A very nice hotel - spacious rooms with a luxurious feel and an air of quality throughout the hotel, but at even at the advance pre-booked rate at the very top end of reasonable, especially without breakfast. Absolutely excellent, friendly staff.

What a stunning hotel. But very over priced. Our room was ovely but the heating or shall I say lack of it as they had to bring in an electric mobile heater in to our room as the air con kept turning its self off. Wasn't impressed as by the staff who came to the room and looked at the air to say well it's working. The bath had several hairs in it which were dark and my wife is blonde, so must of been from the last guest, so had to get the chamber made to clean the bath, and sink wasn't clean either, bulb had gone in one of the lights I think very poor standards for a 5 star hotel. Only good thing anout the bath was the shower was good. But room is s bit dated. Beware if your trying to get a afternoon nap as you get woken by a camber made hamering on the door twice trying to see if the mini bar had been used.The only good thing was the food was out of this world. Beware of the over priced drinks in the bar. I know 5 star hotel drinks are dear but what they charge is a outrage. 10.00 for a 50 ml voka or bialys at a tenner a time.

Imagine if you parted with £269.00 of your own hard earned cash to buy a gift voucher so you could give your husband a nice relaxing night away in Bath for Christmas.

Imagine if you then spent a whole week trying to get in touch with someone at Macdonald Hotels who actually knew how to redeem the voucher.

Imagine, when you finally got in touch with the in-house reservations manager, she told you that the gift voucher was basically invalid on any of the dates you wanted to use it.

Imagine if you then wasted your whole Saturday morning talking to various customer service managers at Macdonald only to discover your voucher was basically USELESS and that you may as well have thrown £269.00 in the bin.

Then you may come close to imagining how angry I am.

I've never reviewed a hotel without actually staying there. This is a review of their service, management and completely deceptive and misleading gift voucher system.

I purchased the gift voucher online as a Christmas present. It includes an overnight stay and spa treatments (or that's what it says it includes, though as you will discover, the writing on the voucher is as trustworthy as Ryan Giggs). It is not valid on Fridays-Sundays. That's fine, we want to book on a Thursday. It's not valid on four dates in December. Again, no problem, the date we want is in February. So far so good. I'm a school teacher, so wanted to use it in February half term as I can't have any other time off in the week. We checked the website and there were rooms available. So, I phoned them to book it...

First problem - the central reservations system cannot process gift vouchers. So I tried the hotel directly. The phone of the in-house reservations manager rang and rang - no answer machine - so I gave up. I sent her an email. No reply. Finally, after a week of trying, we got through, and were told 'you can't use that voucher during half term holidays.'

This is what the t & c's say when you book on the website:

Valid: Sunday - Thursday nights, subject to availability (not Bank Holiday weekends or 24/25/26 December, 31st December).

The same wording is on the voucher itself which I have scanned in - se picture. I would NOT interpret this to mean 'not valid during school holidays'.

As I said, I'm a teacher. If I cannot use this voucher during school holidays, and I cannot use it on weekends - guess what? I CANNOT USE IT AT ALL.

The hotel have not provided us with any solution so far to the problem. They have £269.00 of my money, yet they are not prepared to give me a service in exchange. This was a Christmas present which has turned out to be an embarrassing hassle. We will take it higher with Macdonald and we will take it to Trading Standards as they are deliberately misleading customers and holding back rooms because they want to make more money from them. However, I thought I'd take it to Trip Advisor first. If you get angry when big companies rip off and deceive innocent individuals, please don't stay here, or at any Macdonald Hotel, and please pass this review on to others.

Thanks for reading. I feel slightly better now.

Stayed on Boxing Day 26th December for the lady's birthday in a basic room (forget the MacDonald reference for it).

Positives

Lovely grounds, driving up to it and walking around, you are excited and definitely happy. The porters are great, loved every single one. Very welcoming and pleasant at all times.

The room was okay, we did get the basic, so shouldn't complain. It is not memorable, it is just okay.

The hotel in general is fantastic, the lovely rooms, the lounge, the dinner was great, the staff friendly and attentive. It was a nice romantic break and perfect.

The spa was fantastic, they have different themed areas, e.g. the ice area, the steam room, the stone sauna, the infra red sauna. Lots of fun. The swimming pool area is great, nice pool, lovely lounges and reading material. The outdoor warm pool was fun too and quite busy considering the time of year. I think I did go overboard with all that was available and jumping from hot to cold. Felt a little worse for wear by the evening. My girlfriend had a massage as a birthday present from me. She said it was good, but cannot really tell much from her reactions.

Due to my late planning, the catering staff were unable to organise a cake for dinner but they did bring out some desserts, which was nice.

The hotel also has organised free tours around Bath, had I been staying longer I would have jumped on this.


Negatives

A member of staff greeting cars and providing information would be helpful, but it was cold, this is England and the hotel probably does not have very many cars coming in or out. An intercom might be useful instead.

On getting into the room after a long journey, a member of staff came to the room wanting to check the mini bar to see if it was fully stocked. I admit I was rude at the time, but I didn't think it was appropriate to have somebody check a minibar after a guest had checked in, surely this should be done prior to a room being made available. Due to my girlfriend and I refreshing ourselves, I refused to let the staff member check the minibar.

I booked a double room, but was given 2 beds pushed together. I tried to make do, but this was far too inconvenient. Furthermore the AC unit did not work properly, it kept turning off and the room soon became very warm. I talked to reception, who did agree that I should have been give a double bed instead of 2 beds. The AC was also inspected but could not be rectified. I was given a new room with working AC and a double bed as expected.

The staff in the lounge area seemed to be new and not very attentive.

To summarise, it was a lovely hotel. The price for the rooms are overpriced I believe. The mishap with the beds and AC put a big damper on my memory, but otherwise it was a great stay and I would recommend to friends for a romantic break or an elder couple.