Mercure Blackburn Dunkenhalgh Hotel & Spa 4 stars

Quite a good stay

Although the room allocated was subject to noise from the kitchen ventilation and air conditioning condensing units on the flat roof outside our window, another room was quickly offered, which was good. The receptionist offered to assist us with the luggage transfer, for which we thanked her but declined the offer. The meals in the restaurant were good and well presented and reasonably priced.

Good event. Sharing food board and 5 gins. Unfortunately using the bar before and after, I have mixed feelings. At the end of the evening the price for the same drink had gone up over a pound and the bar maid was very grumpy. Felt like I was being ripped off and whatever happened to ‘service with a smile’.

I stay very regularly and always find the experience enjoyable. Staff are excellent. I like the refurbed rooms.

You made our visit very memorable due to the excellent service

Stayed over for a wedding and absolutely loved it. Very relaxing, nice newly painted room. Lovely staff.

Everything was good thank you

Very good

Staff were lovely and helped to make my mum's birthday a weekend to remember. Thank you so much. We loved the afternoon tea and mum was very relaxed after her spa treatment. We would love to come back again later in the year. X

So, not at all pleasant to be greeted by workmen painting and a strong smell of paint whilst approaching the room! We should have been warned of this prior to stay, then we could decide if we still wanted to proceed!! The room itself was ok though, not as high standard as I would expect, BBC channels weren’t working on the tv, kettle was dirty as was shower!

I have been staying here for many years and Ivan always makes time to speak to most guests. This is always our first choice when in Blackburn especially as it’s stated it’s new refurbishment. Another Great Stay Ivan and all staff.

Given this is meant to be a 4* hotel my expectation was high. At check-in Sarah was neither helpful or happy, very put out that I did not want to open a tab on the room. Had to ask directions to room. Room was OK, why is there NO info on restaurant times and pool times, had to go back to reception to ask, as no phone in room.Tv had no sound on most of the channels. Also why on earth is there no shelf in the shower??? I had pre booked a 2 course meal as I was on a time limit I asked for both starter and main to come at the same time, what part of this the waitress didn't understand I don't know as it didn't happen. Ordered garlic and tarragon mushrooms which on arrival had neither garlic or tarragon, asked as to why, I was told this had been made buy a different chef the day before!!!! The duck for main was edible, should have come with a steak knife, and why no option for chips or potatoes, such a tiny meal. Next is the pool which was OK but the changing room showers were absolutely disgusting, one in particular had mould all up the walls and in the tray, not been cleaned in a long time. Now on to the staff, I have never seen so many miserable people. Not one of them made me feel welcome, it would appear that unless you are in a suit they don't want to know. I myself am 54, retired and spent thousands at the stamp auction being held at the hotel, maybe I should have worn a suit to show I have money!!!!!!!! This was the ideal place to stay for the auction but this experience has really put me off returning.

