The Swan Hotel — Restaurant in North Warwickshire

Apologies, as this will be a long review, but it warrants it.

I have been going to the Swan hotel every two years for the last 15 years, so I am familiar with the standard practice and the usual level of service at the hotel. At first things went smoothly, the check-in was simple, there was good free parking (although it was busy) and everything looked the same as on my previous visit.

Since I was staying with a friend in a family room, I had requested in advance on multiple occasions (via phone call and an online form) for a sofa bed to be made up upon arrival. However, these multiple requests were ignored. When entering the room, it was bitterly cold, which was odd considering there was an electric heater on the wall which was switched off. This said heater had no way to control the level of warmth in the room as the display was faulty, which meant we ultimately had two choices: freeze in a cold room with it off or overheat with it on, both of which are very uncomfortable options, waking up during the night to switch it on and off to regulate the heat. When locking the door for the night we noticed that the door lock was hanging off. To fix this, I managed to tighten the screws with my fingers, but this was still insecure. This was a significant issue as it posed a threat to the security and privacy of our room since the lock was broken. Most shockingly, the full hotel had no access to hot water for showers in the morning, when speaking to the staff, we were told that this was due to a new system that needed to be constantly reset due to a drop in pressure.

Later, we went down for dinner, I ordered a calzone pizza which was disappointing as it arrived on a bare plate, no side salad. My friend experienced the same poor level of service with his very dry looking burger. As for breakfast, it was evidently clear that the hotel is understaffed. The staff that were working were constantly under pressure and overworked with only two members of staff running the breakfast rush at 8am. What was worse was the fact that we were forced to buy our breakfast drinks at the bar due to a shortage of apple and orange juice, there was also no cereal or sauces. We were told that they don’t do continental breakfast at this hotel so had to buy it from the bar why should the guests have to pay for juices when we had paid for a full breakfast? I have never heard of fresh juices not being part of a breakfast. Another equally surprising issue was that there was only one chef working breakfast, (evidently adding to my point about the lack of service at this hotel) which led to a massive queue for food whilst the chef brought out three eggs at a time, while the other food that was already out had been neglected making it inedible. In the evening we looked at the Carvery and was so dry looking we decided to eat out.

Upon leaving the hotel on the second morning, (at this point the hot water was running again) I had kindly asked reception if they could leave fresh towels in our room. When arriving back, this task looked as if it had been completed, however, I picked up the seemingly ‘fresh’ towel to find that it was the same dirty one I had used the day before just folded to look new. I knew this as the NEC had stamped the back of my hand with an ink stamp and I had used the corner of the towel to wipe it off, and that mark was still on the towel. Therefore, the request for new towels had been ignored just like all my previous requests.

To conclude this review, it is unfortunate what has happened to this hotel. It went from being an excellent hotel with a perfect standard of service to a place where guests are ignored, It can be said that after 15 years’ worth of pleasant stays, we will not be going back to the Swan hotel again....

We booked for 15-20 people for Friday 31st August 2018 for our son’s last night before Uni, having eaten in The Swan before to celebrate his nan’s 70th (before the refit and change of hands). When we arrived at 7.30, there appeared to be just one member of staff for the restaurant area. We were a large group so I went asked if someone could come and take a drinks order, to be told I had to go to the bar and do this myself. In the process of getting a drinks list from the 16 family members, the waiter came over (because my husband went and asked again) and decided to take the drinks order, which I watched him write down. Ten to fifteen minutes later a waitress came over with some of the drinks, the drinks order was not right, one of the drinks was missing and there was one too many of one of the others - there had obviously been a mix up at the bar because I had watched the waiter write everything down. I politely informed the waitress that there was a mix up and instead of apologising and sorting it out, like anyone in good customer service would, she argued that the order was right. When I pressed the point she reluctantly went to get the replacement drink and tutted as she walked off. We were then left for at least another 10minutes and had to go and ask again for service for food orders. Most of the party wanted Carvery but there were 4 non carvery adult choices and 1 childs. It took so long for some of these meals to come out that everyone who had carvery had finished eating, The carvery itself was adequate but the turkey was dried up and obviously very little of it left and the kitchen staff obviously weren’t going to refresh the turkey, just carried on serving the scrag ends. The same with some of the veg. By the time the other meals were ready, the carvery area had been cleared, and the diners had to go and retrieve their meals from the service area instead of having them brought to the table. Eventually the waiter returned and took another drinks order, and dessert order. The refillable ice cream ran out and two of our guests had to have scooped ice cream (not exactly a problem but it’s hardly unlimited if you can’t go and get more). Two of our guests ordered the freak shakes- they took ages to arrive and when the did they looked nothing like what they should, those guests were told they hadn’t got all of the ingredients to make a proper shake so they basically had a glass of milk with some chocolate and shortbread on top! We complained about this and the same waitress was rude and stroppy and again insisted they were right even though one of the glasses was half empty. We were given a refund for those two desserts after my husband insisted that they weren’t what was expected from the menu description. There was very intrusive music from the bar and we had to go and keep looking for the wait staff to take orders and to request the bill. We were extremely disappointed with the service, content and quality of our experience and certainly won’t be going back. The restaurant area was clearly not adequately staffed and they obviously don’t won’t to serve food after 8pm. To top it all our son, his grandfather and ourselves had upset stomachs all night. Would not recommend and would rather pay the slightly higher...

Not sure where to begin, but I'll start with the good. The beer was excellent, as was the duty manager. The bad, we checked into our room, and was greeted with the smell of sewage. But on informing the duty manager, he immediately transferred us to another room. In all fairness the rooms were clean, even though the room we had was smaller than the one we booked Now for the ugly. We went down to the restaurant to order some food. Firstly, we wasn't greeted by anyone, so my wife spoke to the pizzeria chef who told us to just find somewhere to sit, so we did, and waited for someone to take our order, but no one came. So I went into the bar and spoke to the duty manager, who said that he'd send someone over. Five minutes later, a waitress arrived and took our order. My wife ordered Gammon and egg with chips. I ordered the 3 sausage and mash, after a while two gentlemen arrived and ordered the carvery. They stood and waited as there wasn't a chef available, then the pizzeria chef came round and notified the carvery chef who came out with his phone in his hand. During this time we had our starter which was excellent. I then noticed the pizzeria chef started to cut a couple of slices of Gammon off the carvery this we realized was to be my wifes meal. The food on the carvery, had clearly been there for at least an hour, the veg was dry and uninviting. I then went to get my food, and discovered that the sausage had obviously been there a long time the mash had lumps in it and had dried out. I requested if we could have our starter boxed up so we could take it to our room. The waitress said that we could, and returned with an empty box for us to box it up ourselves. Needless to say, we didn't have breakfast. Personally, I think that the duty manager had been let down by the staff or senior management, or both. There is a distinct lack of training at this establishment. It's left a bitter taste in my mouth. Because it was the first time I have been to the Swan for 36 years, and had many happy memories, something needs to change...