Old Bank Hotel in Oxford

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comments 5

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  Christine Knaggs

  :: 12 April 2018 02:46:26

  The staff here went above and beyond to make our stay and our fifteenth anniversary extra special. They had flowers, food, and champagne in our beautiful room, they set up tours for us, and truly made us feel special throughout our stay. An amazing experience, we can't thank them enough for their hospitality.

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  Julian Harris

  :: 08 April 2018 16:04:22

  Part 1: Minus 5 Star Hospitality at the 5 Star Old Bank Hotel in the City of Oxford I recently stayed at the Old Bank Hotelin Oxford and initially my experiences of this 5 star establishment was quite positive. However, gradually this changed time in a downward direction. Once I had settled in my room with a view through the window of University Church of St Mary the Virgin, I tried to use the Ruark R1 MK3 radio but all this did was tell the time as the rest of its features were nonexistent. I then switched on the television and endeavoured to select an appropriate channel to watch. This 5 Star establishment did not feel it necessary to edit out the pornographic channels from the list. Fortunately, these numerous channels were blocked but if a child under the age of 18 was even to see these channel titles because of their parents being unaware that such material is present on these premises, the lack safeguarding damage would have been done to these children. Of course, I spoke to the hotel and even the manager Toby and they seemed to be absolutely clueless regarding the seriousnesss of my observations described above. Even I didn’t realise it until a few days later when I realised the potential repercussions of damage to children. Next, I had a meal in the restaurant. My first course was great as it was dressed crab brown and white meat. My next course was pork belly and unfortunately I didn’t examine this cut of meat more carefully. After two unpleasant mouthfuls I realised the entire cut was a wobbly “blancmange” of rancid fat with a thin streak of meat and a yucky soft streak of crackling. The only thing the restaurant did for me was a free desert and I still had to pay for the rest of the meal. I didn’t even get an apology but just to be told they would tell the kitchen. At reception I spoke to one of the female receptionists. We discussed Canada and that she would like to visit the country. I suggested to her that she could go without paying a cent by networking and arranging a work exchange with a hotel or even a chain like Fairmont. When I mentioned this to Toby he disliked the idea as there would be the potential for her not to return to the Old Bank Hotel. In my opinion this is the antithesis of good employer:employee mentorship. Other than that my overnight stay was relatively uneventful. But, the negative experiences at this establishment started again when about 2 weeks later I took my sister there for a meal in their restaurant. Again, I had the crab, but the dish was completely different and it took me a while to work out what that was. The white meat was not fluffy and fresh and stunning and last time there was lots of it, this time they had heavily loaded this part of the dish with cheap mayonnaise to increase the financial profits on the dish as a whole. When I pointed this out to the waiter he did not apologise but said they always measure portion sizes by weight. Well, fluffy white crab meat weighs a lot less than cheap mayonnaise so in my opinion the kitchen were intentionally defrauding the customer. After about 1 hour and 15 minutes of standing at reception, I requested that they give me and my sister a complimentary room for the night, especially as my sister and actually myself were exhausted. All they offered was a complimentary taxi to take us home over 30 miles away but the next day I would have to find my own way and my own way at my own financial expense to return the next day to pick up my car. However, I then negotiated with the head receptionist that by 21:30 that the hotel would give me that complimentary room. But, when 21:30 came that offer was taken away and I had to wait until ~22:45 when the driver of the parked car behind me returned, got a token without any interrogation whatsoever from the hotel and drove away. And the hotel gave me absolutely nothing for this horrendous and shear lack of 5 star hospitality. All they said was that they would tell the manager about this and that they would think about giving me a complimentary room in the future. Part 2 to come.

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  Vanessa Mills

  :: 06 February 2018 22:23:33

  Excellent hotel- staff were knowledged, polite and happy to help. Parking and good restaurant - would definitely recommend. Very central

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  Rebecca Manvi

  :: 23 January 2018 13:25:45

  Please do read this full review, it is long l, yet important. I need to tell you why you should NEVER give The Old Bank your card details in my opinion. The facts: - We stayed at The Old Bank for my Father's 70'th birthday - We have stayed before and it has been a good standard - My family and I are pretty easy going people Here is where it went wrong. I had ordered a bottle of champagne, which due to lunch plans I had to cancel before we arrived by phone, the polite Receptionist said no problem at all. All fine. Then when we opened the room later there was a bottle of champagne there with a compliments note from reception / enjoy on us - sounds nice right? However, when we then checked out the champagne was on our bill, we queried it and they removed (a simple mistake I'm not worried about), but once I had left, I noted on the card receipt it had been added again even though removed from the itemised bill. So we called to clarify, no answer from management that night. So they are charging cards as they decide and not matching them to bills / invoices. But here is the best / most insulting bit! The next evening, I received the rudest email from the 'Head of Reception' accusing me of stealing it. Obviously he wasn't counting on me having the phone call logs or keeping the compliment slips which I sent back as evidence! Here are some of the highlights from his mail as direct quotes:. - "....Attempts to discover who would make such a generous offer, and on whose authority, yielded no answer. No member of management had authorised such a ‘gift’ and no member of staff would presume to overstep the mark in this way. I have spoken to each of my colleagues, none of whom have any knowledge of this alleged conversation. I understand you were also unable to clarify who it was you had spoken to? - I trust my staff implicitly. They are professional, polite, diligent and honest enough to admit to having made a mistake. When they collectively and individually deny any knowledge of the circumstances described, I am inclined to believe them. This, coupled with the fact that you did indeed take the Champagne with you, leads me to reverse the £60.00 refunded to your card yesterday. Please find attached a receipt for £60.00, for your records." Lots of inaccuracies there, I didn't say anything to that tune, so someone has changed the story. Needless to say, once proof (call log and compliment note) was sent, they massively back tracked and the email changed tone and started with - "I do not quite know where to begin, but naturally offer sincere apologies for my misunderstanding of this situation. I am mortified to have misapprehended the circumstances and badly misjudged what had actually transpired." This 'senior' member of staff, then goes on to blame his staff - great management right? "It appears I was far too trusting of our ability to fulfil a simple request. I am not attempting to shift the blame, but is evident that this failure led to my later misunderstanding." In conclusion, no compensation was offered for being so rude or ruining an expensive weekend, just "Opps, please accept our apologies"! In other news, their lift wasn't working for my 70 year old parents (staying on the top floor) and their food was absolutely awful, but those are secondary issues I can live with. Messing around with card payments and accusing customers (!) based on fabricated evidence because they can't manage their staff properly I can't. Please, please don't give The Old Bank your card and let them preauthorise it, in my experience there appears to be some serious abnormalities over how they believe they can use it. Just warning others, pick another hotel for a special occasion.

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  Kevin Nisbet

  :: 25 October 2017 14:10:20

  Great Atmosphere, Lively but still comfortable. Food? Memorable. Service? Legendary. Location? Epic.