Hotel Review: Crieff Hydro, Crieff, Perthshire
Adapted for Katie Wood Travel from a review originally commissioned by Luxury Lifestyle Magazine, republished here with permission.
There are hotels you visit, and there are hotels that feel like a small world of their own. Crieff Hydro, perched above the Perthshire town of Crieff with the hills of Strathearn rolling away below, firmly belongs to the second group. It is one of Scotland’s grand survivors — a Victorian spa resort that has reinvented itself for the modern family without losing an ounce of its character.
First impressions
The approach sets the tone. You wind up through wooded grounds to a sprawling, turreted building that has been welcoming guests since the 1860s. Inside, the scale is immediately apparent: long corridors, generous lounges, and the cheerful background hum of families coming and going between activities. This is not a hushed boutique bolthole — it is a busy, friendly resort that knows exactly who it is for.
Rooms and style
Accommodation spreads across the main hotel and a cluster of self-catering lodges and cottages dotted around the estate. Rooms in the original building lean traditional and comfortable rather than cutting-edge, with the best of them framing wide views over the surrounding countryside. Families travelling in numbers will appreciate the interconnecting options and the lodges, which give you the freedom of a base of your own with the resort’s facilities on the doorstep.
Food and facilities
Dining is built around choice, from relaxed all-day options to a more formal restaurant for the evening. Breakfast is the kind of generous Scottish spread that sets you up for a day outdoors, and the kitchen is sensibly geared to feeding hungry children as happily as it feeds their parents.
It is the activities, though, that define a stay here. With dozens of pursuits on offer — riding, off-road driving, a pool and spa, woodland trails and a packed children’s club among them — the hardest part is fitting everything in. The spa offers welcome respite for adults once the younger guests are happily occupied elsewhere.
Who it suits
Crieff Hydro is, above all, a family resort, and a brilliantly well-organised one. Multi-generational groups do especially well here, because there is genuinely something for every age under one roof. Couples seeking total seclusion may find it busier than they’d like in peak season, but for anyone travelling with children it is hard to beat in this part of Scotland.
Verdict
Crieff Hydro succeeds at something surprisingly rare: it keeps everyone happy at once. It pairs Highland scenery and Victorian grandeur with the practical, all-in-one convenience modern families crave. Come for a long weekend expecting to do everything, leave already planning the next visit — and bring the grandparents.
