Widbrook Grange

Disappointing

The food was fairly good. Service patchy, housekeeping poor maintenance worse.

The bathroom needed a refurbishment and painting. The bath panel was disintegrating, the grab handle rusty. A dressing table drawer had no handle. The bedhead and wardrobe needed dusting. The Roman blind needed hemming and the window sill painting. The bedroom was cold but they wouldn't put the heating on. There weren't enough portable heaters for each room. The lounges only sat 6 and we we were in a group of 4 which was awkward. I have put this on Trip Advisor together with the photos. Your agency declined to help, telling us to contact the manager, who was on holiday. We were offered an alternative room which was smaller and the wardrobe had no handle. It was also in an annexe but up two flights of steps which were slippery in the wet weather so we declined.

Aims for shabby-chic, but is just shabby!

This was our second stay at Widbrook Grange - the first (about 18 months ago) was lovely and we were really looking forward to returning. We can't believe how much Widbrook Grange has deteriorated in that time. Our most recent stay was more Fawlty Towers, than Fawlty Towers itself!

Our biggest areas of disappointment were...

1. When we were shown into our room we were met with several iron-shaped burn marks on the carpet. When the receptionist saw us looking at them he reassuringly said "don't worry, we know these weren't you!"

2. Then we quickly established that the heating in the room wasn't working. Our genuinely-friendly receptionist came back and fiddled with the electric heater, told us it was on a complicated timed system and that it would probably come on shortly. It didn't... ever! He said that we could have a small electric heater he had in reception, but by the time they understood our radiator was broken that heater was being used in the conservatory - it eventually arrived with us about 11pm.

The issue was complicated by the fact the gas boilers in the main building had also failed. Once they got them back up and running, they tried to convince us that our electric heater would be OK, too. Obviously it didn't as they are entirely unrelated systems!

3. The floor tiles in the shower area were broken and loose, to the point of being dangerous. The hotel had tried to cunningly hide the broken tiles under two rubber bathmats. But as soon as you stepped on them they moved. Sharp edges of the tiles jutted up between the mats - showering in a "luxury" hotel has never been so trepidacious!

4. The swimming pool floor was equally poor. Many sections of the floor has lost the tiles, leaving lots of opportunity to shred your feet. The whole area is in need of a makeover - the paint on the walls was peeling/flaking in several areas, too!

To top it all off, when we (happily) checked out the following morning, the receptionist on duty apologised about the heating and reassured us that maintenance were coming in to look at it. When we said that we were disappointed with the room, she happily told us that it was due to be refurbished in the coming weeks. Clearly, that didn't help us though! It did make us wonder why they'd continued to let it out in its current state.

The staff, to their credit, were very friendly but clearly over-stretched and harassed. The duty manager was literally doing every front of house job that evening, which meant everything was rushed and/or delayed as he ran from pillar to post.

We have no intention of going back to see if they have fixed the heating or refurbished the room. Thankfully we were able to see the funny side of the situation, but not everybody would, especially if it was a special occasion.

Excellent location - poor food.

We had a meal allowance of 30 each which didn't go very far when my filet steak was 26.50, starters 9, desserts from 6, glass of wine 5.35. My filet steak was the size of an egg - the smallest I've ever had. The three chocolate dessert items were so small there wasn't enough to get a taste.
Breakfast was very good - a full English.
We had a good time exploring the area but were disappointed with the meals at the end of the day.