Trying to be something it is not! Overpriced! Poor...

Trying to be something it is not! Overpriced! Poor standards. Not a place to stay if celebrating a special occasion. Not adhering to the philosophy stated on website!

Travelled with my elderly parents ( in their early 80 s) to celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary. I made a point of emphasizing how important this occasion was.

Arrived at 11am and I asked whether I could request early check in due to my parents age, my father, a diabetic having an injury on his leg. Told that they would try to prioritize to get the rooms ready by between 2 -3pm.

On arrival no welcome drink and not one of the staff wished my parents a happy anniversary, despite asking me via email to send my parents names so that a card could be left in the room. No card was received.

At 3pm we returned and were told my room was having urgent maintenance!.My parents were unassisted with the luggage. It was clear that the hotel did not employ ample housekeeping staff.

It was 28 degrees and the room had no AC so I requested a fan. They delivered a cheap plastic table fan covered in rust. This did not make much difference at all. Owners response;
I agree, supplying you with a fan that had some rust on it wasn t ideal and have taken steps to replace any that have There have only ever been a handful of days a year where one could argue AC would be of benefit.

There had been extremely hot weather in the UK for at least 3 weeks prior.

I found Seagull excretion on my chair on my deck and filthy deck chairs. Owners response; I have inspected these chairs today and none of them are covered in black mold. The teak chairs sit out all day and night and unfortunately we don t employ a team to inspect them every day and clean as necessary although they are cleared periodically. When charging over 250 pounds for a room one would expect staff to check the chairs as a standard procedure ?

At 4pm we went to the lounge for Tea and found maintenance drilling with all his materials on the floor. Owners response I am reliably informed that at 4pm they were not in the area that we serve this but leaving his equipment in full view was certainly not clever Why would the workman s equipment remain in the lounge area as photographed at 4.20pm?

They did not accept American Express. I found extra charges for another guest to the value of 40 pounds. I have not received a response as to why!

The owners statement on his website;
'providing an outstanding product and service to all our guests by happy people'

I began my complaint I hope you will read the list of issues experienced in order to maintain the outstanding standards you speak of on your web site. Mr Cragoe clearly has no respect for constructive feedback sent from paying guests and made no attempt to put a bad experience right.

I travel extensively. I have no issue paying these prices IF standards are met. Unfortunately this establishment falls short on many levels.
A simple apology from Mr Cragoe would have sufficed. He prefers to argue as opposed to learning from paying guests experiences.

He states in his reply that they are not Soho House and do not have the logistics. Then please do not charge high prices for your rooms without being able to deliver the service. Owners response; Both these properties have enormous HR / Capex resources and are able to maintain a high standard of product. I wish I had this resource to call on but sadly don t.

I can see from the reviews that most of the best ones are by guests staying in standard rooms. There are complaints about charging above what they should for the Luxury rooms. On this occasion the hotel let us down and did not deliver GREAT PRODUCT.

My advice is IF you are going to charge NY, London prices then ensure that you have the basics covered.Understand that it's the small things that make the difference and that when issues occur and they always will in a customer experience based business, the rule is that the customer comes first. I did not take the time and energy to express my dissatisfaction to receive a list of justifications.