Macdonaldhotels Reviews 

Dirty towels with lipstick in rooms

Restaurant did not only NOT cater for Vegetarians but laughed when left with only one dish I could chose from as the other option's resulted in sufficient Alcohol mixed in the food during cooking.

We got a deal, were food was included (£30 per head) but everything was expensive and with only one choice of food which we could not eat, we were further charged £2 over the amount and they made such a song and dance about this considering one of the side dishes never arrived.

Please avoid
NOT halal friendly
Not Vegetarian Friendly

Plus the disgusting towels

I have booked the MH Botley Park as a spa break to celebrate my anniversary but the facilities and the organization of our stay were very disappointing. The pool, the sauna/steam rooms are completely separated from the spa area. Makes no sense. The pool is very very small for the size of the hotel and so does the other facilities such as the gym.
I had to call 2 times enquiring about the times for our spa treatments because they let you book a spa break with treatments but not the treatments time at the webpage. I was told my treatments were booked randomly for Friday 5 pm when we were only checking in at 19:00! Then I was told, that the alternative would be to book our treatments on Sunday at 12:00 and 13:00. We've confirmed these times twice over the phone and when we checked in and they managed to mess it up! The communication from the spa/leisure department with the guests is very poor. On sunday, we were told that my husband's treatment wasn't booked in! We had to stay more than 2 hours passing our check out time to have our treatments. They let you book a spa break with treatments but they have no space to fit guests in in a timely manner.
The massage was very good. However, the staff at the Spa seem lost. There were lists of guest hand written, they didn't get my husband's name right, they ask you what you are there for. No proper planning, is like they don't know who was coming. Very unprofessional and uncaring behaviour from the spa manager, who seems clueless and wasn't able to say I'm sorry or whatsoever which is really sad.
For a 4 star hotel I would expect much more honestly. Very pricey when we look back at our experience. The hotel is seriously in need of improvements because seems old and soulless.
The afternoon tea booking system allowed me to book it for 18:00 when don't serve afternoon tea passing 16:00! So, we've missed our afternoon tea because no one confirmed our time slot for it with us. I've spoken to the restaurant manager about the system allowing me to book the wrong time and there was no interest nor empathy about us missing a meal that we paid for in advance. Sad really.
The only place very nice and comfortable was the room. No complaints there.
I won't book this hotel again or recommend it to anyone.

Re the Compleat Angler, Marlow.Our first stay at the Compleat Angler was not at all impressive! I detail below the issues after just 30 minutes of our arrival:-

1. We booked a super deluxe twin room; our room was made up as a double.
2. There were not bath robes in the room.
3. The room stank of curry.
4. The balcony was a disgrace: don’t know when it had last been cleaned however it was in desperate need! Please see just two of the photos highlighting some of the issues.

Raj the the duty manager was very helpful however it is clear that the overall management standards are falling well short.

Awful. Booked an afternoon tea at the Lymington location. A Birthday celebration for family. Directed to a room that looked like a cafeteria next to the fitness area. Really tired looking with crumbs on the floor and seating. Water marks on the ceiling and scruffy furniture. No table clothes. The toilets were equally tired. The afternoon tea is £30 a head but after having a cup of tea we decided to leave. 3 cups of tea were £15!!!

Macdonald Crutherland House
What a dump. Staff so incredible rude and unpleasant. Stairs everywhere, no help with luggage. Location is far out in the countryside, no choice to eat somewhere else. Bad food. Cleanliness not so good either. Old and run down premises. Avoid this "Hotel" at any cost.

I booked a Macdonalds Houston House (Uphall, Scotland) for 2 spa treatments (55min deep tissue full body massage and 55min Elemis facial) for my sis and I. The front staff notified me that it looks like I have overpaid due to a running deal that wasn't automatically applied when booking the treatments online so I was given an option to either get money back or upgrade for a free splash in the swimming pool and a 2 course lunch. We chose the upgrade.

