The Royal Oak Duddington

Breakfast excellent. Evening meal very good. Location ideal. Setting very good. Staff exceptionally helpful and efficient. Will come again once refurbished. Fully appreciate the difficulties of getting that done!

The bedroom and en suite are tired as is known and they would put us off returning. The beds were actually very comfortable! Seems agreed a refurb is needed, and it will be a stunning place once done.

Clearly not ready for a good service . Kitchen equipment broke and it took over an hour to be served a poor breakfast . The 2 girls who were waiting on were run ragged with little knowledge of hospitality but were lovely. The bed was over hundred years old .

The room itself was value for money, it’s a decent size along with a decent sized bathroom. The shower was good. Could do with a normal sized kettle rather than the travel kettle provided. The pub looks like a nice old village pub and the room was fine.

The problems begin and end with the owners. Through Booking I said we’d be arriving between 3-4, we were running a little late so to be kind (on a Bank Holiday) I thought I’d give them the heads up, I rang the number provided and got through to an answer phone (this should be a clue to the level of service provided, when the answer phone message states he’ll call you back “if I can be bothered “…turns out he wasn’t bothered) We arrived to be greeted by a young lady who showed us our room and told us that the kitchen was closed today, which was disappointing. She told us they would probably shut the bar around 8pm and gave us a note with an emergency phone number on and the number for the security door. We went out to get some food and by the time we arrived back the pub was indeed shut, in complete darkness and no sign of anyone. We used the number on the digital keypad to get in and it didn’t work! After a couple attempts we rang the Emergency Phone number (at 8.39pm), that got us through to a Vodafone Answering Service! I tried 3 times with the same result and my wife tried a fourth, by now a good ten minutes has ticked by and it’s getting dark and we can’t get into the property. My wife has a good idea of ringing the other phone number she had and it was answered, we got told that “it’s never happened before (people not gaining access), and we must be doing it wrong” The owner told us they’d come over and let us in in 30 minutes, this turned out to be a little over 30 minutes. When they arrived there was no apology, just an assumption that we had got it wrong, until they tried the keypad and they couldn’t get in either. At this point I said “we’ve tried about 60 times” to which the man said “well it locks you out if you don’t get it right first time”the implication being it’s our fault. Anyway the man got in using a different door and unlocked the security door from inside. The lady said “sorry sweets” as we walked in THAT WAS IT!!! The lock was removed.

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We had difficulty accessing property as lock wasn't working properly we called emergency no but was unable to speak to anyone

The staff were great.had a walk into the chocolate box village stunning no litter to be seen.

We requested breakfast, there was nobody available to cook it, more than one guest suffered this problem. The waist bin in the room was not emptied for the duration of the stay. The staff explained they were new to the hotel but this is a poor excuse.

The was beautiful to vist, the is in the ideal position, sadly it was let down by the service.

Lovely location

No food available in the evening. I was told on arrival so I had to go elsewhere which after a long drive throughout a busy day wasnt ideal. I was told breakfast was from eight am so I went down at ten past and everything closed up. Some other guests tried the emergency number given and got no response.

Have stayed previously so it was all as expected. Different room this time, a twin, sadly was very small, and extremely small bathroom with shower and no bath. Beds were comfortable enough and a fan was provided since it was exceptionally hot in the room due to unexpected hot weather. It is a nice location and close to Rutland Water, some rooms back onto the main road and are noisy, but the twin room is toward the carpark with good view and quieter. Nice bar with good beer and quiet enough that we could sleep since you can hear the bar through the floorboards later at night.

Sadly the kitchen was shut the one night we wanted to eat there, and there was no provision to help (eg take out suggestions or offer to call for take away or maybe even a cheese sandwich) only crisps and beer for dinner, not ideal.