2/5
We stayed last weekend. My partner had booked it for my birthday. It was really disappointing. Check in was fairly quick, but there was a musty smell in the reception area. We got to the room, my partner mentioned he’d been told the ‘nicer’ rooms weren’t dog friendly so we had a small dark room, the room had a fan blasting on the bedside table and was very warm; not ideal for the dog. The room had tired elements such as paint needing touching up. Touches in the room for the dog were nice & dog menu was a great addition. We sat in the garden with drinks before dinner, when buying the drinks we asked a colleague how to get to the garden, it was a peculiar interaction of her giggling and saying through a door to the right- not how I’d describe it. Another colleague from reception (who was the only real grafter we saw the entire time!) took us through. We’d been told the fires were on, they weren’t and couldn’t get them started. No one around to ask. We went to dinner which was by far the worst experience. We were sat on a small uncomfortable table in the middle of a walkway. The restaurant was very hot throughout the meal. My partner changed my seat for me as the design of the seat had a bar protruding into my back. We waited 10-15 mins to order drinks and were given one menu to share. The decent colleague came to take our order and started by saying they’d ran out of several items which included focaccia, I asked if we could still get the pricey Camembert (£18) with a different bread, she said yes so we ordered Camembert and our mains. 10 mins later we were informed they’d ran out of Camembert and asked to review the other starters, all of which were abysmal so we said we wouldn’t bother. The decent colleague then offered sharer options from a different menu, we went with a meat & cheese board (£25), in fairness it arrived almost instantly, a very small portion of prosciutto, salami, mozzarella etc. I believe our mains had been sat waiting due to the starter issue, the plates arrived boiling hot and you can see the ‘skin’ over my peas, the chips were cold, as were my partners. My partner asked for a sauce. The dogs food didn’t come at the same time, we were told they’d be right back with both. The sauce took at least 10 mins, my partner had finished most of his meal. Dogs dinner arrived after we’d finished and was steaming hot so had clearly been forgotten. The whole evening all we saw was the decent colleague from reception running around trying to do everything and other staff standing like chocolate teapots. Waited for the plates to be cleared for a good while, no one came, by this point I was so uncomfortable on the awful chairs/table that I’d decided against desserts and just wanted to leave. Still no one came to clear plates. After at least 20 mins of waiting I went to the bar and stood waiting, one of the chocolate teapots was chatting at the bar, no acknowledgement at all, no sign of trying to wrap conversation up, at nearly 8 months pregnant & having been uncomfortable and very hot the whole meal I decided I wasn’t willing to wait anymore. We sat in the garden to finish our drinks, no lights & no fire pit. Then went back to the room, it was one of the worst nights sleep I’ve ever had in a hotel, the room was incredibly hot all night. My poor dog resorted to sleeping on the bathroom tiles. I woke up incredibly dehydrated as there was no water provided in the room. I decided to get ready quickly so we could do breakfast and just leave. The breakfast was average but absolutely the best part of the stay! The ‘selection of pastries’ on the bar was… croissants. The full English was decent. Items they’d ran out of continued, no sugar available. I understand this groups main focus is weddings, there’s clearly not a lot of consideration on the other bits. My partner paid over £250 for the night. It wasn’t worth it, we’ve stayed in much better dog friendly hotels. We got engaged this year, I had been following one of their venues but would never consider booking a wedding after this small experience we had.
