Just arrived here this afternoon for a three night stay. I have booked one of the "Master Suites." They apparently have a new building and an old building, the suite I got is in the new building.

That means it has AC as well as heat; maybe the older rooms do too but I doubt I will ever find out.

The good news: The suite is large, I'd say at least 90 sqmt. The living room has a sitting area, a desk, a dining table with four chairs, and about a 44" TV. The bedroom has a king bed with a 32" or so TV that rises up at the foot of the bed. There is a large almost walk-in closet. The bathroom has two sinks, toilet, bidet, clawfoot tub, and a fairly large walk in shower.

This is a country hotel and there is lots of green all around.

I'd rate the hard product and setting as meeting luxury standards.

The bad news is that the service, staff, and maintenance most definitely do not. There are really too many problems, starting with being ignored when driving up to the portico (even though no one else was at the desk at the time). The check-in clerks seem to have been hired directly from entry level jobs at Asda. Any question I asked had to be referred on, they didn't know the answer. Even the slightest deviation from what they have been told is standard procedure is impossible.

A request for the duty manager eventually yielded a young man in his 20's with a fairly heavy Italian accent. He too, he said, had no authority to make any exceptions about anything. No waivers, no favors.

I had absolutely no sense that anyone I spoke to gave a flying whatever about what would make my stay happy. They just wanted their shifts to end.

The hotel did leave a welcome gift of English(!) sparkling wine. I found it sitting in a bucket of water. On the positive side, there was also some fruit and a few small cakes.

Two people get two sets of towels and one bar of soap by default, along with the note telling how the environment can be saved by not having sheets changed.

I asked for a mini-fridge (there isn't one in the room) and when it came it had no shelves. The bellman said they only had four and none of them had shelves, so he ended up leaving two mini-fridges. Hope no one else wants one.

Carpet in the room is fine, in the hallways it is fraying or has occasional holes.

There's more, all relatively minor, all annoying. I shudder to think what would happen if one needed real service recovery.

I'm here three nights, maybe it will get better.