ผู้เข้าพัก
31 มกราคม 2023
When looking at the accommodation choices online, we couldn’t decide between Spicer’s Vineyard Estate and The Convent. In the end we decided to book one night in each to experience both properties and their respective restaurants. If you too are trying to decide between the two, then don’t hesitate and pick up the phone to Spicer’s, as it wins hands down. The positives for The Convent are stunning grounds and a beautiful old building, both of which are highly photogenic. Walking into the building made me feel like I was entering an old Agatha Christie movie. As impressive as the aesthetics were, it was clear that both hotel and restaurant staff were not very well trained. Check-in at the hotel involves walking into an empty reception with nobody on reception desk. There is a helpful sign telling you to call a number but that isn’t the sort of welcome I would expect for the price I paid. every time I went to reception, I had the same experience. The same staffing issues could be seen in the restaurant. Online Circa looks to be the best restaurant in the Hunter Valley and I can only assume something drastic changed since all the awards picked up in 2019. The food was nothing special and the service poor. We asked for advice on the wines, and it was clear our waiter had no knowledge of the wine list. We asked for recommendation on the menu and the best we got was “ladies usually order the scallops”. We were seated by the kitchen, so I had the pleasure of watching dirty glasses and bottles being stacked up on the bar, with nobody willing to clean down throughout our meal. I ordered a bottle of wine and poured most of the bottle myself and finally had to watch one of the staff constantly coming out of the kitchen chewing a mouth full of food. My final issue with The Convent in their internet. Broadband has been around a while now and its fast and cheap to access on most places, just not at The Convent. The free internet provided is slow and limited to 5GB as they want to charge guests $15 a day for accessing normal broadband speeds. Now these are first world problems I agree and if it was just one or two incidents it wouldn’t matter. But so many little things gave us a lasting impression of The Convent as having poor service and an untrained team. While not as aesthetically pleasing as The Convent, Spicer’s is still a beautiful property and having an open fireplace in your room is never a bad thing. The style is more modern, with the room being large and comfortable. The check-in and check-out were both friendly and efficient, with nice touches like giving guests free flower seeds to plant at home. The real difference is Botanica, which is a beautiful intermate restaurant. We had a warm welcome from the team and our waitress was amazing. She was only 19 years old but was engaging and had a great knowledge of the wine list and the food on the menu. The wine she recommended was perfect, the dishes she recommended were amazing. Between the res
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