A very special birthday stay was organised by my other half. An impressive sweeping driveway leads to a beautiful house. A warm welcome on arrival and shown to our room (number 9) The hotel had kindly left a card and a cupcake for my birthday. The bedroom was lovely, traditional style, a nice big comfortable bed and good bedding. The lounge area was comfortable. The lounge and bedroom were cold on arrival but we soon worked out how the radiators work. The bathroom was nice enough, nice Molton Brown toiletries. We had two towelling robes but no slippers which was a shame. All in all a lovely room. The room was nice and quiet and we enjoyed using the lounge area. Everywhere was clean. The breakfast in the main restaurant was really nice, a nice choice and vegetarians get their own menu which is a nice gesture. The avocado on toast was delicious. The evening meal in the main restaurant was enjoyable. Again, a good vegetarian selection. Portions are small and beautifully presented, but surprisingly filling (although that might be due to the piles of sourdough bread and creamy butter that we ordered over and over again, delicious!). Service was efficient and friendly. There was a private event, I think it was a wedding, taking place in the hotel. The guests of the wedding congregated for drinks and nibbles at the bottom of the staircase from our bedroom. We wanted to go to the spa in our bathrobes for the full spa experience but because of the wedding guests enjoying their champagne at the bottom of our staircase, we didnt think it was appropriate to walk through the wedding guests in our bathrobes so we had to go to the spa in our clothes and change there which was a shame. Speaking of the spa, we had 3 lovely treatments. A full body massage and a facial and back massage combo. (I would like to mention our therapist's names on here as they were very good, but unfortunately they didnt introduce themselves with a name, they just got on with the treatment which thankfully was a really nice spa treatment). With the 2 nights stay in a very nice room, a pricy dinner on just one evening, £16 gin and tonics, a £50 bottle of wine and a few treatments in the spa, our bill was hefty, as you would expect for a place like this. But THEN when we checked out, they had added a 10% service charge on the whole bill, even including the accommodation! That made it a £125 service charge which is ridiculous! We have NEVER had a service charge added to a hotel bill before to include a charge for staying in a room, and we have stayed in 5* star hotels all around the world. Surely the accomodation charge doesn't require a service charge? We understand that food, drinks and spa treatments would have a service charge, but the accommodation? That left a bitter taste in our mouth having had a nice stay. We gave it a go for a special birthday and we will tick it off our list. All in all, a nice traditional hotel, pleasant staff, nice food, good spa treatments.
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