Booked and stayed for a one night spa break for my partner and I. Everything prior to the trip boded well for a luxury experience. Unlike many prior trips to other establishments, all lunch, dinner and trea**ent bookings could be done at the time of booking via the hotel’s website . Comms prior to visit was excellent via email and phone. Initial impressions driving up the flower lined roadway were good, this slowly declined from the point where we parked, in what appeared to be a flat NCP car park, walked down to reception, checked in and then were shown through to our ‘Traditional’ room. Nothing actually wrong with any of it functionally, but the buildings and room decorations were tired and garish. ‘Traditional ‘ to me does not mean an eclectic mix of ‘new old’ dark oak furniture, stained glass windows and high cistern toilet in the en-suite, combined with 00’s conference hotel curtains, carpets and light fittings! The hotel is authentic in the same way Disneyland Paris is authentically medieval … in fact, the feel of the place is wholly of a theme park. Spa trea**ents were very good and the spa has great facilities. We had dinner in the Hillfields restaurant on the Saturday evening, limited menu choice but we enjoyed the ‘sharing’ roast chicken. We also had lunch in the Hillfields restaurant on the Sunday - significantly less fulfilling experience. Over an hour wait for the main course which turned up cold. This was then made even worse when it became clear, despite all of the prior comms (including an email confirming three ‘experience ‘ bookings directly under the price to pay and no mention from any of the staff during booking in nor arrival for lunch) that the meal was not included in the package. It took 15 mins to get to the bottom of this as we, a) had to wait for the duty manager to come out of her office to speak to us, rather than communicate via the restaurant manager, and b) to print off the T&C’s and go through the fine print; a significantly less than luxury experience and clearly a case of ‘caveat emptor”. If you enjoy theme parks and reading through small print .. enjoy; if not, it may not be for you .
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