Sandyford Lodge

My room was comfortable and warm. The room was clean and tidy, and the shower was lovely and hot with a huge shower head. I felt really refreshed and clean.

I never ended up staying here, but I had an extremely poor experience with this hotel regardless. My aunt sadly passed away unexpectedly, with her funeral being held the night I was meant to be staying at this hotel - I emailed asking if I could be refunded in this instance, despite booking a non-refundable room. They emailed back to say no - this would have been completely fine and understandable, however unfortunately the following poor experience happened. I then called the hotel to see if I could upgrade my booking (originally a single room) to a double room (again, I was more than happy to pay), so that some friends could attend instead. The gentleman that answered my call first of all told me that my room would be refunded, which I was extremely grateful for. It then turned out that he was looking at the wrong booking - he then found another booking and told me I was booked to stay on the 11th of July. Once again this was the wrong booking. When he finally found my booking for July 4th, he asked what I was looking to do - I had already said this at the beginning of the phone call. When repeating that I wanted to upgrade my room, I was told that he would be unable to do this over the phone and I would need to email to process this. Okay, fine. I emailed. 3 days went by and I received no reply. I called the same number back to check the progress of this email and was then told that I could in fact upgrade over the phone - however in the time that had passed, there were now no double rooms left to upgrade to. At this point I was slightly fed up, but was still not going to post a review. I said I would call back if I could find someone who wanted to take the single room. The cherry on top was then being called by the staff at 5:30 pm (note - check in does not close until 11pm) whilst I was at the funeral wake to be asked if I was still coming. When I said that I was, as I had consistently said, at a literal funeral and I could not find anyone else who wanted to stay in a single room, they replied 'yes but are you coming'. I genuinely hope I caught the staff on a bad day and I really want to believe that they are normally better than this, and I'm sure they are based on the other reviews here, but my personal experience was definitely negative. I would have put this in an email first, but them failing to reply to one where I would have spent more money on the hotel makes me very doubtful that they would have replied to this.

The Sandyford Lodge was a perfect location for visiting someone at the University of Glasgow--great restaurants and pubs nearby and on the main bus line. We could also walk to the City Centre car rental location to rent a car for the weekend (when parking was free on the street in front of the establishment). The front desk is available 24/7 and the family is very accommodating. The key thing to know though in choosing Sandyford Lodge is that this is not a commercial brand hotel: there's no elevator, no amenities (ice machine, gym, etc.), and the rooms are minimalist. The beds are comfortable and there is a desk & chair, small closet (with plenty of hangers), TV, electric teapot, bars of soap and shampoo dispenser in the shower--but there are no extras (no table, lounge chair or couch, fridge, safe, iron, countertop, conditioner, lotion, hair dryer, decorations, clock, etc.). The windows are big and can be opened, which is very helpful as there is no room thermostat and the room's electric lighting options are limited. The one challenge was the shower, which is extremely tight (and the door would not probably allow someone who is particularly stout to even enter). That said, the facilities, cleanliness, and service were at the right price for our extended stay.