The Swan Hotel at Bibury

A lovely short break

We had a lovely three night break in a very comfortable hotel. Food was absolutely first class. The service at dinner was great fun. More staff training is required for the staff at breakfast.

Lovely in a beautiful location

We stayed at The Swan for a long weekend in a 4 poster bedroom which was beautifully decorated, comfortable and spacious with a huge bath. We had a problem with the shower one morning - we couldn t turn it off - but this was resolved immediately.
The staff in the hotel and restaurant were lovely, friendly and very helpful. We had breakfast and dinner - limited dinner choice but what we had was good. The breakfasts were a little patchy-scrambled eggs appeared to be chopped boiled eggs - but the poached eggs were perfect! The smashed avo had chunks of garlic in which was unexpected for breakfast.
Parking was a bit of an issue one evening but it was Coronation weekend.

Needs better organisation to make this into a good hotel

We stayed here on an off peak luxury break, with a four poster room and half bottle of sparkling wine and chocolates, which were in our room on arrival. The bathroom was excellent but the room needs a bit of refurbishing. There was a cupboard with a curtain across the front as a wardrobe which had in it an ironing board and iron, a hairdryer, a safe (on the floor), a large fan for cooling the room and a fan heater. We had to remove the cooling fan in order to get our clothes in, and as the room was colder than we liked it we turned the heater on, but it didn t work. We then turned on the second radiator in the room which soon had the room up to temperature.
Wanting our breakfast to be served in our room we asked for a form to fill in. Finding that there were none, the receptionist said that she would make sure we received one. Of course we didn t and after our evening meal we had to ask again, only to find out that we had been put down (against our say so or knowledge) to have breakfast at 8.45. We changed that and got a form, which turned out to be just the menu, which we then had to add to for tea, coffee, juice, toast, which kind of eggs etc we wanted. The receptionist on check in did complain that people didn t say how they wanted their eggs doing or which drink they wanted - so why not make a proper form like most other hotels do?
We ate in the restaurant both evenings, and the food was excellent with one oddity. The steak and the rack of lamb had been marinated in garlic beforehand. My husband is allergic to garlic (we had informed the hotel beforehand) but was only told after we had ordered, so he had to change his order on the first evening and we had to wait a while for our meal. To be fair to the hotel they reduced the bill (even though we did not complain).
We also had the afternoon tea on the second day there, very good. I asked for another pot of tea after it only produced one and a half cups, only to be told that there would be a charge ( 4.50). I have never had to pay for another pot of tea anywhere I have been for afternoon tea before!
This all seems rather negative, but the staff on the whole were welcoming, it just needs a bit of thought and training to make this a lovely hotel to stay in.