Hog's Back Hotel and Spa - Surya Hotels — Hotel in Guildford

Lovely room. Beautiful views. Lovely bird song being in the county. Dirty spa but it was busy so maybe this isn't typical. Nice spa staff. Great overnight receptionist who did his best to help me when guests in surrounding rooms were exceedingly loud until around 2 am. Nice breakfast staff. Pleasant enough breakfast (in theory more than in practice - I was too tired and upset to eat more than half a piece of toast). Breakfast staff listened to me and were polite. Nice receptionist in the afternoon who also checked me in the day before.

Awful receptionist on Sat morning - rude and disrespectful. Defensive when I raised issues with noisy neighbours that resulted in just 5 hours sleep ish (because they awoke noisily at 7 am so I couldn't even sleep in a bit to make up for the late night!). The receptionist walked away from me instead of listening and remained in his office.

My only real issue with this hotel is that there needs to be a manager on the premises over the weekend or a contact number for one for guests. In the absence of this, the reception staff need training (which your night staff receptionist would be brilliant at providing - I was very upset by the time I got the courage to go down to reception after midnight and he was patient, respectful, listened and did all he could to help me).

As a woman, staying alone, it is not fair that I have to walk downstairs to reception in the small hours to report unreasonable noise levels because the phone isn't picked up. The phone wasn't picked up because the receptionist was working alone and was run off his feet. Situation is potentially unsafe because he had no support or backup if an issue broke out at the hotel. I was actually close to calling the police because noise levels were such that I felt unsure whether I would be safe leaving my room to report the noise. The man on reception kindly escorted me back to my room at my request and then did his best to quieten my neighbours (literally impossible but mercifully, they did cease before 2 am although one person I think must have gone to sleep with their TV on which was annoying but fortunately didn't keep me awake after 2 am).

The room opposite mine was a 2 person occupancy room yet there were multiple adults and children in there, as was the case with the rooms to my left and right. I saw the state of the rooms in the morning and the task the poor cleaning staff had (empty drinks containers strewn everywhere). I know how many people there were because I saw them from my room. The hotel policy should ensure that rooms are not filled with guests they do not have knowledge of because it is not fair to guests in surrounding rooms to deal with noise levels from so many people all at once.

Please can someone take this review seriously and at least acknowledge what has gone wrong here? The morning receptionist was rude enough to tell me that it was impossible for him to help me because I was just going to be unhappy anyway and wrote me off almost instantly. Yet, this is not true. I am frequently a very happy guest at different hotels and I have stayed at this hotel before and enjoyed it (my husband and I are local). This experience unfortunately has been disappointing.

Following on from the below reply - it's a shame Tim and Tom don't coordinate because Tom has already refunded the cost of the room and has apologised for the experience. Regardless of whether or not the other guests were drunk (and the empty drinks packages I refer to were children's drinks - Capri sun), they were loud and they were not considerate. If it is the case that Tim was on duty, your receptionist lied, as did the breakfast team. If Tim was on duty, I cannot fathom why I did not hear from him. CCTV will confirm both the inconsiderate and late nature of the other guests behaviour and the extremely rude receptionist on the Sat. While Tim did place me in a better room after the room I had booked turned out to have no bedding and had not been cleaned, this does not change the fact the noise levels made it impossible to sleep...

