Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort — Hotel in Great Britain

Me and my partner stayed at Bowood recently for our anniversary and have mixed feelings about our stay! We arrived at the hotel at 1pm in comfy clothes as we were under the impression we could use the spa facilities before checking into our room and waited to speak to the receptionist team. Instead of a lovely warm welcome the receptionists first sentence to us was in quite a rude tone! I decided to ignore this, maybe we’d just caught her at a bad moment! A gentleman wearing a suit came to check out who was instantly greeted with a warm welcome, on a first name basis and was offered a coffee for his journey. We felt a bit pushed to the side! Our room wasn’t ready so we were told we could go and have lunch if we wished but no mention of using the leisure facilities. We decided to have some lunch in the clubhouse and granted it was a Monday so I didn’t expect the hotel to be busy but there no atmosphere at all! No background music playing and staff seemed like they didn’t want to be there at all. We ordered a wrap, fries and salad each and the wrap was extremely basic - I wasn’t expecting 5* but for the price I was expecting decent! An hour later we thought let’s go and see if our room is ready! The same lady didn’t recognise us at first but she then was glad to inform us the room was ready. My partner had booked a suite room and I have to say it was gorgeous! The room for us was the highlight! We had gorgeous views over the golf course and a complimentary bottle of Prosecco which was a thoughtful touch! We then went to check out the spa - clean nice facilities but a bit underwhelming and the members did make us feel a bit unwelcome! The whole hotel gave a clicky vibe and we felt like we didn’t belong. We didn’t eat in the restaurant as it wasn’t very vegetarian friendly for my partner. Instead we found a lovely Italian in Calne! The bed was super comfortable so we had a great nights sleep! We had to pre book a breakfast time slot - slightly annoying when there was only 2 other tables at breakfast?! My partner went for the full English which was yummy and I went for the poached eggs with avocado on toast and I have to say it was awful! Firstly I would expect sourdough or better quality bread, the toast was then pretty burnt, no butter, avocado with no seasoning, 2 poached eggs (gorgeous in colour but not runny) and some pea shoots. There was just no flavour! I asked for some olive oil which the waitress said she didn’t know if they had?! An oil was given to me which was super pale in colour and made the breakfast ever so slightly better! I should have sent it back but at this point I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle! Overall we wouldn’t stay here again. We loved the room/the setting and the complimentary bottle of Prosecco was a lovely touch but the staff, atmosphere & food let it down! We had a fantastic experience at Homewood Park in Freshford at Christmas time and this didn’t come...

I booked a spa package for my birthday with my teenage daughter. Having previously stayed at Bowood House and had a lovely experience I thought that this would be a lovely treat for us. On arriving at the Spa we were told that the cream tea would be in the Shelburne Restaurant in the hotel after our treatments and not in the Spa bar.|This was not a problem and we had a lovely afternoon in the Spa, the treatments were good, however, please note if you are under 18 a responsible adult needs to be present during your treatment - this is not stated on the website we were placed in a couples massage room and I got to chill on a spare massage bed but it was not ideal.|After our treatments had been concluded and we were showered and dressed off we went to the restaurant. This is when our experience started on a downward spiral. The French maitre’d was quick to correct me when I said we had a booking for an afternoon tea (my mistake) as I should have said cream tea and he made my mistake quite clear, not a good start. We were seated and our drinks order taken. My daughter had a soft drink and I ordered tea. After a wait the soft drink arrived and a pot of tea, no cup and saucer, no sugar or milk. I thought - they’ll bring the necessary accompaniments shortly. I was wrong. So I eventually caught the attention of one of the blonde waitresses who were flouncing about who then brought a cup and saucer and placed it in front of my daughter, no milk and sugar, so I had to ask for these, from another blonde waitress. Again these were placed on the table nowhere near me. I then realised I had no teaspoon and had to inconvenience the employees yet again. Their attitude was superior and could definitely benefit from some customer service training as we were clearly an inconvenience to them.|30 minutes after being seated and with my tea cooling rapidly there was no sign of our scones but we counted three afternoon platters and another hot meal being served. We asked twice when our scones were likely to be served and when they did eventually appeared they were delicious. However, there was no spoon for the jam and to be honest I really did not want to engage with the staff again as we were clearly an inconvenience. A hugely disappointing experience on my birthday as it was made quite clear we shouldn’t have been in the restaurant but in...

We arrived for our 1:30pm booking and were invited to take a drink in the bar as we were early. Every table apart from one was full of dirty plates and glasses which really didn’t set the tone.

After about 15 minutes we were shown to our table and our drink and meal orders were taken which was efficient.

After a short period the starter was served. We noted there were bread plates on the table with butter however bread was never offered - we could see other tables with bread baskets.

The starters were very good and it wasn’t long after that our mains arrived.

These were served by a waiter with absolutely no form of refinement and were literally dumped on the table. The accompanying vegetables were served but noted the creamed cabbage as per the menu was never served. By this stage our wine had finished and we were never approached to see if we would like another drink. We noted the restaurant had started to quiet off however no one was interested in clearing the tables. We finished our mains and after quite sometime we noticed no one had approached to clear the tables even though they were literally just standing there looking at dirty tables. We saw what looked like the maître d tell a waiter two times to clear our table. This never really happened. When they were finally cleared they were scrapped directly in front of us and not to the side. We were asked if we would like to see the dessert menu however no one ever returned to take an order. I approached the maître d to order a coffee since no one was interested in serving our table. After giving him our order I advised on the appalling service level. He appeared offended and came to our table raising the complaint across everyone which caused the guests with us to feel uncomfortable. This is not a service standard anywhere in hospitality to make the customer feel like we were the issue.

We were advised he did serve us by asking if our mains were okay. In fairness he did but since when did service stop there?

In the end he removed the charge for the wine we had and advised I’ll remove the service charge which isn’t a gesture per se as we were never given...