Absolutely awful experience

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Greenwoods Hotel Spa and Retreat, Essex
★★★☆☆
2.5
39.0% of users recommend this

AngelDee's review of Greenwoods Hotel Spa and Retreat, Essex

“Absolutely awful experience”

★☆☆☆☆

written by AngelDee on 03/10/2015

Had an absolutely awful experience - one problem after another - would certainly NOT recommend!

5+ years ago, I used to visit Greenwoods once a year and loved it. After some time away, I finally revisited with my mum on Friday 18th September for an overnight break. We has also contacted the hotel to book two treatments each and pay extra to arrive early to use the spa in the morning and have lunch. We spent over £300 - what a complete waste of money. We're gutted.

In a nutshell (though I could easily write an essay!):

- Hot Stones Therapy massage is NOT as described. I've had three hot stones massages at other places and every time, stones are placed on your body (palms of hands, feet, base of back etc) while you're being massaged. This is also how it's described on their website. But when it comes to it, both my mum and I were just massaged with the stones, they were never placed anywhere, so what was the point. She also left the towel off my leg when she moved to the other etc so I got cold. The massage was also like a deep tissue massage and my back physically hurt for 4 days afterwards and felt bruised. However, this is completely my fault as I did not say anything at the time (suffer from anxiety so confrontation is hard - my problem not theirs though in fairness)

- Two treatment rooms are right next to the waiting room. For my 70min facial, the first half of it was spent listening to a group of women (could have easily been hyenas or screaming banshees) and no one ever asked them to be quiet. Certainly NOT relaxing

- From 3pm onwards, the spa was completely full of above mentioned women/hyenas. There were no loungers available, no space in the jacuzzi, or space in the sauna on the three seperate times I checked between 3pm and 8pm. Lucky we had a room to go back to! When I did decide to just leave my things and go for a swim, I was out again in 5 mins as the noise was unbearable. I wanted to relax, not feel like I was in a busy pub.

- Relaxtion room is relaxing if you have your ipod on loud. Otherwise, it's just lots of slamming doors which wake you up and make you jump every time you drift off

- TV reception was awful so we couldnt watch anything. Chose not to complain about this as we'd ordered room service and didnt want someone fixing it while we were eating

- At 1am, the hyenas returned from the bar very drunk and rowdy in the hallway outside our room. Unlucky for us, they were staying next door and decided to carry on the party. By 2am, we complained to reception. The noise reduced for 10mins then continued. By 3am, I was banging on the wall and went for a walk. I ended up getting 1 hours sleep.

- On checking out, she asked if we'd enjoyed our stay. in the politest way, we explained the issues and handed over our feedback forms (which included our contact details). We received no apology and the receptionist just did not care.

- Their customer service is APPALLING! We never heard back from our feedback forms (when all we wanted was an apology). So I sent an email of complaint. I chased twice and only got a response after leaving bad reviews. They offered an overnight stay worth about £110. We spent over £600 in total! When I asked for a treatment as well or just a partial refund, they said it wouldn't be in their interest to do that so no. Theyve also lied in their response to my trip advisor review. Absolutely disgusting. Have reported them to trading standards.

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