Thornton Hall Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Wirral

What a disappointing visit we had to Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa. I emailed to book 2 spa packages for my husband's birthday, and I received nothing back. I called and left an answer message and still received nothing back. I decided to message them on Instagram and they responded with the same number that I had already called with no success. Still, some days after my voicemail was left, I did receive a call back and was able to book 2 people in for the Sunrise Spa Package.

The lady on the phone was really pleasant and helpful and let me know that we were able to use the facilities any time from 8.30am, and that our treatments would be at 9.30am.

When we arrived, we saw that the spa was a totally separate building to the hotel and so we headed there. We walked through the doors around 9.10am, and were greeted by a lady on reception. She sent us to the waiting room and said our therapists would be out shortly. The waiting room was dark, dinghy and uncomfortably silent. About 10 minutes later a lady came in and switched on a light and some music, but said absolutely nothing to us. At 9.32am, the therapists came to get us for our treatments. My therapist was nice, but my husband's was miserable and cold. We were never informed about where to get robes, or why we hadn't been given them, and so we had our treatments in our own clothes. We both had the invigorating foot treatment, and it lasted 25 minutes. The massage was OK but most of the time was spent on exfoliation, rather than an actual foot massage like we had thought. I was led back to the waiting room once finished, and when my husband's treatment was done, his therapist followed him into the waiting room and asked me if I had ordered "the buggy". I had no idea what she was talking about and my face must have conveyed this. She looked at me like I was silly, and said "Do you want me to order the buggy?" It turns out this is a fun little service they offer to get you from the spa to the hotel across the car park. We said yes because "why not?" - we thought it would be fun! We proceeded to wait for the buggy, but were surprised 10 minutes later when we heard the call from reception ONLY JUST being made to let them know to come and get us - we had already sat for 10 minutes before reception even picked up the phone.

When the buggy arrived with other guests (obviously the reason for the delay), the lady driving told us that she had to park away from the building due to builders vans being in the way. We boarded our "buggy adventure", were zipped in by a rain-covering, and embarked on our 20 second journey to the front door of the hotel - I am amused as I write this, as we felt pretty silly for not having just walked at this point, but in the interest of getting your money's worth, we thought it would be fun.

When we walked into hotel reception, the desk was empty and our buggy driver searched for staff to help, particularly a member of staff called "Jackie", that no one could locate. Another member of staff joined us and said Jackie had "gone to eat"...it was only 10am. Our buggy driver asked for help, to which said member of staff responded that she was busy and "didn't really have time". However, she sorted our bands for the lockers, and showed us to the changing rooms. There was no tour of the facilities that had been described to me on the phone - the main pool, jacuzzi, hydra pools, sauna, and something that excited me the most - a snow cave!

When my husband emerged into the pool area in his robe, he was laughing, and I could see why. He had been given a women's robe, and it looked absolutely ridiculous on him - the length of the arms only went to his elbows.

For the duration of our spa package, we chose one jacuzzi to sit in and spent the next hour clock-watching until we could get into the restaurant for our lunch, and be on our way - we were very disappointed & frustrated at this point.

Lunch was average at best, but I must praise a young male member of staff in the brasserie - he was fantastic, and the only thing we can compliment about...

