Macdonald Old England Hotel & Spa

Great location, beautiful views from lounge and breakfast rooms. Little bit tired in places but would recommend

Breakfast was quite a poor standard. Improve variety of everything and increase the stations. Install a decent coffee machine to give a variety of drinks rather than the insanely strong pot of coffee that was too strong to stir never mind drink. Install toasters and bread station with bread loaf selection and artisanal rolls. Hot trays with large scale food production rather than individual serve to table. Lose the tinned fruit and serve fresh produce. It’s mean and outdated. Guests expect a very good breakfast and this was not.

Good afternoon, I am sending an email in regards to my stay at the Macdonald Old England Hotel and Spa last night, checking out this morning where we had 2 bedrooms. Unfortunately, the experience was extremely disappointing and fell well below the standard expected of your hotel. Throughout the night, we were subjected to persistent loud pigeon cooing and repeated thudding against the window, which was jammed shut and very dirty. Although bird deterrent spikes were fitted to the window still, a section was clearly broken or missing, allowing pigeons and black birds to sit there throughout the night, repeatedly banging against the window and causing constant noise. This disturbance continued for hours and made sleep almost impossible. In addition to this, there were loud banging noises from downstairs during the early hours, as well as clearly intoxicated guests causing significant disruption in the hallway at around 2:00 am. The combined impact of these issues resulted in a severely broken night’s sleep. A quiet, comfortable room is a basic expectation, and the level of disruption experienced was completely unacceptable. We are extremely unhappy with this stay and feel it represents a failure in both guest management and basic maintenance. Given the circumstances, I am requesting a full refund for the night. I would appreciate this matter being taken seriously and look forward to your prompt response. Kind regards, Peter Buxton Room 240 and 239

Dear McDonald Team, We booked our stay to enjoy the pool and spa facilities. On arrival, we found the pool was extremely cold due to a boiler fault and unusable. We were not informed of this before arrival or at check-in. This significantly affected our stay and meant the break did not meet expectations. We believe a partial refund, discount, or a complimentary night would be fair compensation and look forward to your response. Kind regards, David

Could do with more staff at breakfast as we waited 10 minutes with staff avoiding looking at us until we got a table.

Lovely stay. Great room, very nice breakfast and the staff were all very helpful and friendly. The christmas decorations made the whole stay feel very festive. The kids loved everything about it. The spa swimming pool was a little on the cold side but ok.

we had a wonderful stay with our grandchildren in December, the hotel was beautiful and the seasonal decorations where truly spectacular. The staff were very friendly and welcoming and our room was fabulous with a queen size bed as well as bunk beds for the children. The dining room was beautiful, spacious and spotlessly clean with wonderful views of the lake. Would 100% stay here again.

Hotel is very dated, in need of modernisation throughout.

Clean room, comfy beds

This hotel hasn’t got anything, in toiletries they just had shower gel, on asking about dental kit and moisturiser, staff just said there is a Tesco nearby go and buy from there. Plus they charged £25 per night for parking, proper London price in off peak time. Location is good, everything else is rip-off. Please go only if you get at very low price

Room was a good size, limited tv for price but clean & tidy. Staff in the breakfast area lacked training and supervision. Service was slow and awful, buffet style not what I would want or expect from a hotel at this pice range! Parking at £25 per night! Didn’t pay it. I’m fortunately we couldn’t get a lake view room, which would have been ok as the view from the over priced bar was lovely, unfortunately the room allocated to us was just above the loading bay with delivery’s coming and going all day. Very disappointing!

Reception staff at check-in could be more welcoming. The mattress in the king bed room was not comfortable and the coffee at the breakfast was awful.

The room was lovely loads of space great for family

The breakfast was good but the coffee weak and cold. Lake view was lovely.

Room was ok however bed was very uncomfortable the mattress was old and very soft bowed in middle could not get comfy

Staff really good but disgusted with how much the room we booked was in regards to what the brochure showed. This hotel is an average 3 star. Nowhere near a 4 star as it is advertised. We payed over 700 POUNDS. to be placed in a room that basically i have stayed in better Travelodges !!!!!!! For 2 nights !!!!!!. Macdonald you should be ashamed !!!! Will never stay here again and will definately tell anyone who asks to go elsewhere. And on top of the RIDICULOUS pricing you HAVE to pay a ridiculous 50 POUNDS A DAY for parking which is a way away from this ridiculous example of a 4 star hotel. Oh well lesson learned.

Lovely and helpful customer facing staff. Breakfast service very slow. Pool was freezing. Car parking provided by hotel at a charge (£25/day), and offsite. We stayed 15 years ago and had left with a much better impression then. We wouldn’t look to return after this visit.

Great location on the lake

The room was very tired and in need of a refurbish. The bed pleather was so old and scuffed. No fridge in the room for a hotel of this price. We had an upgrade and the robes were well washed out and greyish. No slippers ! We were told we could walk to the spa but we had to go to reception and ask for slippers. Not enough loungers round the pool. The car park was not on the hotel grounds and £25 a day is so expensive. We wouldn’t return!!! The staff were lovely

I had a room overlooking the pub next door which played music etc (people shouting & smoking etc) until late. The hotel generally is in real need of some money spending on it and standards have declined significantly in the 4 or so years since we last stayed here. We won’t be rushing back.