Handpickedhotels Reviews 

We booked a night in a 2-floor family room at Ettington Park hotel for 7th December 2024. The hotel is an amazing building with beautiful grounds and we were very excited to be there.

What went wrong:
The room wasn't ready at check-in time
The room was filthy
The staff were patronising
The pool area had not been cleaned for days, with mountains of wet towels and paper cups
They had no contingency in a power outage
They offered no compensation for a dreadful experience

31/3/25 One full week and no acknowledgement, only leave positive feedback for Handpicked Hotels as they don’t deal in negative reviews.

It’s time this organisation took a long hard look at their approach to customer service. I have spent most of my career working in the demanding CS Industry. There are Globally recognised processes & KPI’s that should be used daily within organisations alas Handpicked in this example fail terribly.

I submitted a complaint and have yet to receive any acknowledgement that it has been received and that somebody has been assigned ownership.

When you pay for a service, and that service is not delivered you’d expect somebody takes ownership, responds and acknowledges there’s an issue and provide an acceptable timeframe for resolution .

Handpicked @ Norton Edinburgh fails on all CS categories.

Used this venue to host a dear friends` "Celebration of Life"
From the our initial contact until the event yesterday, the event organiser Summer Marley was professional, helpful and empathetic.
The afternoon tea (with double cake !!) was of the highest standard and all of the guests commented on how well the staff members looked after our needs. Attentive but not intrusive.
From the ample parking, the scenic moat to the Sir Alfred Own suite, the venue could not be faulted.
Thank you New Hall Spa and Hotel

Went for a quiet weekend costing us nearly £900. Unfortunately this is a wonderful wedding venue and you need to be aware you are totally emerged amongst the guests even for breakfast.
I feel a separate area should be available for private guests plus decent coffee which is available at a cost but not for breakfast even if you wanted to pay.
Very upset as we were so excited to be going there

Had a 3 month membership at the Norton house hotel in Edinburgh hoping the indulgence would help assist in recovering from breast cancer, on attempting to redeem our vouchers for 25 min massage, we were accused of not paying the membership fee, denied treatment and made to feel like fraudsters, the place is utterly filthy and mismanaged and the manager argued with me for 45 mins when they were totally wrong, I left fighting back tears and they took my £ and didn’t grant me access to Pilates or yoga, refused our treatments and left me with an anxiety attack, utterly appalling, save your £ and your dignity.

Stayed at this beautiful hotel in Sutton Coldfield. The building's architecture was amazing. The food from the restaurant was the best I have ever had. The staff were friendly, approachable and really couldn't do enough for you. We had to leave early in the morning so they made me a breakfast to go which was very thoughtful. Overall a really tremendous stay and we hope to be back again soon.

We were married at Rhinefield House in the New Forest in 2005 and the experience was excellent. We returned for an overnight stay for our 10th anniversary in 2015 and again were not dissappointed. We have just stayed there for one night and the impression was far from the same. The service was overall good (breakfast with Jerry was exceptional) however afternoon bar/patio service was not great with dirty plates etc left on tables and not being wiped down. The decor in places was at best tied and to top it all our sundries bill at checkout was £160 more than we had spent. For a premium venue standards need to be improved!!!

On Sunday 16th July, I stayed at the Handpicked Hotel at Fawkham, Kent for a friend's 70th birthday party.

The accommodation (room), hall for the party, sceneryand food were superb. The staff that I encountered (reception and waiters), were all outstandingly warm, welcoming and so professional. There is absolutely nothing missing from my expectation at this hotel.

I had a private lunch prior to the party and the food was so delicious. Connor, the waiter went the extra mile. He was so polite, extremely helpful and just superbly pleasant. Thank you so much.

I lived in Kent for nearly 18years, how did I not know about this hotel!

Thank you to all the staff.

I will strongly recommend this hotel for weekend away, parties or even business events.

I'm a member at Rookery Hall and I have to just say how clean the gym area and pool are. They're always immaculate as are the changing rooms. Been a member of a few gyms in the past but this is by far the cleanest.

Really not happy with the lhorizon hotel jersey, you pay for a premium service but received far from that. When we arrived at the hotel, we were advised they would take £150 from us paid by card. At the end of the stay, if we spent less than £150 we would be paid the difference, if we spent more, we would pay the difference when we left. On check out at the last day, our total bill was £300. So we expected to make a further payment of £150. But no, the lady demanded we pay £300 and the previous £150 was just held, and would be refunded 2 days later. We paid. Its now 5 days later and no refund, having to spend time calling the hotel again chasing this money. They have no idea how long its going to take to get our money back. For a premium hotel this is ridiculous. Dreadful service. 2718218297

We had a great stay at Fawsley hall, Hand picked.

The stay from start to finish was enjoyable and relaxing.
We both got a lovely glass of champagne on check in and enjoyed a light lunch in the bar.
Food in the restaurant in the evening was high quality and the service impeccable. Molly looked after us so well and for breakfast the next morning she was great again.
On check out the hotel manager spoke to us which was nice and helped with our bags.

Great stay and we will be back!