Dennon was giving me the spa treatment and it was nice, however after catching up with my sis afterwards I learned her masseuse gave her a much firmer massage (I asked for firm, felt medium to light, sis asked for medium and got very firm), she also had her arms and full legs and sides of bum massaged where I only got neck, shoulders, back and just above the knee all the way to the feet. I have tight glutes so I was very jealous hearing my sis got the actual full body massage experience whilst I got the 90% of it. It might be my fault though as we had to select what areas we want to focus on and I selected dry skin and tight muscles, whilst my sister selected loss of firmness. This may have impacted the style of massage. Not sure.
The facial was with Elemis brand and it included a head massage!!! It was 10 out of 10!!! Omg I nearly fell asleep I was soooooo relaxed.
Drawback for the spa experience - we were not given the robes, just the towels.
After the massage we went to the pool. One of the showers were out of order, the pool was cold to start with but we got used to it afterwards, the changing rooms could have used a good scrub same with the showers. They had mould growing and the ceiling had pink mould (the serratia marcescens bacteria kind) in the shower which made me realise they do not clean it properly - yuk!
The lunch was great, the service was fantastic (I did not note the servers name but she was great). The food was tasty and sis and I left the restaurant satisfied.

Poor, tired scruffy hotel Smells dirty. Restaurant meal very poor and expensive.Undercooked frozen fish, dried up peas and chips. Over £40Ordered a sweet and savourybox from Room Sevice as we were hungry. £12 for crisps, peanuts and 2 chocolate bars. Wanted £8 to bring it the few yards to the room or fetch it yourself! It was a dish of veg crisps, no peanuts and 2 tiny, not for resale flakes from a multipack and 2 dried up left over bits of cake. Never again

I forgot 2 IPhone chargers in the hotel room and never got it back. I phoned the reception few hours after I checked out to get back my chargers and was told the store keeper had left for the day. I was told they call me but never did. I phoned many times the next day later got through to the store keeper and was told that they do not have my chargers. A piece of advice is Never forget any item, you may not get it back.

Rooms described as luxurious are not. The paint is peeling, the tile grouting is mouldy, drawers difficult to open and close, carpets stained and old, rooms desperately need refurbishment.

Very poor customer service , stayed for 5 nights at Lymington( My fault i did not check trip advisor first) this is like a slightly up marjet Butlins with poorer food, made a complaint to manager and after 4 days no responce, operations manager(Polly) eventually spoke to me saying the manager did not have the time to speak with me, if you like me booked a room with them don,t bother with thinking you can eat here

We just stayed over at new blossom hotel in Chester and standard of the room is absolutely appalling, defently needs an upgrade, spoke to receptionist just after we booked in and no management was in the building and not even when we left the day after even though it was a fully booked hotel, plus side receptionist was lovely and guided me how to complain correctly

Terrible customer service. Called their reservations / booking line to arrange one night accommodation for a group of 4 adults including some spa treatments and dinner bed and breakfast. First call handler was great, went through all options and prices etc. Came off the call to discuss said options with the group and decide on spa treatments. Called back to book about 40 mins later to be told that the information I’d been given was wrong, the hotel would only take a minimum of 2 night bookings and they wouldn’t honour the quotes given on the first call. Spoke to ‘supervisor’ who said they’d sort it out. Got a call back from another agent to say they couldn’t / wouldn’t honour the prices I was given. Stayed in a few MacDonald hotels but can assure you I won’t be in future. Call handlers were all pleasant enough just extremely annoyed that they clearly had it within their power to sort this but have chosen not to.

