Mercure Blackburn Dunkenhalgh Hotel & Spa 4 stars

For our wedding anniversary our son's partner booked us into an executive room with evening meal and breakfast. The room was at the very extreme of the building from reception which took approx 5 minutes to get to, and you had to go along an outside passage about 80mtr long. The room itself was quite spacious and clean, but I've never been in an executive room that was so sparse. There was no mini fridge, no magnifying mirror in the bathroom, no complimentary bottles of water, no soap dispenser over the bath and no writing pad and pen. Even a decent b&b provide these things. The evening meal was also very disappointing. We like to get dressed for dinner but going into the dining room we were shocked to see so many people in tee shirts and shorts and trainers. The menu appeared to be the same as the one in the bar area, and was basically pub grub. Fish with what where obviously frozen chips. Steak and ale pie which were definitely bought in. In fact, apart from the steak, which obviously someone has to put on a griddle, everything was frozen food. Getting drinks from the bar was also disappointing. My wife and I like gin, but how can a bar have a selection of gins and no Bombay Sapphire? So we ordered Hendriks. It goes without saying you have cucumber with Hendriks - 'we don't have that, only lime or lemon' I was told. In addition, I asked for Fever Tree tonic. They only do Schweppes. I'm sorry to go on, and it sounds like I'm a real moaner, but when it was booked and we saw the pictures, and we heard it was an executive room, we were really looking forward to it. I give credit where it's due which can be verified by looking at my other reviews.

We stayed at this Hotel with a group on a coach holiday. When we found our room it was at the bottom of an open courtyard, the door opening out to the yard. Because we had torrential rain for the first 3 days, we got very wet going for our meals, The room was not too bad, could do with an upgrade, there was holes in the bathroom door. Being OAP’s it was quite difficult getting into the high bath to use the shower. Food - the breakfast was very good, lots of variety, but the dinner was poor, particular the main course. After dinner there was no where to sit as the bar/lounge was always full. Finally on the last night we were woken in the early hours by party goers trying to get into the room next door. It was a concern that to get to these rooms, who don’t have to go through the hotel entrance. I see from one of the other reviews they were not pleased with room 41. We expected better from this hotel, and had enough after 4 nights.

They stay was great the only complaint is the all inclusive dinner menu. I really wanted a steak but asking for an extra £15 on top I felt was expensive.

Slow on the bar service when we first arrived but evening was much better. But lady on reception( sorry cant remember her name) she was working late the saturday night and earlier on sunday. Blonde hair and glasses. Extremely good at her job, great communication and nothing was too much for her to do, very helpful with lots of different things. Went above and beyond. Polite and welcoming. Spa and facilities were clean and to high standard, beds were comfy.

Absolutely wonderful stay! We visited here for a weekend Spa break for my friend’s 40th. The hotel is stunning, the room was perfect and the food (we had afternoon tea, dinner and breakfast) was delicious. Great spa treatments and I used the gym too, all super clean with great facilities! The icing on the cake though was the amazing staff. Literally from checking in right until we left, they went above and beyond to make us feel special and were all so friendly and helpful. Special shout out to Aziz and Olivia, also the lovely housekeeping lady who helped us with our bags and wrote ‘Happy 40th birthday’ on the room mirror for my friend and left us treats, such a lovely surprise! You really made the weekend so special and memorable and Mercure should be proud to have such wonderful employees. Thank you so much - we will be back!