NO booking - dissapointing stay

When we arrived we were told by reception that they had no record of our booking and blamed us for not confirming. We had an email from offpeakbooking clearly confirming the booking. Then we were left waiting for ages and told there was no room for us. Then the manager came and blamed us again, she finally found a room for us but didn't offer much of an apology. We were made to feel as if it was our fault, when it was clearly a fault of their system and staff. We had to eat in the bar as no reservation available in the restaurant due to their booking error. We had gone to that hotel specifically to celebrate a special occassion and were left extremely dissapointed. Breakfast was chaotic with staff not knowing what was going on, we asked one person who sent us to another who conseqently back to the first. Unfortunately, we were glad to leave and would certainly never return.

Review of all issues

First impressions were very good, it was downhill after that. Our dinner on our day of arrival was included in the package, it would have been very disappointing if we had to pay! The pool, sauna and steam room were good, the sun loungers left a lot to be desired, some of the pads were torn and very badly stained

Customer service was very poor, we called for room service and got no reply, to order food by room service we had to go to reception to find no customer service assistant at the reception desk, we had to knock on the office door to which a man looking half asleep appeared! He took the order and apologised. This is unacceptable for a four star hotel

Also upon arrival we were asked to present a bank card so a holding fee of 100 could be secured. It was explained to us that this holding fee would appear on our bank account the next day, 7 days later we are still waiting for this 100 to be repaid, it would be interesting to see how much interest the Crown Plaza have accrued on this 100 along with every other guests holding fee!!! I may do a freedom of information request

Also, we wanted to book a table in the restaurant on the Friday night of our stay only to be told there was nothing available, however it was very clear from where we were sitting in the bar area there were plenty of spare tables, it would seem it was due to lack of staff and poorly trained staff