Fairmont St Andrews

I am a Fairmont loyalist. Whenever I am planning a vacation I like to see if a Fairmont is in the area, and if there is, there’s a 99% chance I’m staying at that Fairmont. For this trip to St. Andrews it seemed like a no-brainer to stay at the Fairmont St. Andrews. I’ve stayed at six Fairmonts in North America, this was my first stay at a Fairmont “across the pond.” The good: the room was clean as usual (except for a stain on the bedskirt which looked like blood, pic included. We notified the front desk, but nothing came of it), the staff was very friendly and helpful. The bad: the food situation. We went to the Italian restaurant our first night for a light bite. We ordered a pizza. The pizza took 45 minutes to arrive at our table. We were told the sports bar next door had a private event and that’s what the hold up was. Not sure how one relates to the other, maybe it’s the same kitchen? The server at our table admitted it was her first night. When we asked her for the check, she brought the check promptly and stood by the table watching me fill out my room number and extra gratuity (we did), her supervisor was also standing tableside. It was a weird feeling being watched. Then we made our way over to the bar area for a nightcap. This was weird for us because they had a bar but no stools to sit at the bar. They wanted you to sit in the lounge area instead. We ordered a couple of drinks which took 20 minutes to arrive and when we got the check we signed for it. The server didn’t understand my question, luckily I saved by a Scottish server who did understand my question. When the server came to pick up the check, she opened the check up in front of us as if to see if we left any extra gratuity (we did), another weird feeling as a customer. The next night, we went back to the bar - same server. I asked for a Moscow Mule. After 20 minutes the drinks finally came. There was hardly anyone in the bar, so I’m not sure why it took 20 minutes. When I tasted my drink, it clearly wasn’t a Moscow Mule. The server simply didn’t understand. We tried the sport bar, Zephyr’s. Finally, a bar with stools (or so we thought). The friendly bartender asked if we wanted a cocktail and continued to read off a list of cocktails. I instinctively asked if he knew how to make any other cocktails. He said no. We left. The hotel is not in the town, it’s about a 5-10 minute car ride, you do feel isolated because you can’t walk anywhere. Of all the Fairmonts we have stayed at we would rank the Fairmont St. Andrews last. We anticipate coming back to Saint Andrews for more golf but it’s very unlikely we will stay at this hotel again. My suggestion for management would be if you’re going to train staff to take orders or drink orders, they should fully understand the job at hand. The staff we encountered weren’t trained properly, nor did they have the best understanding of the language/culture.

What a disappointment our recent stay at Fairmont St Andrews was. We’ve been guests at the hotel at least twice a year for many years and can’t believe how down hill it’s gone. On arrival, we noticed that the hotel was extremely quiet. We were in fact the only guests in the the lobby and bar area. This set alarms ringing straight away. The stay for 2 nights including breakfast cost over £850. Unfortunately, several aspects of our experience fell far below the standard we expected from a hotel of its reputation. One of the main reasons for our dissatisfaction was the lack of available dining facilities during our stay. The Clubhouse restaurant would not accept lunch bookings due to a private function, which was never mentioned at the time of booking our stay. In addition, the main sports bar was also closed all day on the Saturday due to another supposed private function, despite us not witnessing any event taking place. This meant that we couldn’t watch the Scottish Cup Final or enjoy the pool tables/golf simulator. This significantly limited the facilities available to guests and was extremely frustrating. We were also disappointed with the breakfast experience. The service had changed from buffet-style to ordering hot meals, which was not ideal. My husband specifically ordered a breakfast without beans, yet it arrived with beans included. The plate was then taken away and returned with the beans simply scraped off rather than a fresh breakfast being prepared, which was unacceptable. It then had to be replaced again. By the time it arrived, I had already finished my breakfast and my husband had been put off his. Another issue was with a pina colada cocktail I ordered. It arrived in a short glass containing a very large ice cube, leaving hardly any actual drink in the glass. This was charged at £16! This was very poor value and not presented to an acceptable standard. After complaining, I requested this to be removed from our bill, and although it was eventually taken off, it should not have required a complaint in the first place. The bar manager stated that because it wasn’t on their menu, they were actually doing us a favour by making it at all. The lunch was terrible. 2 bowls of “vegetable” soup which had absolutely no taste to it, 2 fish & chips (1 slice of fish with 7 chunky chips) no peas etc, 2 drinks each and 1 dessert was £176! Not worth a quarter of that price. The bar manager was extremely rude and no help at all. Overall, we were very disappointed with the facilities, service, and overall experience during our stay. We chose Fairmont St Andrews expecting a high-quality experience, but unfortunately this was not reflected in our visit. We will not be back to what was once our favourite place.

I have been coming to this hotel for the last 20 years and I’m afraid to say during our last visit it has lost its touch. Myself and my wife came for our wedding anniversary and noticed a lot of things have went downhill. Upon a midweek check in, our suite was not ready and waited around an hour which I have never experienced before, the bar service was slow which resulted in having to go to the bar myself to order and then another 15 minutes for the drinks to arrive, the suite furniture was starting to look tired with a lot of scratches and scuffs, there was no nighttime turndown service in the room which used to be a nice touch, now one of the things that has always been amazing was the buffet breakfast at the Fairmont but sadly this is has dramatically went down hill as now it is menu order only which resulted in a very long wait time and we did not receive what we ordered at all, we spoke to a server at breakfast at least 3 times and nothing was done, yet after an hour wait we left and was very disappointed. I’m afraid to say this will be my last stay at Fairmont St Andrews.

This is a very large hotel. The location is spectactular. The staff were friendly and helpful. It is , however, looking very worn and in need of TLC. The furniture and walls in our room were scraped and battered and generally looking poorly kept. The tables in the dining room were also in need of replacement. There is just a general lack of refinement. Our room was not made up until about 4 30 pm and then it was really a cursory clean around. I can imagine the spa gets very busy but it was quiet when we were staying and it is very nice with an excellent gym. I am afraid the food was very poor, poor quality and just not nice. No where near the standard of a 5 star hotel. We are golfers. We enjoyed the Torrance course but there was an awful amount of little strewn about, espically by the tee boxes. this is really poor. The Kittocks is a great course but they have too many people playing it with long delays.

Well what a disappointment this so called 5* hotel was. The breakfast service was woeful to say the least, queuing for 15 plus minutes to be seated. The full Scottish breakfast was not as requested, everything was slapped on the plate like a dogs dinner, we,ve had much better service and food at our local cafe. The waiting staff did not clear the plates away and although they were very pleasant, some require further training. The furniture in the room was worn and scraped, the king sized bed was 2 singles put together with a sizeable gap inbetween. We had to ask to have our room cleaned at 2.45 as we needed clean towels and eventually we got in the room at 3.30pm. Overall very disappointed, as we have stayed in better 3* hotels.