Circumstances dictated that we needed to spend a week in this area, and so we decided to cheer ourselves up during this difficult Summer by staying somewhere a fair bit nicer than somewhere like a Premier Inn.
And you’d think that taking two rooms for six nights at the height of a pandemic might have warranted an attempt at decent service, maybe going the extra mile for us. Instead, what we got was a pretty downbeat, miserable welcome, particularly from a male (bald, tall) who I never saw smile all week. He basically carried on as if the guests weren’t there.
It wasn’t great either when the lights were flickering in one of the rooms. We kept reporting it, but it seems that the maintenance man was never around, or he didn’t have the tools, or some other reason. Thank goodness that none of us was prone to epilepsy.
On the plus side, the staff agreed willingly to let us use their fridge to store some cream-cheese all week (and gave us access to it every day), and indeed the lady on reception was actually very obliging. And the breakfasts were good too, with a good range of options and practicalities to get over the social distancing restrictions.
We were staying in the garden lodge bit of the hotel, which, despite the idyllic name, seemed markedly downbeat from the main bit of the hotel. The main bit of the hotel seemed quite pleasant, with a nice beer garden and a nice bar (albeit that the rules about wearing a mask in the bar seemed both bizarre and widely-disobeyed).
The hotel’s location isn’t great (very few amenities nearby), and if you don’t have a car then don’t even think about it staying here. If you do have a car, then make sure your suspension is good, because the potholes in the long lane are lethal - surely it’s worth getting them fixed?
So, ultimately the hotel is functional rather than nice - which we could have got at a Premier Inn at a lower price. less