Malmaison Hotels
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Malmaison Oxford
I booked this for my wife's significant birthday as I wanted something different. It was expensive at £821 for two nights including breakfast & dinner one night but it had loads of character and in a central location. The good: Nice hotel in well converted prison. Lots of original features & character. Central location. Easy access to on foot to city centre, shopping & railway. The let downs: Prior to arrival, I had to phone to book parking as there was no way to do this on the website when booking the room. On arrival, the receptionist wanted to charge me £101 but didn't know what for when I quizzed her. I knew I had to pay for the parking but that should have been £57 for two nights. In the end, it was decided that I should pay for the parking on check out. Apparently, my booking hadn't been loaded onto the system properly. As I had prepaid for dinner in the hotel, I asked the receptionist what that meant - was it a special menu we had to choose from? What about wine - a special wine list? The receptionist didn't know the answers so after checking if we could eat at the restaurant either night, we decided to go to our room & sort out the dinner questions in the restaurant later. On arrival to the room (129), the room was pleasant and other than a couple of short & curlys in the basin (yuk!), seemed well appointed with everything you'd expect in a 4* hotel. We opted to have dinner in the restaurant on our first night so wandered down to the lower level at approx 7:20pm. On arrival in the restaurant, it became apparent it was very busy and we should have booked a table. It would have been useful if the receptionist had mentioned that when we checked in. We were given a table but asked if we'd mind vacating by 8:30pm. We said OK as long as they could serve us promptly. Dinner service was not bad considering but the staff were clearly very busy and understaffed. As a result, we had starters and mains although my side of chips didn't arrive until after I'd finished my main so I ended up having a plate of chips on their own. The salt cellar on our table & the next table were both empty so we went without rather than worry about it. Again, the staff didn't seem to know what the pre-booked dinner deal meant so we were advised to book it to our room and sort it out on check out. We ran out of time for desert as it was now 8:30pm so we retreated to our room for the night. On the up side, the food that we did have was amazing! It then became apparent that the room I'd booked (a superior double cell) only had a double bed. This was surprising given the cheaper rooms all had either queen or king size. I'm 6'4" so this makes for an uncomfortable night for both of us because I end up sleeping diagonally which doesn't leave much room for my wife. The second night, we solved this by extending the bed with a chair & cushions so it was much better but not ideal. Other things about the room: Nice waterfall power shower but controls were very sensitive so was difficult to get just the right temperature. The shower stopped after a few minutes then restarted a few seconds later. We quickly got used to the fact when it stopped it came back freezing cold then boiling hot before the temperature stabilised again. The shower was also fixed height which was only just OK for me without having to duck. In the bathroom there was also an exposed wire sticking out of the wall under the wash stand. Hopefully it was disconnected but I didn't poke it to find out. Also, the towels had a hint of deep fat fryer smell to them. In the bedroom one of the power sockets on the wall was also loose. A number of lights in the room didn't work but there were enough that did so it wasn't really an issue. There was also a smell of drains when the bathroom door was first opened after being shut all night. The next morning, breakfast was very disappointing. Lots of items on the buffet were low or ran out and when refreshed, there was a rush of bodies stocking up quickly before they ran out again. To be honest, we had a much better breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express where we paid less than 10% of the price for a room including breakfast. Service was slow (45 mins for tea & toast after multiple reminders) and no mention of hot food until we asked if we could have a menu. The final morning of our stay & breakfast was much better and more relaxed. The waiter even apologised for the service the previous morning and the evening that we ate in the hotel. It's a nice hotel but it's let down by the staff. Not anything against any of the staff themselves. They were all polite and helpful however they could obviously do with more training & more staff to run this hotel. When we checked out, we paid for the parking but refused to pay the optional service charge for the dinner that had been added automatically. The poor receptionist had only been there a week so I didn't feel it appropriate to answer anything other than "fine, apart from the service in the restaurant", when she asked how our stay had been. I would have contacted Malmaison directly with the content of this review rather posting it here if there had been a contact us button or similar on their website but I could not find such a button or link. In summary, this could be a great hotel but it is currently vastly overpriced and under staffed.