Greene King Inns and Hotels Reviews

I visited our local pub, The Golf, with my husband, son and my son's girlfriend from the United States. We did not want to travel far this evening (29.5.22) and thought we would stay local and have a simple meal. I thought as it was a Greene King Inn it would be fine, as I have to eat Gluten-free food. I have eaten at two or three Greene King Inns before - out of Ipswich, and also In Ipswich, and there had always been a good selection of food I could eat. I have never been unhappy before. But two out of three meals were inedible! There was only one thing I remotely wanted on a very limited menu for Gluten free. It was either salad, ham egg and chips, Tomato soup or Hunter's chicken (or sandwiches with a choice of two fillings. I chose Hunter's chicken as it was the only thing resembling an evening meal. My chicken was full of skin and fat and had been cooked hard in the microwave. The sale tasted like it had dirt on it and was wilting. My coleslaw was a pile of red onion with mayonnaise added to it. My husband had a steak with a lot of fat, frozen chips and undercooked onion rings from a cheap supermarket. My son got lucky with his fried chicken, but his GF had macaroni cheese which was a pile of stodge re heated. She was far too polite to complain but ate nothing. I did complain, but first the waitress went to tell the 'chef' (frankly I could be a chef where I simply pinged something in a microwave) then questioned my guest, and came back to say the chef was happy to refund the Hunter's chicken but that was all, as my guest said she didn't feel well (the waitress said this with some self-satified smirk). She also said that it was Greene King's policy to re-heat all food in a microwave. This hasn't been my experience before, but is it is the case that they now serve sub-standard food I won't be eating there again. As for Gluten-free - my stomach is 'on fire' so I suggest it was not Gluten free after all. I did expect a full refund for the ruined evening and the poor and rude customer service. If a customer complains (and suffers illness afterwards) it should be without question. I can no longer visit my local pub, it just isn't good enough for me, and I am very disappointed, Greene King. I did not expect The Ivy, but I do expect my food to be cooked and edible.

An edit: as an update, this experience is slightly negated by the fact that Greene King have now refunded me the full price and some compensation, which restores a little faith in the brand, as I have not had a bad experience in the other Greene King inns before.

White Hart Hotel in Braintree. Was given a dog-friendly "family" room which was incredibly small. One double bed with a pull-out couch for a second bed. The carpet had stains all over it, the bathroom was tiny and falling apart, not to mention poorly cleaned. There was no bath, only a shower cubicle which was tucked behind a half-wall and really dark. The toilet had been used, and not flushed. The carpet was covered in stains, and one of them looked like cat sick. The room was sitting right above a noisy generator which was shaking the room, and was so loud it immediately triggered my tinnitus. There was no way we'd get any sleep in there. That was Room 26. We then asked politely if they'd consider letting us move rooms. We were then moved to a non-family-sized room (Room 8) which was at the opposite end of the hotel, by the high street. We were woken in the early hours by drunk people shouting right outside the window. There was a rather large radiator in the bedroom, right next to the bed, set on a high heat which we struggled to turn down, so we roasted for the first night. I had a terrible night's sleep. There was no air conditioning and you could not open the window, as the external one was a sash window and had had the lift-handles removed. The internal window had had the latches removed, and also couldn't be opened. There was an awful lot of noise coming from the function rooms which were directly next door and below the second room we occupied, and during the night we could hear doors constantly slamming as none of them were fitted with soft-close apparatus like you see in most hotels. The room itself was falling apart - large cracks in the plaster, poorly painted, poorly joined coving with massive gaps, stained carpet, inch-thick dust everywhere and a dilapidated bathroom. The fixtures and fittings were incredibly old and poorly kept, the shower curtain wasn't clean (it wasn't a glass screen, it was fabric and had not been washed), the grout had black mould all over the place (which they had painted over), there were water stains on the floor that had not been cleaned since the previous occupant, and the shower curtain railing was for a corner bath, but had been installed over a straight bath so you had the wet thing stuck to your ass throughout your shower.
The restaurant booking app wasn't working properly and so we couldn't book our meals. The first night we were accommodated on arrival but the second night, they said they were fully booked so we had to eat a takeaway in our room. The food in the restaurant was a little bit grim, (some of it pre-cooked and reheated, my best guess) and I couldn't finish anything they served. Took 40 minutes to get two desserts, and they forgot to take our room discount off one of our meal bills. There were very few non-alcoholic options other than Coke-brand soda. The breakfasts were better, but most of it contained bread which I can't eat, and they were out of stock both days on the only thing I wanted. The "continental selection" is only put out once on a small stack of shelves, and it was all gone by 9am. Couldn't get proper coffee from the bar, only what came out of the heated decanters, which wasn't the best. Tolerable. The only thing giving them any stars at all is that the staff were so good with my dog. But I definitely won't be staying or dining here again I'm afraid.

We booked a night away at the above Green King Inn back in October.

Unfortunately my partner had to have a small operation, that we subsequently found out about after we had booked the above, the operation was scheduled for last Thursday, with us staying away on Saturday. Unfortunately the operation was rescheduled due to a Covid outbreak in the hospital, meaning that we were unable to take the room up as she had to self isolate.

We contact Green King immediately to try and reschedule the room Friday, but were told to contact the manager on Saturday, so I sent an email instead. When making the booking I had mistakenly forgotten to tick the box for re-scheduling or refund.

As a lesson to all, Greene King are now refusing to reschedule our date even though circumstances were beyond our control and Covid related. We have offered them the evidence, but unfortunately they simply don't want to know. We haven't requested a refund, all we were asking is if they could reschedule the room date for the new year and now refusing to do so.

Take heed whilst you find the room rates attractive, you will need to add on the above costs to ensure you can reschedule given the current pandemic.

The staff and service were excellent they couldn't do enough for you the food and service was excellent couldn't hope for better we enjoyed our 2 night break and would definitely go back to bridge Inn at Port sunlight thankyou to all the staff for making. It most enjoyable