My Experience at Waterfalls Eclipse Resort – When Luxury Lost Reality Contact

    In the beautiful Lake District, I was so excited to book a week at the Waterfalls Eclipse Resort. The website made it sound like a dream come true – luxury villas, amazing scenery, and a focus on relaxation and sustainability. I felt it was just what my family needed to relax after the busy time. Instead, I got a week of constant irritation and annoyance at this place.

No one there to welcome us

    When we arrived, there was no one to welcome us. Recently, the resort launched a click-and-go system through its mobile app, and it was in generally useless. So, we parked the car and stood near it, feeling awkward and not knowing where to go or who to speak to. At that moment, all I needed was a happy employee at the desk.

Spa booking never happened

    I always dreamed about getting to the spa, but when trying to book a consultation through the same app, I got no confirmation. When I called the next day, I was told that no free time was left. That disappointed us. A simple email or a message from staff would have avoided it.

Parents felt abandoned at dinner

    My parents-in-law do not speak English; they know Spanish, and they were a bit surprised seeing the restaurant staff could not communicate with them, or the other way around. No one could explain to them what the dishes were and what kind of pastries they served. I had to order it for them and explain what was happening, and they were visibly upset. I wish the resort had multilingual staff or at least simple translation tools (within the new app, probably...)

Scary moment with no communication

    One night, the fire alarms went off, and there was no one instructing us, no staff, no announcement. We had no idea where to run, where the assembly point was and what was going on. That was scary and confusing. The resort should have emergency procedures in place – either staff on site or message us to our phones with instructions through their app if everything goes through that.

Mixed messages about dinner time

    Another annoying thing was that, although the app said the dinner ended at 10:00 pm, the restaurant was closed at around 9:30 pm when we arrived there. The guys on duty said the kitchen was closed. As a result, we had no dinner that night. This proves that the information provided by the app and by the staff was not synchronised, which should not be the case for a five-star resort.

Diet requests ignored

    I wrote about one of my children’s dietary restrictions by email before coming to the resort. No one ever replied, and this information wasn’t available at the restaurant. My daughter had to eat some plain food, and we had to order for her from different delivery companies for the rest of her vacation. Someone professionally trained only had to confirm or note my offer, and I would have been pleased, and I would take precautions.

Conclusion

    In general, our stay at Waterfalls Eclipse was not pleasant at all and isolated. The most popular and daily problem: no real human communication. Grounding it all out with one app doesn’t work – especially when things go wrong. Resorts should have the human impact back: more engaging staff, clearer multilingual support, and more explicit communication regarding their health policy.