In general a great holiday, the staff are very attentive (Tilly on reception, George and Ben being particularly impressive) and the Lodge does many things to a very high standard. The convenience of the boot-room and the manner in which your luggage is brought to your room as well as the location of the lodge itself really helps toward a relaxing experience. The Spa did not run out of towels later in the day this year so that was a nice improvement. The food was mostly excellent, with plenty of choices for breakfast and evening meal.
The following points are intended as constructive feedback. Firstly compared to last year there seemed to be a lack of supervision on the floor of the dining room. This manifested itself toward the end of the week and particularly at breakfast, for example for the last 3 days or so one might sit down for breakfast and not be offered a pot of tea for 15/20 minutes, usually you had to resort to asking for it along with asking if there was any hot food offerings. On that occasion the waitress said she would come back with her pad to explain the options and take orders only for her to forget a minute later and proceed to clean up tables in another part of the dining room before we reminded her !.
In respect of room cleaning, it was in general good but could we recommend putting the mattress protectors in the laundry each week. We we resetting the bed sheet and noticing heavy soiling (I would imagine from bodily fluids) right across the middle of the protector. It was a little unsightly tbh.
The bar area is a nice space, we enjoyed the quiz evening which was popular, might it be an idea to have a couple more events on an evening in the bar, we certainly would have enjoyed another quiz, the prizes do not need to be grandiose I think the guests took pleasure in the socialising.
Similarly the ski guiding seemed popular and might the Lodge offer it for guests for more than 2 mornings for a small fee per guest ?. Whilst the guiding was busy (at least 20 guests on the first day) it might have been more appealing to break the group into two as some guests found it a little slow (not me !) and so did not return for the next day, naturally the guys from ESF had to cater to the more cautious guests. This is a great service by the way and very enjoyable.
Finally, the staff, as mentioned, are great, a couple of my points above are, I think, systemic issues that probably arise from their youthfulness and inexperience.