Arbury

The barn is decent overall, but a few things let it down. I've stayed there about six times over the last year as it's in a good stopover location for a drive I do regularly. The pool is decent, the bar is nice and they've invested in the lounge area, which is a nice space. The main restaurant for breakfast is very tired and needs updating. It's also a bit of a room lottery. Some of the rooms can be pretty bleak. They gave me 404 last week, which was particularly soviet. Walls are bashed, nothing comforting about being in there. For £120 excl breakfast I wonder if they're pushing it a bit now in terms of what justifies the price. Staff on the whole are great and the location is fab. Just worth having expectations in the right place before choosing.

First impressions of the hotel were excellent and overall it is a lovely place with generally attentive staff. All was going well and the receptionist said that we were lucky as our room was air conditioned, while others were not. We had been allocated room 6 and on opening the door there was an interesting staircase which split in two at a small landing with one set of stairs going to the bedroom, with the other leading to the shower room. Getting between the rooms you have to be very careful. Essentially both rooms are built into the eaves with a steep pitch, meaning that to be able to stand up in the bedroom room it is approximately 3 foot wide. The room was roughly 30 degC and we tried to get the air conditioning to work but failed. The receptionist returned and also failed to get it working and promised to send their technical expert. Sadly no one turned up so I rang reception only to be told that he was now serving dinner and couldn’t assist. We were advised that we could sit outside on the terrace which was rather frustrating as we had been out all day. We did get the aircon working eventually. Getting into and out of bed was very awkward as you had to bend double and my wife managed to bang her head. Highly unsatisfactory. The shower room was ok but the shower had nowhere to put anything other than on the floor of the shower. We did complain and were only offered a drink. We asked to move rooms but none were available. Make sure you don’t stay in room 6.

We had a wonderful stay. The room size was very good and everything worked. The lift was unusable so we were re-allocated a room on the ground floor. The food was excellent. We enjoyed a delicious evening meal, a fabulous high tea and two excellent breakfasts. All members of staff were very helpful and friendly.