Pros
Beautiful building, tasteful period decor and features, stunning lobby and staircase. We stayed in room 1 (bath in window overlooking countryside). Unlike some other contributors on this forum, we did not find the decor run-down or tatty. It is tasteful and evocative of another age. The staff are friendly (mostly) and welcoming, although there are niggling issues with slap-dash service. There is sufficient parking and on pulling up outside you do feel like you’ve arrived somewhere rather lovely.
We found the food to be of a good standard (we dined in-house on 3 of the 3 nights we stayed). Breakfast is also of a decent quality with full English on offer (including a veggie version), plenty of standard cereals, toast, juices, tea and coffee, as well as a small selection of pastries (none of which were gluten free). Gluten free bread/toast is available though which is fine. Service is haphazard however - not once in the whole stay did we actually get what we ordered. On all occasions we had to point out that there were elements missing from our meal. It’s as though the chef decides what he will serve you irrespective of what you have actually ordered.
Cons
The only downside, but it was a MASSIVE one, was the absolutely earth-shattering banging, crashing and furniture rearranging going on in the function room directly below our bedroom from 11.15 pm until 1.00 in the morning on our first night. We had fallen asleep early, having travelled for 6 hours to get here, and could not believe our ears when we were jolted awake by the prolonged, loud, dragging of tables and chairs across the wooden floor, slamming of doors, clattering of utensils and all manner of unbelievable noise (note also, this is a period building with virtually no sound insulation whatsoever). Having put up with this for over an hour, I eventually crept downstairs in my nightdress and asked the member of staff, who I now know was setting the room up for a wedding several days later (in the middle of the night?!?!), how much longer the noise was likely to go on for. Completely unfazed, the staff member told me ‘I always do this at this time’. I proceeded to tell him that in that case I thought we were going to have to please move rooms, at which point he rudely told me there were no spare rooms. In despair, I then advised him that in that case we would probably have to leave the hotel altogether, first thing in the morning, and as I walked away he replied ‘do what you want’.
Absolutely, jaw-droppingly, appalling.
Never, in 40 years of travelling the world, have I ever experienced anything like this in a place that clearly regards itself as ‘rather high end’.
In the morning, having had a terrible night’s sleep, we spoke to one of the front of house staff about the issue. Whilst somewhat apologetic, he was still inclined to defend the actions of his colleague, who he said was ‘just doing his job’. There was no acknowledgment whatsoever that this wasn’t the point. The point being that you cannot, under ANY circumstances, have your valued(?) guests kept awake half the night by prolonged, ear-splitting levels of noise being caused by your own staff in the course of their work. And if this is happening, you need to rearrange your staff schedules. At length, we were offered a ‘free drink’ by way of compensation. And as I don’t drink alcohol, this ultimately amounted, between us, to a glass of red wine and a pint of lemonade. ☹️ I note that Falcon Manor’s management does not appear to respond to reviews on this site. I suppose one can only infer from this that they either (a) don’t care about their customers’ experience, or (b) make so much money that they don’t need to bother. Either way we will not be returning. If they had offered me a Rolex watch by way of compensation (as opposed to a glass of lemonade), I STILL would not consider returning. Nothing can compensate for being kept awake half the night by mindlessly idiotic scheduling of staff workloads, especially when you are paying not far off £200 per night for the ‘privilege’ of staying somewhere.
