The Bath Priory Hotel and Restaurant

We stayed here this past weekend, August 23-26. To be honest everything about staying here felt like a bit of a scam. This shouldn’t be listed anywhere near five stars and I feel a little gaslit reading some of these reviews. But maybe it’s just that it’s gotten a lot worse lately. If I can convince someone not to stay here, it will be the best thing an internet comment has ever done. There are several issues that made this miserable. First there’s the “spa”. The spa is nasty. There is an outdoor “pool” that says it’s heated (it’s not) and it was never cleaned the whole time we stayed there with dirt and sticks etc in the water. The indoor area wasn’t much better. The pool had paint and rust chips falling into from a low hanging ceiling above it that was falling apart. The steam room and sauna doors didn’t shut all the way and one was just cold. But it didn't matter because we couldn’t use it much anyway because it was overrun with kids. Toddler-aged kids. It was more of a daycare than a spa, with toddlers running around screaming. We tried four different times to use it. All toddlers all the time. It was like Disneyland Paris. Who lets 3 year olds in a spa? Truly wild. I felt even worse for another couple we met there who were on their first holiday away from their kids in a year only to be blindsided by an army of them. When we complained the spa said "oh yeah we get that complaint a lot. This place is marketed wrong." Cool. Second is the hotel itself. The hotel is presented wrong. It’s not a spa hotel. It’s more like an old bed and breakfast that hasn’t been maintained. The first room we stayed in was awful. We were woken up at 7 in the morning with machines running and people stomping around. We went and looked and it seemed like we were staying under the staff area. Which is weird because the rooms was supposedly an “upgrade” they gave us when we checked in. This gave us a room underground that clearly hadn’t been used in a while. They did end up moving our room again and taking 50 pounds off the bill. The person working there was very nice. The new room was okay but just as loud. When we moved all we wanted to do was rest so we ordered a couple bottles of water from room service. They never came. We ordered food/drink three times there. One time it didn’t come the other two times they got the order wrong. Honestly, that stuff doesn't bother me. Stuff happens. And this wouldn’t have even really mattered if it wasn’t presented as a “5 star spa hotel”. I honestly think whoever owns must just find it too expensive to maintain so they don’t touch and just charge crazy high prices to try and make it work. I know the hotel will likely respond to this with an apology or something but really it doesn’t matter. This place is a scam. Please don’t book here. It’s a Travelodge with a pool, priced like a London hotel. There’s plenty of better places in Bath. Avoid this one.

Service was lovely - not too pushy but present when wanted and all functioned well. The rooms were not particularly nice. Cosy, I suppose, but at least ours had a room cupboard feeling to it (Azalea) and the furniture was very worn. The pool was very shallow, both inside and outside, and the advertised « sanctuary «  feeling was not quite there with the kids shouting and splashing around. The kids hours are on the prime time for the spa treatments, so we did not feel keen to use any services like we had planned.

We stayed over a weekend and had the most amazing time. We had our room upgraded as we were celebrating my birthday and with that we had a beautiful room with balcony over looking to outstanding grounds. The service we received was brilliant with a fantastic check in. Everything explained , a complimentary newspaper, and shown to our room (not many hotels do this any more!) We enjoyed walking around the gardens, using the outdoor swimming pool and just relaxing in various nooks inside and out. The breakfast was amazing with so much choice. All the staff gave excellent customer service and we felt truly looked after. Thank you everyone for an amazing weekend!

First of all, this is a beautiful hotel and I had a wonderful dinner there. Breakfasts were good, too. But my room had no air-conditioning! I was shocked as I had been looking forward to all the amenities. but I was not able to change to a room with AC even though I said I would be happy to pay more. So, I had to suffer the heat of the extremely warm weather and make the decision whether to open the windows at night, risk the entry of mosquitoes and hope that the fan would help, or close the windows and suffer. The other thing that puzzles me is the rising popularity of the fake scent bottles in hotels. I don't like the overpowering smell they provide and I know some people are allergic to them.

Booked for a party of eight for morning coffee/cake. When we arrived a male member of staff told us they had prepared for us outside but said we would have to come indoors if it rained. We requested that the large parasol be put up to protect us and he grudgingly started to do it and then said he couldn’t because high winds were forecast. There was no wind whatsoever . It started raining so we decided to come indoors . The male member of staff was officious and we clearly were a nuisance . What made this even worse is that the hotel appeared virtually empty with no other guests needing service. The female member of staff that took our order was pleasant and helpful but whoever was making the drinks took forever. The only food offered was carrot cake and after one of the party asked for a pastry the waitress went to check and found one. The coffee, cake ( very small helping) and pastry were all very underwhelming . The hotel generally feels tired and unloved. Such a shame because it used to be charming. We definitely won’t be coming back.