I found Interacting with staff to book the rooms was problematical and I felt like they were making all the “issues” my fault. Firstly, I could not book the three rooms I wanted on either the Hotel website or any 3rd party website. The reason seemed to be because I wanted two different types of rooms for three parties of people – fair enough, I used the telephone. There was an issue with the credit card in that they wanted a “credit card authorisation form” completing and emailing back. They sent me a “word” document which, when I interacted with it, lost its coherence. I completed it and returned it but could not sign it (it’s an email and I don’t have a scanner). I was advised that was not satisfactory. I offered to make the payment over the telephone but they said they could not do that. Instead, they told me I would have to pay on arrival – fair enough. I booked the three rooms and received email confirmation for two, but not three. I emailed back and got a reply that the person was out of the office until the next day – so I telephoned. When I did, I explained I was missing an email confirmation and was advised it would be re-sent immediately. (which makes it my fault for not receiving it – herein starts the difficulties). I did not receive the missing email but, instead, received copies of the first two. I telephoned again and said I had received the same two and the lady was quite “off” and said “I thought you said you wanted those two again” (I could hear the annoyance in her voice). She said she would “re-send” the missing one again (once more, insinuating it is my fault). The missing email arrived. On arrival at the hotel, I presented my credit card immediately and was told that it was not necessary as the details were on the system. I could not understand the difficulties previously with either the word document or the telephone details. However, fair enough? After I was handed the room key I was given a “sales pitch” to book in for dinner – probably wouldn’t have fussed too much but there was a queue of people behind us and they were waiting to check-in. It was embarrassing to endure and I was surprised that it was pitched at all (as opposed to “offered”). We went to our room. We had paid for upgraded rooms (2) which felt "tired" and did not look like the pictures on the website. Some TV channels were not working and, when we asked, we were told the local transmitter station was being reprogrammed and would be down for up to three weeks. (The same missing channels were playing on the TV in the bar area). The rooms "felt" dirty. The Wi-Fi was extremely poor – it was hideously slow and seemed to take an infinity to load even simple pages. Additionally, the login feature is incompatible with “Google chrome” and I was not able to use my laptop (Google chrome rejected the network as unsafe with no option to override it). There were no clues left for us as to what the Nespresso pods were (strong, weak, de-caf etc.). There was no buffet breakfast on the first morning (fair enough) and we had a menu to order from - on the second day there WAS a buffet breakfast (which had far less than the printed menu) - sadly this breakfast was mostly eaten by an entire football team that got there just before us (fair enough) but there was no alternatives for us and we could not order from the menu (fish or eggs) - not even those items which were not in the buffet. An area was being painted by decorators. This was at the base of the stairs and lifts that led up to our rooms. They did put polythene down on the floor to protect the carpet but, alas, not on the stairs. This meant that people walked through their paint spillages (on the polythene) and then walked up the unprotected stairs. We were careful to avoid the marked floor area but, people before us had not been. Checkout also proved embarrassing and difficult. I went to pay for the three rooms (you will recall I tried to pay when I arrived and was told it was not necessary). The receptionist asked me which room and I gave her all three room numbers. She looked on the screen and advised me I had one of the numbers wrong (fair enough, perhaps I had). She then took a pen and paper and, in front of me on the desk, asked me for my email address to send the invoice to. I have no access to my emails away from home and I did want to see them before I paid the bill to ensure I was paying the right thing. I asked if I could have them printed now …. She told me “unfortunately we don’t have a printer”. I was confounded with that and mused the thought for a moment. Before I could muster a response she “tutted” and said “never mind, I will email them to myself and print them out somewhere else in the building – I will have to go and get them”. I was aghast but silent (I don’t know what anyone can say to that). She said “take a seat”. There were no seats available (fair enough). Without apparently moving, I observed (from a short distance) the receptionist tapping away on the computer. Momentarily she looked over to me (so I approached the counter) and she presented me with the 3 invoices. Odd, since there was no printer. I decided I just wanted the experience to end so I made no complaint. I looked over the papers and they were in accordance with the booking/rooms. I took out my credit card and said “Thank you” whilst handing the card over. She declined the card and said “I have already processed the payment sir”. I was utterly shocked. I feel like I was punished “from start to finish” because I made a booking over the telephone which went awry when a confirmation email was not sent. On the positive side; The Barman (I regret I don’t recall his name but he was around 30 and bearded) was extremely efficient, professional and polite. Additionally, the (apparent) head waiter at breakfast was also professional, courteous and pro-active – to the point he noted that our party was waiting for late morning service at the bar (which was unattended). He took possession of the issue and served us himself – I thought that was a step beyond and certainly worthy of positive comment. Lastly, I would not have bothered to make this review (I would prefer to just leave matters as they are and “move on”) but I received a request to do so – I thought then that it would be reasonable to draw these problems to the attention of the hotel. The purpose of our stay was to enable us to attend a funeral (immediate family member) as we live elsewhere in the UK. Accommodating adversarial staff was extremely difficult.

Started with rude person on reception. We arrived at 1.45 to be told rudely we were early and couldn’t check in until 2. Told to go to bar area get a drink and wait. Did this and no one at the bar so we had to go hunt someone down from the restaurant. Went back at at 2.15 to be told they are busy cleaning rooms. No apology and very rude again. We Had to go to another guests room to change and leave our bags as we were attending a wedding and needed to be ready at 2.30. Went to go to room after midnight to be faced with building site and no entry signs. Had to wander around to find alternative access. Finally had to remove another no entry barrier as this was the only way to get to our room. The room was newly refurbished and lovely shame we only literally used it to sleep! Breakfast was a shambles. Food all gone, which was due to fact so busy but not replenished. Quality below average and dirty.

Living in Lancashire, I've heard of the Dunkenhalgh over the years and always had the impression that it was a quality hotel, so I was very disappointed with my actual experience. As I walked down the corridor to my room, it smelt very damp. The same was true in the room, and the room felt very cold. I switched on the electric heater, but didn't really feel any effect from it at all for several hours. I'd be surprised if anyone had stayed in this room for a while, yet the hotel had emailed me trying to sell me an early check-in facility which might not be available if I didn't act quickly! Information provided at check-in referred to a number of internal telephone numbers to contact for service, but my room didn't appear to have an internal telephone even if I had wanted to use these numbers. I queried this at Reception, and was told they would "ask Maintenance", but I didn't hear any more. I switched on the TV but there was no BBC 1 or BBC2. Maybe they hadn't bothered to retune the TVs since some channel changes took place several weeks ago. I had a bath and the water took ages to run away. When I looked at the plughole it seemed to be blocked with "gunge"! Glad I didn't pay for a late check-out, as I didn't want to stay any longer than necessary in a room that still smelt and felt damp after a night with the heater on! I didn't use the spa, restaurant or bar, so can't comment on those.