Mercure Gloucester Bowden Hall Hotel — Hotel in Stroud

Dear Sirs,

I wish to advise you of our horror stay experience at the above hotel.

We had stayed here previously in an ‘executive suite’ which was anything but that. We came to an arrangement with the Manager-who said that it was down for ‘imminent’ upgrade.

I think that they were being economical with the truth-given our most recent experience-photographic evidence included.

The housekeeping was nearly non-existent, with me having to clean the filthy toilet before my wife was subjected to excrement stain.

The mirror had not been cleaned, the bathroom fan does not seem to work, and the pictures expose the dilapidated state and lack of maintenance.

There was an infestation of ladybirds-in December😱 the lack of hygiene is very apparent.

This sorry experience brings discredit to the Accor name, and is a sad indictment on The UK Tourist Industry, and especially Senior Management at Jupiter Hotels, Bowden Hall Hotel, and the lessee Accor Hotels.

We had been advised-days before our visit- that due to Christmas Party nights, we would be ‘dining’ in a conference room-which turned out to be a small room with four tables for two, but we turned out to be the only guests🥴and not so much as a strand of tinsel, made the experience like an evening at ‘Bleak House’ which was very sad and avoidable, as we had booked some weeks ago.

Our first night menu-drastically reduced, compared to our previous visit, was disappointing with my prawn cocktail starter comprising of the smallest cocktail prawns imaginable.

It begs the question from sustainability, what kind of trawl net was used ? and my recommended Tom’s Steak pie being capable to acquitting itself well in a fight with a mini-chainsaw.

The mashed potato bearing testimony to the effects of long-term exposure of kitchen heat lamps. All the more surprising as we were the only non-Christmas party guests🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

We were saddened by the lack of consideration given, with Bowden Hall being aware that we were the only two🥴and total lack of courtesy and consideration in this festive period.

Friday morning 8th Dec, went down for breakfast, it was absolutely divine, without doubt, the finest breakfast I have ever eaten in my 74 years. The poached eggs were perfection personified, and the breakfast layout and presentation could not have been beaten-anywhere.

It is unfair to expose such disgusting room condition complaints on your hard-working staff, in addition to unwitting clients who have paid for such second/third rate accommodation.

Fridays evening’s meal was welcome, acceptable and tasty.

Saturday breakfast-again was superb in presentation, quality and taste. The breakfast staff are to be commended.

There seems to be complete ambivalence and non-interest in the shabbiness at Bowden Hall with deeply stained carpets throughout and doors in a bad state of repair.

Senior management either are banging their heads against a brick wall with the owners or are probably fed up with the refusal by them to instigate improvements.

A very sorry state of affairs🥴

reply from The Manager of Bowden Hall, admitting everything I wrote was true, but-astonishingly-no mention of recompense🤷‍♂️

Dear Mr & Mrs Hall

Thank you for taking the time to contact Accor Customer Service.as General Manager I would like to personally apologize for the numerous challenges encountered during your visit,and we truly appreciate you bringing these matters to our attention.

Your experience falls far below the standards we aspire to provide, and we deeply regret any inconvenience and disappointment you may have experienced, and it is disheartening to learn that we failed to meet your expectations on several fronts.

We have reviewed the issues you raised, Rest assured, immediate steps are being taken to address the issues you highlighted.

We want to assure you that we are investigating concerns you raised about the general property condition including stained carpets and doors in need of repair. Senior management is actively engaged in discussions with the owners to implement necessary...

We stayed here for one night on the 1st of October. We booked a pet-friendly room. The hotel grounds were really nice, and there were a few dog walks available. One walk behind the hotel was nice and you had nice view of the surrounding area.

There was a wedding on the same day and the reception and bar was pretty busy, but we managed to check-in pretty quickly and with no hassle. The reception lady was very pleasant. We got to the room which was initially fine. However, on closer inspection, things weren't quite right. The hand soap dispenser was empty, and the corner of the bath still had a mug-ring of the previous occupants which was surrounded with dust. The rest of it looked fairly clean, but it didn't fill me with confidence. I had a shower and on coming out of the shower the corner of the screen had a leak and so it leaked all over the floor into a pool which I then had to mop up with toilet roll.

I pulled out a towel from above the storage area (only one towel was in the bathroom) and it had small stains on it. We'd already called reception to replace the hand soap, and I couldn't be bothered to have to call again. It was as though someone had just try to rush to get the room ready. There was also only one mug in the room and even though we asked for another one (along with the replenishing of the soap), the mug never arrived. The soap dispenser was replenished.

The bedding had stains on it, it looked like red wine. There were also splashes of something up the walls, it just felt dirty. I will take into account the fact that this is a pet room and it is likely to be a little bit grubby in areas or where other pets had an accident.

Our dog decided he didn't want to be left in the room by himself as every time we tried to leave he'd go crazy, so we were bound to the room for the evening. We cancelled our dinner reservation at a local Indian restaurant and used the hotel app to order room service instead. We had a confirmation e-mail of our order and waited for it it to arrive. After about 40 minutes, there was no sign. We called reception to find that they'd apparently had issues with their Wifi and the order didn't come through. By this point I was ready to check out, but my partner convinced me to stay and so we ordered over the phone and ended up eating around 9.15pm. The food was nice.

Overall we didn't have a great experience, and my guess is that the wedding meant that staff were stretched that day.

I was all prepared to raise these issues on checking out, but typically other people were checking out at the same time and I didn't want to have a full blown conversation about these things in front of...

Writing this from the hotel. An overnight stay booked with Secret Escapes. Not impressed and won't be back. The room is nice enough with a nice view, but that's the end of the good stuff, although I appreciate that the bad stuff is first world problems: evening meal experience has been abysmal, waited nearly an hour for a mediocre fish and chips (menu is so limited you wouldn't belive). Chips are clearly oven chips and had stood keeping warm - dry and claggy, (my wife had what seemed to be a supermarket ready-meal curry). The kitchen seems to be prioritising their take away/delivery service (deliveroo etc) over those actually sitting in the restaurant. It's been quite remarkable to watch how many meals go out of the hotel compared to how many are served to the tables. My wife suggested the kitchen could be outsourced as a separate business so takeaway is more profitable. We had a complimentary cocktail thrown in, but be advised to throw it out - they come out of a bar tap, are warm, and mine had the sort of scum on top that you get when the tap hasn't been used for a couple of months, not exactly made to order. Just to add, bar prices are extortionate, a pint and a coke (Pepsi apparently) £10 (though that might be normal for the area). Tv in the room doesn't work as expected, the schedule menu just shows 'no service'. Not a big problem if you don't intend watching any tv, but if you are likely to spend the last couple of hours of your night in front of the tv you're stuffed. The lady on reception made a valiant effort of making this look normal - "just press the channel buttons and the channel comes on", which is true for about 6 channels (but that includes news and kids) however you won't know what's on those channels without the guide, and using your phone to preview the channels is of no help when you've only got 3 non kid, non news, channels to choose from, so bring your laptop with an hdmi cable if you want to stream tv. There's no access to apps like Netflix/Prime etc. Also, the standard free WiFi runs at 5mbps - that's not 50, it's 5! Didn't even know that was still possible. So you'll have to sign up to the hotel WiFi. We didn't because we hadn't brought a laptop, so I don't know if there's a charge for this. Overall a poor experience for a 4 hour drive for my wife's birthday present. Very disappointed.

Update: slept very well, bed was comfortable and room was quiet. Good water pressure for the shower. Very...