The Old Manor

Dec 6th, 2019

Oct 24th, 2019

Sep 14th, 2019

Sep 12th, 2019

This place is stunning and would be a 5 star. There are weak points inside and the equipment would be 3 star. Sarah would be a 1 star review because 0 is not available. The grounds are beautiful. The driveway is a great welcome and there is room for 6 or 7 cars. The garden has the nicest view and a patio with seating area. The hot tub is relaxing in the surroundings. We were a group with 11 adults, 6 kids and 3 dogs. We wanted a place with more than 6 bedrooms, open spaces, a hot tub, a games room. The rep Sarah is a nightmare to deal with. She was rude, uninformative, unresponsive and incompetent. It felt like we were an inconvenience. There are 9 bedrooms. The master has a 4 poster bed, dressing room and en-suite. This room is lightyears ahead of the others. One shame with the bedrooms is that there are 3 out of use because they are going through planning to put in fire doors. I had to do a lot of leg work to find out which rooms weren't available, when it would be pretty easy to make this information available. On a positive, they made available the bedrooms in the cottage free of charge. The parquet flooring in the living room is slippery and we had a few small children slip and hurt themselves. Similarly, there are few easily fixed issues. Given the class of the building, the inside having curtains with huge rips and cheap looking fire-doors let the place down. On the equipment, late in the day I learned I'd need to bring washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, towels, tea-towels, oil and salt and pepper! IWhen I highlighted I would rather have been told sooner, the response was "All of this information was sent with your confirmation of booking". It wasn't. Check in is 4PM, ridiculously late. That means by the time you arrive and you've eaten, day 1 is gone. Check out is 10AM. I paid deposit through almermanor on AMEX. I received a note from Sarah to say "I can see you have paid stripe, I will let you know when the money arrives". No niceties to thank me, it seemed like contempt for the method and she didn't let me know, so I had to chase. Later with the payment I was told "We do not accept the remaining payment via credit card" and I was blocked from doing so. This was inconvenient. Before booking I asked questions, I did receive answers but some unclear. I asked if I needed to bring towels for 'either bathrooms or hot tub' and the answer was 'Yes'. I also asked how many high chairs and cots. I was told 2 of each. Later I asked the same and was told only 1 cot and 2 high chairs. There were 3 high chairs. A representative arrived on our 3rd day and asked when we were leaving. I said tomorrow and he was surprised. He was to check the hot tub on our departure that day. We agreed there must be a mix up. As we set off out, I received an email from Sarah "Your booking is for two nights as confirmed...We have managed to completely rearrange the housekeeping to enable you to stay the extra night but it will be chargeable". This meant I had the choice between telling everyone and ruin the weekend, ask for extra money or keep quiet and face a bill. I couldn't believe I could make such a mistake, I went back to the original confirmation, and saw 3 nights. Not only was she rude, it ruined my day but she was also wrong. I screenshot the confirmation and she didn't apologise! The response was "I will look in to what is cause this anomaly which is very annoying for you and for me". Trust me, it was more than annoying. After I told her not to worry, pointing out she had me worried, she did apologise. If I was to give her the benefit of the doubt, I could say it was positive we weren't asked to leave and Sarah re-arranged to allow us to stay. To wrap it up, I wanted to give Sarah one chance to save the reputation so I didn't ask about the deposit return. I left it 3 weeks, chased it up and she confirmed it was due. They don't have a process for returning the deposit. Honestly, if you aren't too fussed about the dealings with the representative, then this place is beautiful and you should consider it.
Sep 13th, 2019