Macdonald Berystede Hotel & Spa

The room itself was ok for the price but the sheets were marked. This is a wedding hotel with 2 weddings on both Friday and Saturday. Friday was not a problem but on the Saturday night wedding guests were still partying loudly in the lobby which is central to many rooms until 4.30am in spite of complaints to the duty manager at 3.30am. At 4.30 am the fire alarm was set off and again at 5am. No staff appeared and the party downstairs continued so we went back to bed assuming we were not burning down! On Saturday evening the restaurant was taken over by a wedding party so we were directed to the brasserie where we endured the worst meal we have had in recent times - this was very poor pub grub at restaurant prices. Also the automatic security gates cause absolute chaos when cars are arriving for the weddings.

The hotel was lovely and in a lovely setting unfortunately our stay was spoilt by the fact that we were allocated room 239 for ourselves and our 2 children (4 and 1), it was 30 degrees outside and our air conditioning did not work. On making an enquiry at reception we were advised to leave it for 10 minutes and it would "kick in". We left to visit our friends nearby (the purpose of our stay) and returned to the hotel for a beautiful meal (but the service was very poor 45 minutes to receive our starters and 30 minutes to receive a bottle of water from ordering - not ideal when dining late with young children). On our return to the room the airconditioning was still not working but it was too late to do anything about it. At about 1.30am we simply were sweltering in our room and our baby was really struggling with the heat - we were worried about fits and all sorts as I am sure the temperate was over 30 degrees in our room. At 1.30am we called reception and were told that there was nothing they could do about it and we has to ask for a desk top fan!
They moved us the next day into a room in which the air conditioning did work!
When it came to paying the bill we were asked if we were happy with our stay - which clearly we were not. They referred us to the manager who initially was unable to do anything other than knock of the DISCRETIONARY service charge! This was not acceptable. After some considerable waiting he came back and offered to knock of £30 from the £180 nightly rate - again this was not acceptable. He was unable to come a satisfactory resolution there and then so we agreed to pay for the dinner and second night's accommodation and the manager is to write to us regarding the first night's stay.
Apart from this this is a lovely hotel with great spa facilities and a great meal - although breakfast was also poor.