Millcroft Inn & Spa — Hotel in Caledon

My friend had her wedding at the Millcroft Inn in Jun 2023. She loved the ethereal circular clearing in the forest as the setting for her wedding, and the cozy inn for her reception. Plus the added spa feature meant there were spa services easily accessible on site. The Inn put together a phenomenal rehearsal dinner that was hit and absolutely delicious! We were all anticipating the wedding day meal which we expected would be equally well prepared, however it was not. Not to mention that the staff did not follow the timeline set out by the bride and groom and brought out the “late night snack” and wedding cake much later (my almost an hour if I recall correctly) - many guests had already left before the cake was brought out. The grounds are gorgeous, but due to the isolated location, guests who were not staying on sit had at least an hour’s travel or more to reach home, and the rooms were pricier than my stays in Toronto. Mind you, it is an Inn and Spa, and you do have spa discounts and access to the springs during their open hours the 2nd day of your stay, so that is part of the price. It would have been nice to have better lighting in the evening though as a few guests tripped and stumbled on the uneven grounds that were not lit.

After the rehearsal dinner the wedding party had been informed they were cut off from ordering any alcoholic beverages from the bar - even when paying for them themselves and no longer keeping a tab for the bride and groom. (And including guests like myself who had only had two drinks the entire day, one in the late afternoon and one during dinner.). The night of the wedding we had to cut the bonfire short that the bride and groom had paid extra for due to the hour restrictions which it did not appear had been communicated fully. We knew the end time for the dance hall was midnight, but the bonfire was cut short well before this.

Also, a note for brides and grooms especially, no wedding planner is permitted on site to assist that day. Their staff “will take care” of everything. Now Diana and Mel were very pleasant and courteous, and we greatly enjoyed their positivity and willingness to help, however not all of the preparation the bride had requested and paid for in advance was done. The he biggest setback were the linens that were very creased and not steamed or ironed. My friend had paid extra in advance to have all the linens crease free - I arrived to oversee the reception set up that day and help coordinate so that my friend could focus on preparing for her big day, only to find the linens all laid out and greatly creased. When questioned as to why this was, and shown the documents confirming that they were to all be steamed in advance (an additional service that was paid for), the manager informed me that “it would take too long to steam all the linens now”, that “these creases will never come out” so it is futile, and that she would “never have offered that service”, and yet there it was in writing that she had consented and charged for this service. Plus “you won’t even notice the creases once we fully set the tables”. Well if you look at photos others have posted, you definitely see the creases. So I enlisted the help of another friend attending and we steamed all of the linens, then set the tables with the staff. (Photo is after we steamed the linens.) As our friend supplied her own napkins and sashes for the chairs (no sashes were available from the venue, but they did offer napkins for rent), these were up to us to place at the settings along with the gifts for guests and any other personal touches. If a location does not permit you to hire a wedding planner to be on site to oversee that these final touches are in place, they should accommodate and be willing to place all of these final touches themselves if you leave them with their staff and photos / descriptions of where they are to go / how they are to be placed, just like you would with a wedding planner. As it was, we only just made it out to the ceremony with a few...

I really wanted to enjoy my time here. It has so much potential. I can tell a lot of work went into restoring this historic property set in a beautiful picturesque setting but at some point along the way someone seems to have given up.

Service:

The front desk was utterly unhelpful. Failed to follow through on several requests (like lighting one of the many campfires on the property, apparently it’s someone else’s job - who we’ll never know), blamed each other or the “parent company” each time we offered them an opportunity to correct course, and were quite defensive with any constructive feedback. Each time we went to charge our electric car we had to ask staff to move company vehicles (that weren’t electric) out of the only two charging spots available. Someone thought it wise to schedule elevator maintenance at check in time on our arrival day. One morning at breakfast we asked to be moved to the “pod” in the restaurant as it had been vacated, we were told it was reserved but no one came (we were at the restaurant until the end of breakfast service) and when we asked to reserve it for the following day we were told it couldn’t be reserved. Several amenities they list on their advertisements simply aren’t offered (shuttle service, valet, room service) and when we asked about them they blamed the parent company for listing them on the website. One morning another guest was 5 mins late for breakfast, they refused to serve him and his wife. At the spa the deck of the pools were frequently littered with debris, including a condom at one point. Found a dirty bandaid in the shower in the change room. Dead ants everywhere in the indoor pool space. I could go on.

The spa staff, however, were quite lovely. Our treatments were all amazing. The cleaners were very helpful and accommodating. And always busy. They just clearly needed more help. The restaurant staff, aside from the above noted inflexibility, were quite attentive and friendly.

