Guest User
October 29, 2023
We had booked to stay at the Old Vicarage on a Saturday night following a friend's wedding at the Bridal Barn up the road. It looked great online so we were rather looking forward to it. They are careful not to mention this on their website before you book, but the earliest check-in time is bizarrely 5pm, and check-out is at 10am (what they do in the rooms for the 7 hours between is a mystery as it didn't appear to involve cleaning). When we completed the booking, I put a note on the booking that we would be at a wedding from 2pm until 11pm so, if unable to check-in before, we would check in on arrival in the evening. We dropped the car at the hotel before going to the venue at around 2pm and asked on the off chance if we could check in early. We were told we could not. We attended the wedding and all was well until I checked my phone at 9pm to see I had six missed calls from the hotel and an email asking me to call them "urgently". I did so and was told they were going to "lock up and go home" unless we were back before 11pm. I reminded them that they were in fact a hotel and that I had informed them that I would not be arriving until after the wedding at the time of booking. The unhelpful woman on the other end of the phone simply repeated her mantra "if you are not here by 11pm I'm going to lock up and go home". I was so flabbergasted by this that I apologised, said we would do our best to be there before 11. We were unable to re-arrange a taxi for an earlier time (the taxis in the area are understandably not the most abundant given the rural locale) so I called the hotel again to beg them to stay later and let us in. I was told they would give it another half hour but otherwise they were going home. I asked if they would be so kind as to try and contact a local taxi company for us in case they could get to us sooner - they declined. Our taxi was delayed (again, the joys of rural taxis) and we were forced to constantly update the hotel and repeatedly beg them to stay a little longer to prevent us from having to spend the night in the car. I was so baffled and irritated at the bizarre notion of being locked out of a hotel we had booked, that my wife took over these regular communications - she performed with such restraint and tact that I have since recommended she pursues a career as a hostage negotiator. When we eventually arrived at the hotel, we were "greeted" by a sultry character who sulkily processed the inflated payment of £132.50, gave us our key and informed us we had to be out by 10am. On entering our room, it felt like entering my Grandmother's house, surrounded as we were with naff, damaged antiques and bedding which I assume was bought second-hand from an old folks' home. To try and calm my nerves after facing the prospect of sleeping in my VW Polo, I ran myself a bath. Unfortunately, the hot water ran out on reaching a depth of around 4 inches. After splashing about in this warm puddle for a few minutes, I retired t