Would we recommend getting married here? No. I wish I was not writing this review but it is needed. My husband and I got married at Thornton Hall Hotel 17/08/2024, we booked our wedding with them in 2021. Initially things went well, hotel is gorgeous and we loved the idea of an outside summer wedding. First issue - We arranged through our Wedding Coordinator (Jess) to pay for day passes to the spa with my Bridal Party, we then stayed and had lunch (which we paid for). This was in 2022, and it was a perfect day. Then, 9 months before the wedding, my husband and I had a Monday morning off work, he hadn’t used the spa and we wanted to pay for day passes and pay for lunch to dream about our upcoming wedding. When I emailed Jess to arrange this I received a blunt/abrupt email back saying ‘it cannot be done’. I informed her that it had been done before and we’re not asking for a freebie, again another reply saying ‘it could not be done’, and all very blunt responses provided. I then searched through emails to show this had been done before, and Jess admitted it shouldn’t have been done and she got in trouble for doing this as it’s a ‘Members Only Club’, so you have to stay at the hotel and buy a spa treatment each to use the facilities. This would’ve been fine if she’d admitted this to start with rather than making me prove it had been done, and making me feel worked up. Either way, when you’re spending over £10,000 with a company you would think they could make an allowance. I sent a formal complaint about how it was handled and it left me wondering how the Customer Service would be on our Wedding Day. Emails responses were very delayed and it was up to a week before I got a response, the reason given was they were ‘busy planning Christmas events’, not the sort of response you would expect when you are paying so much for your special day. In the end we got two new Wedding Coordinators and were told they would ‘draw a line under it’ without any real apology for this happening, I personally started to look for other venues but we would have lost our deposit so had to leave it at that.The final wedding planning session took place 2 weeks before the big day we asked for our room to not be near to relatives, we only had two rooms for family members with our surnames and we were assured by Jemma that we wouldn’t be placed next to family. My husband also asked if there a PA system outside so guests would here our personalised vows, we were advised that there was. Wedding Day – Further issues - Initially it went well, but during our vows there was no PA system, our guests told us they couldn’t hear what we said and no one could hear our vows which was upsetting as it was a special moment for us both. Canapés were served after the ceremony but my partner and I only got one each, staff didn’t make a point of making sure we got to try everything we picked. After the event a lot of our guests also advised us that they never received any canapés and also that the staff had been rather rude.After the breakfast we had to move all our belongings from the Dressing Room to our Garden Balcony Room, which was a lovely room. However, during evening photos we saw my in-laws were in the room below us (who wants their parents directly under their room on their wedding night?). So we spoke to Reception who had one of our Coordinators working who also happened to be the Deputy Manager – Jenny. She mumbled that Reservations must have missed our request and there were no other Balcony Rooms left. All of the staff we spoke to agreed they would not want their parents under their room on their Wedding Night, Jenny then offered to allow us use of the Bridal Suite (at no extra cost) for the night, but stated we would have to move out of there for our second night as it was booked. We asked where we would need to move all of our stuff as we would likely be hungover and this is why we booked our original room for 2 nights (to avoid moving/packing while worse for wear), but they didn’t know where we would be moved to. Cont - in the name...

We held our wedding at Thornton Hall Hotel in September 2024 and, unfortunately, we cannot recommend it based on our experience. While the venue itself is beautiful, the service and organisation on the day were extremely disappointing and fell far short of what was promised — especially given the significant investment we made.

Despite paying for several upgrades and extras, many of these were either delivered poorly, not delivered at all, or caused unnecessary stress and disruption to our day. Key issues included: Food: We paid extra to upgrade to a tapas menu, but the execution was not as agreed — many guests missed out on parts of the meal and vegan guests were mistakenly served meat dishes. Children's meals also weren't as agreed, and our child with allergies missed out on an agreed dessert. On top of this, the food service was significantly delayed, which was extremely stressful as we had already planned for a late meal and guests were left waiting for long periods. Venue Space: We paid an additional fee to move to the larger Torintone Suite based on assurances of private use of the bar area. However, the space was not ready in time for our guests, who were instead forced to use the public bar. Entertainment: Due to delays caused by the venue, our live band lost an hour of performance time — a huge shame and something that cannot be replaced. Extras: We hired external vendors for garden games and a pianist, but poor timing and poor organisation from the events team meant we couldn’t properly enjoy both.

In addition, it was clear that the event coordinator on the day had not been given a proper handover. He was relying on outdated notes from earlier planning meetings and lacked key, up-to-date details about our arrangements. This caused unnecessary confusion and stress right before the wedding started. To make matters worse, his attitude was rude and dismissive; he did not acknowledge or apologise for the mistakes that were evident throughout the day.

While we eventually received a partial refund after a long and frustrating complaints process, the amount offered does not fairly reflect the number of failures or the considerable stress and upset caused — both on the day and afterwards. It took several weeks for the venue to even respond to our concerns, and when they did, their attitude was dismissive — claiming we would have to “agree to disagree” on many points, and stating they could not comment on certain issues because "the event coordinator was not there at the time," which only highlights their lack of professionalism. This is simply not an acceptable way to handle a customer's once-in-a-lifetime event.

The saving grace of our day came from our independent suppliers — not the venue. Our incredible photographer went above and beyond to help find missing flowers the venue had lost and helped coordinate many parts of the day when the venue team fell short. Our venue stylists made the room look absolutely beautiful, our evening band were fantastic, and our pianist made the ceremony truly special. Thanks to them, the day was not a complete disaster — but it is incredibly disappointing that so much stress and upset came directly from the venue itself, when it should have been seamless and joyful.

We would strongly advise future couples to be very cautious. Beautiful surroundings mean little without reliable service, strong organisation, and genuine care — all of which we sadly found lacking.

We would not recommend Thornton Hall Hotel for a wedding or any important event where service standards, communication, and...