Botleigh Grange Hotel and Spa — Hotel in Eastleigh

Such a shame as so many nice things to say about this place but sadly overshadowed by terrible breakfast experiences and a hideously rude receptionist (possibly a manager) on departure morning. I was attending a wedding and stayed for two nights. We went down for breakfast the next day but looked at the cooked buffet and saw how very sad and unappetising in general it was but the fried eggs looked rancid quite frankly! Hard as nails, greasy and looked like they’d been kept in the oven, our friends told us they had waited for almost half an hour for these eggs! I requested scrambled eggs as they had all gone and the others looked so horrid but this request was refused so I had no eggs!. The manager Julie was apologetic and gave us some tail about running out of eggs, which meant they had ran out of eggs twice in an hour! Yeah right! Anyway she offered us a free lunch so all was forgiven. Lunch was nice but no mash left (seeing a pattern here!) but we just got on and ate the nice lunch in any event. The wedding went well but both the wedding breakfast and the buffet was delayed by over an hour (seeing the pattern continue). We arrived for breakfast the next morning, this time the cooked breakfast was made to order so I had high hopes. The breakfast took about 15mins and when it arrived the fried eggs were vile again! Hard, greasy and old (I thought I was in prison!), the cook also couldn’t be bothered to provide the mushrooms! I wasn’t going to moan but just couldn’t eat those eggs! As the waitress had disappeared I put them on a plate to take to the manager Julie, unbelievably she told me they had ran out of eggs again; I just ignored that as it was so ridiculous. I waited literally 20mins for replacement eggs (yes I timed it)! Crazy! This also meant we were going to be late to check out! I went to reception to explain that we would be late to check out. A middle aged women with shoulder length brown hair (and I think glasses) was there apparently training a new girl. I started to explain and she just rudely and abruptly jumped in and said, yes I know Julie (or Judy) has already explained! She dismissed me saying I’m training a new girl! And blanked me! We went away and packed, we came back down and handed the key over and she didn’t even make eye contact and blanked me again. I said it was a nice say apart from the breakfast issue and before I could finish she dismissed me again, saying yes OK and just blanked me and then just walked off leaving the new girl on her own to deal with me! Unbelievable! I was not loud or rude and didn’t even get to finish what I was saying! I told the new girl not to follow her rude example and I started to walk off when I saw the rude woman creep her head around the door to see if I had gone! This woman should not be in this type of position as she was damn right rude, condescending and looked right down her nose at me; I was disgusted by her behaviour! What she doesn’t know is that I am an educated professional that works for a very large organisation that holds countless events in hotels just like this one but rest assured thanks to her and the incompetent cook, they will never hold one here nor will any of the organisations that I deal with on a daily basis. Such a shame that two incompetent members of staff can achieve so much damage to the reputation of what was a...

We stayed for one night prior to embarking on a cruise as we thought it would be a nice start to the holiday. We loved the hotel and the staff were very pleasant. The room was very spacious and the Spa was great. Lovely warm water in the swimming pool. However, there was no shower gel in any of the dispensers in either the ladies or the gents changing rooms, which was disappointing. It must have been someone's job to check on this! The evening meal was a disaster. We had soup, but our main course never came and we kept being told it was on its way or being plated up. It would have gone a long way with us, if we had been told the truth by the restaurant Manager. Other guests were sending meals back, as not what they had ordered and then was badly cooked when the replacement was brought. Also wrong meal brought out from Kitchen, that no one had ordered!! We sat from 7.30 pm until 8.45 pm and decided we could not sit there any longer and left, only to incur expenses in taxis and paying for a meal elsewhere and at turned 9.00 pm it is not easy to find a restaurant that is still serving. We did report this to the reception desk and the very nice lady told us that the management was aware of problems that night. However, after our return from holiday we had to ring the Manager, called Tracey, (no one had contacted us), who was very apologetic and did not know about the problems which we had experienced. We received a refund for £50 (in progress) for a meal we never received, but that had been taken off our credit card when we left the hotel. This, of course, did not take into account approx. £60 extra we had had to fork out in taxis and an Indian meal in Botley. Tracey was very helpful and did explain she understood there had been a sad incident involving the Chef, but that another Chef should have been contacted, or there should have been proper contingency measures in place, knowing that the Chef might be called away due to a family matter. We were very sorry to learn of this. I am sure the meal would have been very nice in the normal way and on time, or the hotel would not survive incidents like this. I worked in catering for 20 years and we always had to have measures in place due to illness etc. We could not simply, serve wrongly cooked meals or no meals at all.|I do believe honestly is the best course of action in cases like this and if we had been given the opportunity, would probably have opted possibly for cheese and biscuits etc., due to the lateness of the hour. |The hotel and grounds are lovely and has recently been subject to a refurbishment. As always, some untrained staff, not dealing with a situation, letting...

Was given a cream tea as a gift by a friend courtesy of Groupon. The whole experience was a disappointment. The service, the sandwiches, the cakes, the cream, the scones... Literally everything. From the unenthusiastic welcome in the restaurant, where you are asked if you have any allergies. To the tea, not served in a pot, but brought infrequently by the waiting staff. The cream tea arrives not on a cream tea stand but on slates, which leaves no room on the table. There is no choice of sandwiches. This appears to be determined by the allergy question. We were served 6 fingers on tuna mayo (urgh) 6 ham and tomato, and 6 some sort of spread, I want say possibly hummus, but never heard of a hummus sandwich before... The sandwiches looked like they had been prepared by the apprentice of the Saturday pot washer, top slice of bread was 1.5cm wide bottom was 1cm, how can a hotel kitchen not be able to cut a sandwich! Cakes I will give the benefit of the doubt and daddy that they may have made 'in-house', but they still appeared to be tray bakes, but the sponge was so dry that I needed more tea to wash it down. This is when I realised I was out of tea and there were no waiting staff to ask to bring more. There was a tense moment were I had to decide if I could swallow it out would have to spit it out. Tea finally arrived and I moved onto the 'cheesecake' bites. I quote this as I was not sure. It had the texture of cheesecake, and they tasted okay. But the buttery biscuit base served to be sponge, it was so thin we couldn't determine if it was soggy biscuit, or if they had used left over sponge to make it. So onto the cream scones. Now I now it doesn't specify what cream, but I do expect clotted with this, it kinda traditional. This was a whipped cream served unequally in 2 pots by scaping a spoon on the side of the pot to get it off the spoon. 2 small jam pots for the 4 scones. Then the scones themselves, which were warm 'yay!'. But also over-baked unequally, no proper split, broke while cutting. This cream tea was such a disappointment, I see Groupons as being an item to promote a business. This felt like we did not get a full service, and corners had been cut. If I had paid full price for this, I would have been complaining and asking for money back, or a replacement. As it is will not be returning to this...