My Mum bought me hand picked hotel vouchers for Christmas. She deliberately bought 5 x £50 vouchers rather than 1 x £250 as she'd previously done this for my brother, and on check out he found you couldn't retain any value on a part used voucher, and so he'd ended up loosing a good chunk of money (£50+) as his stay was less than his voucher value. If he'd have known, he'd have charged his various meals and drinks to his room and used up the value that way.

Anyway, when I went to book my stay, I was told I could only use a maximum of two vouchers per stay, so despite having £250 in vouchers, I could only use £100 worth to book the room. The advice from the booking rep that I should just pay the extra room balance and "use the voucher for something extra like a spa treatment" was less than helpful.

Seems to me Hand Picked Hotel vouchers are worth substantially less than their face value, because if you underspend them you get no change and if you buy them in smaller denominations you can only use two. The aim seems to be that the customer always has to spend more than the company have already had through the purchase of the voucher - in short, a rip off!

Chilston Park Hotel
So afternoon tea for 50th birthday celebration, despite being informed of this when booked there was no mention or welcome on arrival.
Ordered our tea (and champagne which I had to remind and chase for) which arrived and then had to chase for sugar.
Looking around on the face of it, seemed quite nice however housekeeping was poor a thick layer of dust on the table behind us. I did a couple of swirls and took a picture other surfaces also similar.
So food was good could have been more but it is what it is.
Maybe petty but at 90 quid a pop for two I expected more, and I expected clean
Came to pay
Then the real problems started payment went through on my account but their machine crashed. Despite my account being debited they tried to charge me again saying my first charge would be a holding charge that would be returned in two days!!
I don’t think so !
I refused to pay again however my bank did refund very fast. It’s annoying that staff gave the old its a holding fee trick. I got a shrug when I said for me to pay again would send me overdrawn
Ambiance wasn’t up to much some music would have been nice piano player etc. once we were ready to leave I asked for remainder of cakes etc to be boxed up. Of course they had run out of boxes so tin foil instead
Sadly I wasn’t impressed and 4 star standard was overrated
Between the four of us 160 quid I expected more

I ordered 2 vouchers for 2 different persons, confirmed with a phone call to make sure would get 2 vouchers and 2 booklets & 2 envelopes as they were for 2 people.
only received 2 vouchers & 1 booklet & 1 envelope.
despite calls & promised they would send, still chasing after 2 weeks

Stayed at Rookery Hotel ans Spa with my fiance. Beautiful hotel and grounds and the room( April room) was just fantastic. All the staff in the hotel Morgan, Grace, Danny and Ben were really friendly and always smiling. And over in the Spa the pool was amazing. And Sophie and Ellie on the front desk were absolutely brilliant and so helpful. The stay couldn't have been more perfect.

My husband and I stayed at Rhinefield House Hotel for 2 nights with 4 of our friends. The hotel and grounds are beautiful and our room, overlooking the New Forest was lovely. All the staff we met were helpful and friendly. However, what let this wonderful hotel down was the meals. We had breakfast and dinner on both nights of our stay and were disappointed. Our eggs at breakfast were cold and the rest of the cooked breakfast tepid. We sent them back only to be given the same breakfast back with new eggs, which were only warm. We had started our breakfast and so we knew that it was the same food which had been put to one side while fresh eggs were cooked and then brought out again. At breakfast was my party of six plus two ladies, so it wasn't busy. After sending our plate back a second time we gave up and didn't have breakfast. If you stay at this hotel I would advise that you have your meals somewhere else as dinner was not much better.

Had an amazing over night stay and spa experience at Fawsley Hall for my sisters 50th. The staff where extremely attentive and arranged some beautiful thoughtful touches to our day. The spa refurbishment is gorgeous and we left feeling renewed and revitalised.

Diabolical service from Hand Picked Hotels. They quoted the wrong price, wrong room and in general they were not interested in taking a booking. I ended up speaking to a senior advisor who eventually made the booking. However they then failed to reply to my e-mails to then take the balance payment - after mailing them twice. Not sure why they are so bad now. Hotels will be loosing revenue if they keep this up as my patience is running out. Try elsewhere if you can

Spa day booked well in advance. Was not cheap…called 7 days in advance to confirm treatment timings (as this had not been communicated at all) and that all was available in terms of facilities. On the day, no mention that the hot tub was closed. Asked reception after I discovered this, only to be told it’s been out of use for over a week? Considering this forms part of a spa day I was less than pleased. Not to mention the facilities are shared with gym members so it was far from serene. Pool very shallow, and little else to use aside from it. Constant splashing of members mucking about. Very disappointed. Treatment was average. Food was good, however menu incredibly unclear. Told to pick a combo of 2 meals, no where did it state must be a main and dessert. Menu choices given in the AM, only to arrive for lunch at our given time and be told need to change menu options to include a desert and remove one of the other choices we had selected. This in turn meant we had to wait 20 minutes, and essentially force the food down so not to be late for treatment. General upkeep of “spa Lounge” left a lot to be desired. Old dirty cups everywhere. Bit of a shambles considering it was almost £200 per person and when you consider what you can get elsewhere for this I feel thoroughly disappointed and wish I had booked somewhere else.

Returned to St Pierre Park hotel having worked there over 30 years ago. Staff were exceptional, service outstanding and food delicious.