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Ambience
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Bed
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Bathroom
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Amenities
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Service
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Value
Summary
Mottram Hall is part of the luxury chain of spa and hotels of Champneys. It is a grand Georgian manor house in Cheshire with 120 bedrooms, an 18-hole golf course, a full-service spa and health club, a private lake, a rose garden and a football pitch within 270 acres of woodlands.
It is a poorly rated hotel that has been troubled with poor service and under-investments in its rooms and suites. Our experience in October 2021 confirmed this.
champneys.com/hotels/mottram-hall
Ambience
Gloomy and dated. In stark contrast to the rest of the hotel, Room 353, Cheshire Suite is not stylish, luxurious nor grand. The sheer curtain windows, poor lighting, tired furnishing, dated electrical appliances and dark furniture made the room dark and soulless.
Although spacious, they have managed to create a bottleneck in one of the major thoroughfare in the room. The bed is placed too close to the wardrobe and hence, there is no space to walk pass when the wardrobe doors are open.
There isn’t any pleasant niceties like cut-flowers nor fruit bowls to brighten up the room.
According to the website, “… our suite sport picturesque views”, below is the view we had from Cheshire Suite.
Bed
Fortunately, the suite was furnished with a huge comfy medium firm Super King bed from Sealy. It was dressed with six super soft down-filled pillows and a snuggly duvet, all enveloped in regular cotton covers.
But, a worn bedspread as well as two equally worn square decorative pillows did not add any luxury to the package. The respite was further diminished when we discovered worrying stains on a couple of the white pillow cases.
The children’s bed were an old-fashioned pull-out double sofa bed as well as a rollaway single bed. The mattresses on both the beds were barely adequate for a good night rest and are in need of an update.
Bathroom
The bathroom was of decent size but was basic and uninviting. The fittings are in dire need of an upgrade. The bath is narrower than normal and had mold in some of the common areas. The dark walnut panels, terracotta-like tiles and dark marble top were drearily dull.
It was nice to find four set of towels for both adults and our two children.
Amenities
The suite comes with some modern conveniences most guests expect from a luxury hotel.
- Wi-fi
- Designer toiletries (wash products and body lotion from Elemis)
- Drinking water (a 330ml of still as well as a sparkling, replenished daily)
- Air-conditioning
- Flat-screen TVs (LG 37LD322H, a 37-inch from 2011)
- Bluetooth Speaker (Bose Soundlink from 2012)
- Newby Silken Pyramids selection of teas (English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Upper Assam, and Strawberry & Mango) and biscuits from Border (replenished daily)
- Powerful hairdryer (Sunbeam Hospitality)
- Steam iron
- Full-size ironing board
- Writing/make-up table (equipped with a large mirror)
- Border’s viennese whirls cookies (replenished daily)
- Telephone with direct dial to front desk, house keeping, etc
Compared to similarly priced rooms in other hotels, the room is missing the following amenities:
- Espresso machine
- Fridge
- Drinking glasses and/or cups for the children
- Newer TV and more sophisticated Bluetooth speaker
- Conveniently located electricity points (especially one missing from the left side of the bed)
Service
Appalling. Neither Front Desk nor Housekeeping could be contacted from the room in the few occasions we called.
In one occasion, when they did answer the call, request for additional clothes hangers could not be fulfilled at 10pm. We were told that it could only be fulfilled in the morning – but they were never delivered.
In another occasion, when we realised that the complimentary English Breakfast tea wasn’t replenished, we had to make numerous calls over 30 minutes before it was finally answered by Front Desk. Although the tea bags were delivered within 10 minutes by Housekeeping, additional request for soya milk proved too much and we were told to fetch them ourselves from the restaurant where breakfast was being served.
Value
Extremely poor. In addition to the short-coming mentioned above, price paid doesn’t include use of gym nor pool (access available with surcharge of £55 per person per day).
Our Booking Details
Channel: Hotels.com
Room No: 353 Cheshire Suite
Room Type: Suite
Visit Date: Friday evening to Sunday afternoon in October 2021
No. of Guests: 2 adults and 2 children
Amount Paid: £277 for Friday and £297 for Saturday (room only rates)
