Hotel Martha

The bed was wonderfully comfortable, the rooms themselves were lovely, and the desk area was useful. I also liked the bathroom products. On a motorcycle tour, it’s handy to be able to wash and dry base layers, but the heated towel rail in the bathroom was controlled by a hotel timer. It didn’t finally switch on until around 11pm, even though I’d turned up the thermostat when I arrived. Staff didn’t know how it worked and couldn’t provide a fan because Reception closes at 7pm. The room WiFi was extremely unreliable. Sometimes it didn’t show up at all, and when I connected, it kept dropping, despite the access point being right outside my room. My room phone didn’t work either, and had to be unplugged and reconnected to the network. That might also explain the WiFi problems. There’s a large glass panel behind the shower looking into the bedroom, and the bathroom night light shines through it. There’s no way to turn that light off or dim it, so it was bothersome with the other lights off. I asked at around 5pm whether I could book a massage at the spa mentioned on the hotel website. It turned out the spa is a separate company in the same building, not a hotel facility. The new Intern at Reception couldn’t explain what was available; the breakfast room/shop manager gave me a brochure but little information. Since the room phone wasn’t working, I couldn’t call the spa. I walked over, but the Therapist was busy with a client. The spa’s website had a long address, and when I eventually got it open there was no availability listed, though it recommended contacting them directly. I emailed the website contact twice and got no reply. The next morning I went into the City and easily booked a massage near the train station; they were absolutely fantastic. The hotel shouldn’t advertise that it has a spa when it doesn’t. It should provide a link to the spa’s site and know its hours for guests asking about it. The restaurant and staff really let down a hotel that otherwise could be good. I arrived for a 7:30pm reservation and asked for menus, a drink, and a jug of water. The water took about 20 minutes, and the drink and menus came another 45 minutes later, after I went to the bar to ask again. The reservation was originally for five, but staff had already been told it would be only two or three. I was the third person to arrive and repeated that nobody else was coming, yet staff still thought we were waiting for two more colleagues. They seemed overwhelmed by two large tables, and other diners suffered too. They didn’t seem to have enough staff or a clear way to assign someone to each table. It was asparagus season and there was a special menu, but none of those dishes were available because they’d run out of asparagus. They couldn’t cater for the number of dinner guests. Service stayed slow: after we asked for the dessert menu, nobody returned to take our order, so we gave up and asked for the bill. No one came to take payment, so we eventually paid at the bar. There was clearly no service charge or tip. At checkout, I asked the Receptionist, who was an Intern again, to have the Hotel Manager message me. There was no follow-up. The staff seemed poorly trained and brought down the reputation of a hotel I otherwise would have been happy to stay at again.