Stayed at Macdonald Bath spa hotel. April 2024.
Food was horrible had rib eye steak and chips which was undercooked didn’t eat dinner again as I was sick after the so called afternoon tea non of the staff asked if we wanted a drink . What a shambles .. Breakfast was also poor at best as all the food looked cheap no taste .. big wine menu but didn’t have half of the wines in stock and the manager bought 2 half bottles only god knows how long these had been opened still cured £35 quid.Bathroom was dirty, rooms are dated and in need of refurbishment , the window couldn’t be opened .They rate this as a five star but at best it should be a 3 star. Watch out the price on drinks they are outrageous 12.50 for a single gin and tonic. After all the above used bother the spa and thus is do out dated staff did not bother to check everything I’d functioning after numerous complaints gave up .
Best this was the massage very well treated by Becky at least someone cared .
Won’t stay there again as it totally spoiled our 40 th anniversary.

I cannot thank Rebecca, Stacey, Barry and the team for giving us the best wedding day ever at Macdonald's Crutherland House Hotel & Spa! I know I'm biased (as it was my wedding) but everything went so smoothly and it was the most perfect day. Thanks again for everything!

Craxton Wood
Hopeless key card system and extremely unhelpful front desk manager and complete refusal to provide contact details for the general manager.

My first stay in the Craxton Wood hotel and likely my last. The second night of a three night stay and my key card didn’t work on returning to my room. Two trips to reception from the farthest room to get it resolved carrying a heavy bag. The third night I returned to my room to find it held open with the dead bolt and my key card not working again. Two more trips to reception to get it working and a begrudging apology that the room was left open with all my belongings inside, presumably for most of the day. I was also told that I had been informed 2 weeks ago not to leave my key card next to the car radio as this had caused the problem. Interesting, given this is my first stay.

The other staff in the hotel have been very pleasant and helpful. However the hotel is quite run down and the bathroom floods when you have even a short shower. Overall not to be recommended.

My husband and I are frequent visitors of the Botley park hotel and spa branch, we have enjoyed it every time until now. With over 50 stays there we have spent a lot of money with them.

Unfortunately last night we were booked into a room that had an issue with the heating. We tried to sort this out ourselves but failed to. We phoned reception for assistance and were met with absolute disrespect we where told, within that conversation, somebody will be up within 5 minutes- we waited for 40 and nobody came to help us we where told -quote- “it’s 00:40 now I’m not doing anything until the morning” -end quote. We went down to reception after this to seek assistance from another member of staff so we could go to sleep.

We were met with further rude, abrasive and hostile behaviour from the same member of staff which resulted in said member of staff attempting to phone the police for no apparent reason, using explicit language and shouting at us both. It was at that point he stood back from the desk, crossed his arms and refused to help us with our issue, we have the whole conversation on record which picks up all of this.

Regrettably we have spent a lot of money with this hotel and we will not be returning after this issue.

For any future guests looking to stay at this hotel I sincerely recommend reconsidering as any problems or issues however simple, after 11pm, will be handled by this man as he is the full time night manager and is incompetent of management, communication with guests and shows no professionalism whatsoever.

Awful service received form macdonald botley spa. Avoid at all costs will mess you around until the hour before your due to arrive!!!

Sorted BRS membership for my two golf buddies. Nothing too much trouble for this lady Karen Smith

I strongly believe my and my wife’s luggage and clothes were infested with bed bugs from our one-night stay at the Macdonald Windsor in August 2023. To say the least, this turned into a nightmare when we returned home. I reported this directly to Macdonald Windsor shortly there after and they claimed there were no bed bugs, however they never sent me any validation that a professional service was used to inspect the property. Note that many accommodations in the Berkshire area of UK have reported problems with bed bugs. The ‘best practices’ and proper response from Macdonald should have been a sincere apology and a full refund for the one night’s stay.

AVOID!! THIS HOTEL DOES NOT HAVE A LUXURY SPA. It has a swimming pool which throughout January they refused to heat AT ALL. The changing rooms were also just as cold and simply making it unbearable to use the spa facilities whatsoever. The atmosphere is non existent.
Stayed in a standard room and was greeted with mould all around the bathtub. Giving the known impacts of mould, this really shouldn't be allowed anyway but especially having people pay for this level of dirt!!!!
Car parking is also more experience than the Crown Plaza a few metres away!
GO AND STAY ELSEWHERE!!!