This was an interesting experience. We booked the room on wowcher on a whim at 3am. The next morning at 8am we were told they had no rooms which was weird as the website said they still had rooms. After a little back and forth we were told they’d had a cancellation and we were in which was lucky as we had just booked tickets to Thorpe park for the Sunday. We’d mentioned we’d just got married and they gave us a card on our arrival which was a nice touch. What wasn’t so nice was turning up at 3pm and being told to wait because our room wasn’t ready it was still being cleaned...check in was supposed to be from 2pm but no biggy. The room was nice it was spacious and clean, basic but nicer than a travel lodge etc. and the bed seemed enormous. Turned out to be 2 single beds stuck together but we actually thought this was quite funny and it was still comfy. At reception we were told breakfast was until 10:30 but online it had said 10:00 so we tried calling down to double check to no avail. No one answered despite trying numerous times so we hared it down for 10:00 just in case. we went down for breakfast which was where things started to really fall apart. There were two couples in front of us an no one at the ‘please wait here to be seated’ sign. We could see people running around in the breakfast room but nobody was forthcoming. After we had in line for ten minutes the couple at the front of the line gave up. I went in to ask someone what was happening and was told they were very busy they were going as fast as they can and to please wait. It seemed a bit strange. Apparently because of Covid the buffet was off which meant table service but there only seemed to be three staff on who seemed rushed off their feet and a lot of guests seemed to be waiting for something. Eventually a young lady came over and seated the couple in front of us. She came back didn’t look up at us, slammed her highlighter down and scurried off again. More waiting ensued. After half an hour the first waitress I had spoken to came and seated us. She explained why they were so busy and said we should have been told at reception. She explained the breakfast system (tick off the things you want on a card and they would bring them 7 off this menu 3 off this one etc). It was an hour before we saw any food. Other guests were definitely feeling neglected too but I don’t know how much they could have done with so few staff. I realise times are strange and difficult for everyone but I just don’t think this was an ok time to wait for breakfast. It also meant we had to absolutely wolf it down before running back up to the room for check out. They had automatic screen things for checking in and out. They hadn’t worked checking in but luckily they did checking out because there was nobody on reception. I was told they were going to charge a £10 Saturday supplement on my card which annoyed me because no one had mentioned this and there was no one there to talk about it with so I agreed to pay it but in the end it wasn’t charged so I have no idea what that was about. As for the spa and leisure facilities- we were warned in advance to book treatments early as they book up very quickly, which neither of us did because we’re not that organised and, true to their word, they were fully booked by the time we tried to book a treatment. Our fault not theirs- we had had fair warning. We didn’t use the pools as the health and safety around Covid meant a convoluted (but we presumed necessary) system of timed, first come first served no sorry we don’t take booking slots and the sauna and steam room were closed. Overall the hotel was fine, particularly the room which was decent, but due to the niggly things like the catastrophic breakfast situation and the room not being ready an hour after check-in, we wouldn’t stay here again. We had booked the room for £59 or so on wowcher so that seemed about what it was worth. If we had paid full price which is apparently double that, we wouldn’t have been...

⭐ 1-Star Review An absolutely disgraceful experience. Avoid this place at all costs.

I stayed at Hogs Back Hotel & Spa for one night (27th–28th July) and was completely misled, mistreated, and left emotionally distressed by the staff and management.

Before arriving, I was offered a room upgrade to a ground-floor room with a door to the garden and a sofa — something I confirmed directly with the hotel. What I actually received was room 322, which was upstairs, had a broken window, and a view of a brick wall and fire escape. When I asked the receptionist about the promised room, I was rudely told such rooms “don’t exist” and offered a refund without any care or effort to resolve the issue.

That night, I was woken by a loud buzzing noise from the room and had to go to reception again. But the worst part was the next morning, when a male staff member threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave immediately. No warning. No explanation. Just threats. My partner had a breakdown, and we left in distress — without using the spa or services we paid for.

To make matters worse, the hotel has since responded dishonestly to our online review, attempting to twist the truth and gaslight us about what happened.

This experience has deeply affected our mental health. I’m on Universal Credit and live with ongoing medical conditions — this trip was meant to be a rare and much-needed break. Instead, it’s left us shaken and humiliated.

No apology. No refund. No empathy. Just lies and threats. I’ve filed formal complaints with Booking.com and the hotel’s head office.

Shocking treatment. Absolutely not worth the risk.

Im also adding a edited to the owners response.....

I need to address the hotel’s public response to my review, which contains serious false claims and clear gaslighting tactics.

First and foremost: I never gestured to headbutt anyone, nor did I make any physical threats. That accusation is completely untrue and deeply damaging. It is a clear attempt to discredit me publicly and deflect from the real issues I raised in my review.

I calmly and respectfully questioned why I was given a completely different room than promised. I was told the room I booked “didn’t exist,” which was confusing and dismissive. When I asked for support or a refund, I was met with cold, defensive behaviour—not empathy or effort to resolve the situation.

Now, in their response, the hotel has chosen to misrepresent me, fabricate threatening behaviour, and paint themselves as the victims. This is a textbook example of gaslighting—twisting the facts to make the guest seem unreasonable and themselves innocent.

I stand by my experience 100%. I was misled, let down, and spoken to without respect. And when I spoke up, I was publicly accused of something I did not do.

I’ve reported this to Google and Booking.com and will continue pursuing this due to the serious nature of the false claims made.

Future guests: read both sides, but don’t ignore how this business chooses to treat those who...