We were full of positive expectations by the warm and efficient reception for our 5 night stay when we arrived. We had booked a river view room. Sadly the room we had was a renovated room in the eves of the old building . The window had a view but more as a skylight and lacked light.The room was replaced on request. The staff in all departments are polite and try to accommodate the guests however, sadly, short staffing, lack of training and ineffective management results in frustrations and less than the promised quality stay. The lack of attention to detail in all areas:
1. Rooms - not properly cleaned each day . Bed Linen inside out, soap residue on shower walls from previous guests, coffee tray had sugar and spill marks from previous guests, splash marks on mirrors, toilet side not secure, finger marks on all doors, carpet not properly vacuumed, rubbish bin not emptied.The first morning we had no electricity. It wasn’t the room key. We waited a while for it to be sorted.
2. Room service- it’s took 3 phone calls to various departments to place an order. The food arrived promptly but not on a tray , no serving utensils or condiments. With only one chair in the room eating was done standing up by one of us because the plates used did not allow for eating on the bed.
3. Breakfast- there was only 1 person serving approximately 20 guests. So there was no possibility of setting tables , clearing and refilling the buffet . One coffee making machine for the whole restaurant . Self- service and taking about 2 minutes per cup meant that guests were lining up waiting for a while.
We chose to eat breakfast outside the hotel there after.
4. No follow through despite requesting remediation of room challenges. After chasing up the duty manager in the evening ,a length discussion and a promise to resolve the issues, we returned to the hotel the next afternoon to nothing having been attended to. By then we were frustrated and embarrassed to have to complain once more. The initial response at the front desk was that it had nothing to do with them. I insisted on seeing the manager who confirmed having received an email from her counter part asking to resolve the problems in our room. No follow through, lack of delegation of duties . We felt abused and that
as long as they had received prepayment that they could provide substandard service. The manager apologized yet again, went to see if our room was ready and cake to tell us that it was done. Once more ⅔ of the issues had not been attended too. The cleaner had to return to complete her work, the maintenance men arrived for the toilet.
5. We had invited friends and reserved a table for dinner for the Wednesday evening. Only to receive on email on the Monday the say that the planned music and dinner had been cancelled.
6. The last night we decided to have dinner in the restaurant. I called and booked a table and on arriving was informed that I had not done so. I insisted that they look and told them where were to be seated.suddenly they found our name and the table. We waited 15 minutes for our drinks and 40 minutes for our food. The quality of service is good but yesterday again there are insufficient staff for the number of guests. At no time anywhere during our 5 nights did we see a member of management come in and check how things were going. As someone who worked in the industry for more than 25 years it’s very disappointing that a venue with such potential has so much to sort out in terms of organisational management, lack of attention to detail, effective staff training and insufficient staffing at all levels. The house keeper are expected to clean 25 rooms a day each.
This hotel is perfect for a very short stay.
We chose to stay and not leave with all these challenges due to family commitments .