I booked a deluxe room on a Saturday at this hotel on the day of arrival as a last-minute overnight treat with my girlfriend. Getting to the hotel was very easy and in a very good location. Hotel looked great from the outside and the grounds were equally impressive. It's a shame that as you come up the hotel drive the welcome sign directs you straight to the car park at the back of the hotel so you don't get that initial wow you might expect driving up a long lane with a stunning hotel in front of you. What was also off putting was a big metal container in the car park by the health club that looked like a base for a make-shift carwash centre run by eastern-european immigrants. Very strange...

However, we arrived through the reception and greetly warmly. They offered to take our bags upstairs which was good and the whole process of checking in easy and efficient.

The room was very nice, decorated well... Large bed, massive tv and nice amount of space in the room to breakdance in. Small problem was that there was a cot in the room but this was taken away by staff not long after reporting the problem. Something good to note was that the reception desk called our phone around 5 minutes after we arrived to check everything was ok with our room, which was a nice touch. Sometimes it's simple things like this that make a lot of difference...

We unpacked our stuff, wandered down to reception and booked a table for dinner that evening in the restaurant.

The restaurant was ok, but not great... And very expensive for what was offered. We arrived in the bar area around 15 minutes early to our table time, sat and ordered 2 large glasses of wine. There was no background music played out in the bar area and it was quite obvious the people sitting around the tables felt awkward making conversation as anything said could easily be heard by anyone. It was more like sitting in a library than a bar. This unfortunately was the same when we sat and dined... No music whatsoever and a room filled with lots of people whispering to each other. We felt there was little intimacy and with loads of kids running around freely the restaurant massively lacked that romantic spark you'd expect.

What was very strange as well was that we was told to order from the menu in the bar area before we had even sat down at our dinner table.

The menu had around 5/6 choices for starter, main and dessert, priced at 47 pounds per head. This isn't terrible but my girlfriend is a vegetarian and would have expected a lower price for her meal as a risotto isn't going to cost the same as a sirloin of beef. We didn't want a starter when dining and was told this was ok, however no price was pointed out as to what this would be per head. I would have much preferred a menu with individual pricing on food rather than a lump sum for the lot.

The food was ok but nothing really to write home about... Wine was overpriced as expected and the final bill (a main, dessert, bottle of pinot and 2 large glassed of pinot) around £150 which didn't include service. I've had meals in London michelin star restaurants for less and without the circus of kids running around. Quite disappointing. Couldn't really fault the staff though... Seemed mostly fun, attentive, young... except they possibly could have had a word with the people dining with the rebellious kids.

Anyway, back to the room after dinner. Managed to fall asleep around midnight no problems... Woken up at 3am with the worlds loudest baby in the room next to us who didn't stop crying all night. I know this isn't the fault of the hotel but perhaps they could allocate families with babies to a certain area of the hotel, rather than allow them to stay just anywhere. The walls must have been paper thin as well... Literally sounded like the kid was in the room with us. I managed to film the noise from our room with a camera phone it was that bad. It was one of those unfortunate situations where you're undressed and unpacked so moving room would have been a massive hassle...

With the previous experience of the kids running around the hotel I wouldn't recommed this hotel for a romantic / relaxing trip at all. Just one for larger families I guess who are used to being kept up all night.

We brought up our grievance with the receptionist upon checkout who offered £100 off our bill but still, that only brought the total down to £300 which is still in fairness a lot for a night in a hotel which you don't get sleep in.

We left feeling pretty shattered and not feeling any value in our stay, even with the money off. A terrible shame.

Ps. The spa isn't built into the hotel... It's a seperate building to the back of the hotel. We didn't visit so can't comment on the facilities.