Willowbeck Lodge Boutique Hotel

Very pleasant room, wonderful welcome. Dining room fairly utilitarian but food good and decent wine selection but slightly on the pricy side. Great location and service made up for that. Breakfast good, but the self service juice etc wasn’t obvious and wasn’t pointed out to us. We only stayed one night and it is very handy for JN 43 on the M6, but it looks as lovely choice for a few days close to the lakes.

We recently stayed at Willowbeck Lodge for one night, on two occasions ten days apart, once on our way to Scotland and the other on the return journey. On both visits we enjoyed the same high standards of hospitality. Our room was clean, spacious and very comfortable providing a restful night’s sleep after long journeys. Breakfast was very good with a wide choice and served in the attractive bar area. We also had dinner in Fini’s Restaurant, on the ground floor, on both occasions and thoroughly enjoyed our meals (I have reviewed this separately under Restaurants). We will certainly make a return visit to Willowbeck Lodge next time we are travelling through the area. Being only 1¼ miles from Junction 43 of the M6, near Carlisle, makes it so convenient, and its setting amongst the trees by a wildlife pond makes it such a calm place to spend the night.

We have visited her previous and absolutely loved it and so grabbed the chance on a recent holiday to use it as a stopover. Rooms and breakfast cost £170 so above average in price. Unfortunately we didn't have the same wonderful experience as last time. Positives: Lovely setting and wildlife, room was nicely decorated and clean, staff were pleasant. Negatives: -on arrival we were shown to our room which had external access by a member of staff. The key he gave us wouldn't open the door for my husband who struggled for some time. I tried too so we had to ask the staff ember to come back and help. He struggled too but after some time managed to gain access. No apology or comment that he would get it looked at. It. meant we had to leave our room unlocked for our stay. -at dinner we ordered our food and our main meal was brought before our starters. Apparently the system had swapped them around. We agreed to eat our main course before our starters. -breakfast has now been changed and is continental only. on arrival we were told we could have a cooked breakfast but would have to pay for it and order the night before. This was a surprise as there had been no mention of this and given the price I would have expected a cooked breakfast. -orange juice was undrinkable as though it was not diluted sufficiently and definitely wasn't 'fresh orange' -husband is vegan and we had notified them of this on booking. The only breakfast available was toast with vegan margarine. He was OK with this, but other vegan potential customers may wish to know this. -grounds felt shabbier than last time....there was a broken light fitting and electric cables, chair and table upside down on the ground outside our room. If the above issues were resolved we would return, but not as things stand.

Lovely but needs price transparency Lovely hotel and staff but could have been more transparent on pricing. I charged my electric car (only half a battery so usually £20 tops) and found a £45 bill waiting for me. There was no indication of cost or rates charged. With breakfast we saw it was included but that’s just continental ie if you actually want anything from the menu then you pay the overpriced fee for it. But lovely hotel and lovely staff - just wishes it had better price transparency

Currently during renovation so no kitchen available nor breakfast

We booked for one night to attend a funeral locally. Unfortunately the kitchen was in the process of refurbishment so there was no food on site, however our hosts did everything they could to make us comfortable and catered for - they gave us a bigger room with a kitchenette, booked us into the local pub for dinner and charged our EV for free. In the circumstances we couldn’t have expected more. The accommodation was lovely: both fresh and modern in style and we are likely to return when in the area to experience the full catered stay. But for the lack of kitchen we would have given 5 stars all around.