaspoons so it would fit in the dish, one or two cereal spoons as well were so tarnished it could not be used anyway.



Full English breakfast or what you chose from that, daughter and I chose scrambled egg - big plate full swimming in wet and had unusual hard black bits. We picked our way through that. Smallest jug of milk for 3 (would have been good for a dolls tea-party) and a Tea pot too heavy to lift. Cardboard toast, melted wrapped butter and liquid jam in tiny plastic pots.



Back to the rooms, non-smoking hotel (only smoking allowed in the bar area). Both bathrooms stunk of cigarette smoke. Red Fire Alarm Bell on wall adjacent to bed head. If it had of gone off anyone with a weak heart would be dead! At last Monday morning and shops open, went to local shop to get supplies and lady we met on the Sunday asked how we were getting along at the Anchor Inn I told it to her straight, so she gave me some straight talk too and now am not at all surprised by what we were enduring.



The owners took over in 2003 a Hotel Group called Lloyds of Prestwich, Manchester and were taking over lots of Hotels in that part of Wales "The Vale of Wales". Dismissing all the local workers and employing foreigners mostly young women from Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia.



That evening we had made our minds up and we were out of there the next morning. The evening meal our last I thought I'll have "Roast Duck with a sharp plum sauce on a bed of stir fried veg. & noodles" £12.95. Each evening meal was at an EXTRA Cost.



I have had duck before and cooked it myself and know that foul must be thoroughly cooked with NO blood in it, so when my meal came I started to eat it, but the second slice I put in my fork into and blood spurted out! I told the waitress it wasn't cooked properly (who did not understand what I was saying, so had to explain that she should take it back to the chef and asked him to cook it some more), she brought it back seconds later and said that "this is the way it should be"!!!!!!!!!



So I tried again to eat just the bits that looked brown and cooked avoiding the pink and red blood parts, it tasted like the smell of a wet cat! I dreaded to think what poor creature was lying on my plate other than the Roast Breast of Duck. I just could not carry on with it and ate a few noodles and veg.



After our LAST MEAL I mobiled my friend and told her more grim tales, she said it sounded like the Duck was really a Rabbit. The next day we never packed so fast. We went to pay, I told her about the Rabbit dinner and she never questioned or argued she just knocked the price of that meal off the bill. (She must have known)! We only paid for what we had not the full week’s bill which was really good.



I suppose they thought we would not complain, sorry to disillusion them we have, to everywhere. We have loads of photographs of everything that was horrible about that hotel - lots of evidence of our hotel from hell.



The Anchor Inn had photographs on their Website of a lovely WIDE river and bridge in Ruthin when we got there it wasn't there, a small river and enclosed lake - swans and other birds and a few houses with a Rugby pitch in the distance the only Tourist attraction is the ancient Jail (Gaol) built in 1654.



We realized they had used the Bridge and River at Llangollen which is more false advertising. Do Not go to Ruthin because there is nothin' at Ruthin.