Frances Madden

Review of The Woodlands House Hotel & Sp...

I could not stay in the hotel so I can t comment o...

I could not stay in the hotel so I can t comment on that. However, I had a Christmas lunch with a large group of people and I can tell you I was very disappointed. Woodlands is known to have a good reputation for a nice meal. This was very disappointing to say the least. The lobby was beautifully decorated for Christmas and very atmospheric.We were 35 people for a two course meal, plus tea and coffee. It had also been arranged that we would have a room available for approximately an hour beforehand, for a dance class. The room would depend on what was available. As it turned out the room was the ballroom and that worked perfectly. Unfortunately things went downhill from there. We were shown to our room for about 50 people, which had no natural light. No attempt whatsoever was made to decorate this room for Christmas. With suitable decoration and lighting, this room could been very cosy and attractive. At the very least a candle on each table was needed. It would also have made a difference to have crackers on the table. Even cheap crackers can be a lot of fun. The main course had a choice of Turkey and ham, or salmon. I don t like Turkey so I asked for only ham. I asked for only ham without stuffing and cranberry sauce. I asked for gravy on the side and perhaps this was my fault that I didn t make it clear. I meant a jug of gravy for the table and I got a small container of gravy only on my own plate. The ham appeared to be have been smoked and reheated before being cut into slivers. Christmas turkey and ham I would ve expected to get a couple of decent slices of ham instead I got a plate of shredded ham which didn t taste very nice . A number of other people complained about the ham and by the time we got to the end of dinner the atmosphere in the room was not very nice.

The second course was And medley of desert. there were three small pieces of desert cake, somewhat under sweet. One piece was cranberry cheese cake, which is somewhat tart in any case.