Member since 2013
So Much Potential
stayed: February 2019
We stayed at Orestone Manor as a birthday surprise for my partner. After reading TripAdvisor reviews and the description on their website I had high expectations, but I was left disappointed.
We stayed in the garden room, first impressions were good. Lovely four poster bed, but some aspects of the room (in particular the bathroom) look a bit tired and could do with updating. The hot tub was fantastic, but there are time restrictions on its use (which I hadn t seen mentioned anywhere before our arrival).
Included in our package was a bottle of champagne in our room. I was disappointed to find out that it was Lidl s own brand. It took away the feeling of luxury, knowing that it was from a supermarket which is famous for being inexpensive.
We also had a three course set menu in the restaurant. This was lovely and very well presented, but I felt that it wasn t of the same standard as the sample menu on their website which sounded delicious, although I realise that this could be down to personal taste. We were booked in for 7.30 and finished eating at around 9pm. We were the only people in the restaurant and felt a little rushed when the music was switched off while we were eating. I jokingly said that I thought they were trying to get rid of us........... We went back to our room to relax. When we got into bed we found that the quilt was too small for the bed. We also found that the advertised sky TV package in the room did not work. The booklet in the room gives a number for reception which is manned for 24hrs. We rang hoping to get a new duvet, but couldn t get an answer so we decided to walk around to reception instead, it was now about 9.20pm. The doors to the hotel and restaurant were all locked and everything was in darkness so we went back to our room and slept in the middle of our super king bed so that we both remained under the duvet. We did complain to reception about this when we checked out the next morning. The staff were extremely polite and apologetic and they took the bottle of wine that we had ordered with dinner off our bill to make up for it, which I wasn t expecting and was a nice touch. The breakfast included in the price we paid was lovely.
This place has all the right ingredients to be a fantastic hotel, if only they pay attention to the small details as these are the things that can make or break a visit.
Orestone Manor says:
Thank you for your feedback I am sorry you had one or two service issues. We encourage guests to take their time in the restaurant or afterwards at the bar. The music is a playlist system and naturally finishes after a couple of hours, when it is restarted. There is no question of us switching it off intentionally.
The bar is open for as long as residents are wanting and using the bar. The bar was open but as all the residents had retired for the evening the barman who was on his own being a very quiet February Monday evening locked the front door for security so he could go to the cellar and restock the bar which takes about 15 minutes. What we can learn from this is that the hot tub rooms being outside the building would be unable to enter until the barman returned and because he was still on duty the telephones had not yet been transferred to night service so I was unaware of any calls. We are looking at this and will change our procedure to allow a key for the front door on the remote rooms and any lone staff will switch over the phones upon leaving the reception and bar areas of an evening. I am sorry this inconvenienced you and I am pleased my staff acted to compensate a little with the free wine.
As for the champagne we source all kinds of champagne for our free drinks with a room deals. However no matter who else sells it, it is Champagne not a Cava or Prosecco and as a hotel restaurant package/service it still adds about £45.00 of value to your deal. As much as we would like to give away Krug we would not be in business for very long if we did or we would need to load the price of the package to accommodate it. So I hope you will understand that and that you will come again and enjoy the service standards we have to offer.
Kind regards
Neil D'allen
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