Britannia Country House Hotel, Manchester

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Ahh the Britannia Country House Hotel, a couple of miles from Manchester airport, the perfect place to stay the night before jeting off on our honeymoon, thought my new wife and I in August 2006. We booked online and only paid £64 for a double room with champagne on arrival, and it looked so modern and the name country house just added to the picture in our heads what a perfect start to our honeymoon. How wrong can you get.

.../> We arrived on a Saturday afternoon having got married on the Thursday and stayed a couple of nights at the hotel we had got married in, and as we parked on the large car park to the front and walked up to the front we noticed there was a wedding going on and they were having some photo's taken outside, the exterior looked very nice an fairly modern and the gardens were nice.

As we entered the building though everything changed, ... more

BACKGROUND
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Ahh the Britannia Country House Hotel, a couple of miles from Manchester airport, the perfect place to stay the night before jeting off on our honeymoon, thought my new wife and I in August 2006. We booked online and only paid £64 for a double room with champagne on arrival, and it looked so modern and the name country house just added to the picture in our heads what a perfect start to our honeymoon. How wrong can you get.

ON ARRIVAL AND CHECK IN
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We arrived on a Saturday afternoon having got married on the Thursday and stayed a couple of nights at the hotel we had got married in, and as we parked on the large car park to the front and walked up to the front we noticed there was a wedding going on and they were having some photo's taken outside, the exterior looked very nice an fairly modern and the gardens were nice.

As we entered the building though everything changed, the decor inside is VERY dated and tatty, and is a bit of a mish mash of heavy patterns obviously it hasn't been touched since it was built in the seventies. There was also a bit of a musty smell which was all over the hotel in the rooms as well. There were loads of kids running around in reception and we had to queue for a little while before we could check in.

We were checked in by a very pleasant polish man who's english wasn't brilliant but we got by and were told we were on the top floor, we were a bit knackered after the last few days and decieded we would go up to the room and chill out with the champagne and maybe order some room service, we had come straight from the other hotel where all our friends and family were so we just fancied a bit of peace and quiet for a while, also we were flying early in the morning.

THE ROOM
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When we got to the room via a very gloomy lift and corridors we were met with a very old fashioned and scruffy room with the same musty smell as everywhere else in the building. The bed was very uncomfortable and had a throw over it with a heavy flower pattern and about 10 cigarette burns in it. The bathroom was probably the best thing since sliced bread when it was installed in about 1972 I would estimate and nothing matched it was awfull. It was also quite, not dirty, but in need of a good clean, and it was quite dusty in the air you felt like you had to run over to the window and open it quick.

We didn't complain, maybe we should have done and possibly would of done any other time but I think we wanted everything to be perfect as it was our wedding and honeymoon and felt that if we complained then it would spoil it, so we gritted our teeth and had showers before going downstairs to check out the many bars and resturaunts that the hotel boasted, since we couldn't bring ourselves to stay in the room. The champagne was awfull too we left most of it!!

THE BARS AND RESTURAUNTS
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Unfortunately the main lobby bar, which didn't look too bad, was taken over by the wedding party we had seen on the way in and after trying to get served for quite a while we decided to try another one as there were supposed to be a couple to choose from but we ended up in the resturaunt which was just seating a hen party!! There was another resturaunt but the wedding party had or were using this so it was closed. We decided to have a seat and order some food and have a few drinks then go and have an early night.

The food was very average but was edible and we had some wine which was ok, the service wasn't brilliant but we didn't complain just didn't leave a tip. We ate what came and then decided to try and get another drink at the lobby bar and maybe sit out front as it was quite a nice evening. We waited a while and eventually got served by another polish man with bad english, however again he was very pleasant and we went to sit outside. Unfortunately a lot of people leave their cars at the hotel while they are away and a coach seems to turn up every 5 minutes to pick up or drop off and there were drunken youths and screaming kids running around everywhere you looked so we decided that to retire to the room was probably the best option.

THE NIGHTS SLEEP
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Quite a bad title for this section really as we didn't get much, the coach that picks up and drops off runs 24 hours and when it gets to the front door of the hotel it beeps its horn. Our room was right at the front nearly over the front entrance so we heard everything it was a nightmare we hardly slept at all, on top of all the noise the bed was the most uncomfortable thing we had ever come across and it must have been an original mattress from when the hotel was built. We probably managed about an hour each an then it was time to get up and go to the airport.

CONCLUSION AND FOOT NOTE
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We checked out and got in the car to drive to the airport, we had already booked a car park before the hotel so had not taken advantage of their park and ride offer, but noticed that quite a few cars on the car park had been broken in to, and since staying there have heard that this happens a lot there. We thought ourselves very lucky that ours hadn't been one of them and that we didn't park there while we were away and I wouldn't recomend doing this to anyone.

As we pulled out of the main gate we breathed a sigh of relief and vowed never to stay there again ever, it was a bad experience from start to finish and the only slightly good thing I can think of about the hotel is we met two pleasant members of staff, yes just two out of about a dozen we encountered and that it is very handy for Manchester Airport. 

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