Facilities:

So I expected “vintage” but I didn’t expect poorly maintained and in disrepair. The bathtub in our room was badly stained and had two layers of slip protection that were both stained as well. The ceramic was chipping from the tub as well. Light fixtures were rusting. The shower head barely worked through the grim built up on it. The towel warmer was stained and rusted and didn’t work. The room was dark, dated, smaller than advertised and uninviting.

The restaurant space is nice and apparently well cared for. There is no common space for lounging however, which was a real draw back given the discomfort and disrepair of our room. The linens and bathrobes were top notch, but I’d personally rather be wearing them in another hotel.

The spa was the highlight. But the design of the mens locker room left much to be desired. The lockers were so close the space could only really accommodate 1-2 people at a time without getting in each other’s way. There was also no thought given to the washroom spaces themselves. Dirty toilet brushes left out, the baseboards were disgusting, the taps were rusting. My partner had one of the shower heads fall off mid shower; when he mentioned it to the cleaner he apologized and mentioned he’d been trying to get them to fix that for some time. Unacceptable.

The steam room is out of order and the spa staff mentioned it’s been that way for some time, not sure why they are still advertising it. Same goes for the resistance pool and whirl pool. They have a games room, but it’s also closed - reason was not stated.

The spa was also very noisy. Despite several signs that it’s a quiet space, people were there to party and staff didn’t seem to be given the authority to ask them not to yell or carry on. I could hear them from within the treatment rooms. The hydrotherapy pools are a lovely experience and were in working order, it just would’ve been nice to have a more serene environment to enjoy them in.

Needless to say we won’t be returning and I’d hesitate to stay at a “vintage” property again. If this is up to their standards, they clearly...

This was the worst spa experience I've ever had. We chose this place as a scenic spa to have a girls get together, thank goodness for the friendship and the sunny day, this place was not spa like at all.

We arrived at the "spa" and while getting checked in, the lady at the counter asked us if we've ever been here before, we all replied "no". She then proceeded to check us in and let us know we were all set. There was no one waiting to check in after us, she just pointed us to the women's change room and let us wander through - no towels, no flip flops, no tour, no guidance whatsoever on the amenities, services etc.

The place needs some upkeep/maintenance. the women's change room was disgusting. There was no cleaning throughout the day, we could have been in a public outdoor camping site. The floors were constantly wet, there were no towels. When it was time for us to shower, there was hair all over the floor and drains. One of my friends didn't have shampoo in her shower stall, I didn't have conditioner in mine. Basic stuff here guys. the eucalyptus steam room (they must have run out of eucalyptus, because there was no scent) was just a steam room. It apparently was on a timer, but there was no signage or anything to indicate the time sequence, we felt like we just had to kind of wait around to see if it would start up again...got maybe half of one good steam session. While in the steam room, we ran into another group who confirmed there was a towel shortage so they were wondering what they were supposed to do for showers. They called this a "no frills spa" and did not seem impressed with the service either. We had conversations of comparisons with service and towel availability from resorts in Cuba, Cuba won out.. the plunge pool looks filthy, but I'm hoping it's just because it needs a paint job... the room where we got our pedicures needs a paint job there was something spilled across the wall at the bottom of the window- catches your eye when you are trying to enjoy the scenery/sunshine. The lady that performed my pedicure, however, was the sweetest and most professional staff we encountered at this business. the top hot pool had grime along the pool walls where you sit to rest your back and feel the jets. when heading to my service, a couple was checking in..they were informed of the towel shortage and offered a tour!

We recieved the worst service of the entire day when we were checking out, from a lady who was possibly the team lead. She wasn't wearing a name tag, but she was closing out with Payton. This lady should not be in customer service, she has the attitude of working at some exclusive french spa, but doesn't have the ammeties or service to back it up. After the lack of service, guidance & direction from her staff the entire day, instead of an apology or acknowledgement that they were busy and possibly understaffed this lady comes at us like we are inconveniencing her! We remained polite.

1 . They charged the reservation credit card. We were told the CC at time of reservation was just to secure the services, and that we'd be able to close out and pay at the end of the day.

The supposed "team lead/possible manager?" - Rude and arrogant. . We wanted to make some purchases (which I wish I hadn't, I shouldn't have given this place anymore of myoney, but the sugar scrub and body whip used on the pedicure was really good!) This shorter lady, is rushing us to make our decision on products. As we are ready to cash out, she's telling us, we don't usually accept purchases after 6pm but will make an exception because it doesn't seem to have been communicated ( yeah there were alot of things that were not communicated!).This lady spoke with an expression of annoyance and attitude and kept calling us ma'am/madame in a passive aggressive way while acting as though we were going to steal. We were getting treated like it was our fault we were causing out late when it was her staff there never did their jobs to inform us of anything.

Nothing spa-like in service...