Cheltfoodie9
Google
We stayed for 2 nights October in a suite in the main house . The last stopover on our trip down through France and across Spain. We stayed in both large and boutique hotels and food and ambience had been a key factor in our choice of where to stay.| Cool Rooms at Luce is described at a place to “find peace” and they describe Gastronomy as a fundamental part of the experience .||Our stay started well but then quickly went downhill in both respects we fed back on check out and also wrote to the General Manager Bruno Veiga Gonzales and sadly he hasn't bothered to respond to what was very constructive feedback. That speaks for itself , he is probably too busy dealing with events enquiries to respond to an individual guest, the experience and lack of interest when I took the time to feedback merits a poor rating. |It started so well, excellent check -in, our room was ready and we were very happy with the quality of the hotel and it felt very tranquil.||We went to the gastro bar where we had a snack of the focaccia and some Patatas Bravas which were both excellent . We ate in the Tella restaurant that evening and again food was excellent, the special of local tomato salad was outstanding and our Lubina cooked to perfection and we went to bed happy.||On Saturday it all changed; wedding guests started to arrive and we had seen the hotel had a separate event space and we hoped that the tranquility would continue.||We went out on Saturday morning and returned to the hotel and went to the Gastro Bar and that’s when we began to feel we were ‘strangers at a wedding’ when as we were relaxing having a drink there was a member of staff, 2 photographers and the bride and groom having photo’s taken in the bar next to us.||We then went to the spa and had a treatment, mine was fine but my wife's therapist was not great.||It was early evening when we returned downstairs for supper as we had a long journey ahead of us in Sunday back to the UK. We ordered drinks in the Gastro Bar and adjacent to us was an inebriated wedding guest sleeping in a chair - we felt very awkward about this and the waiter found this embarrassing we think.||We finished our drinks and when to sit in the gastro bar dining area and ordered our food - we were very clear and stated in English and Spanish that we wanted the focaccia as a starter to share, then 2 x tuna salads with a side of potato’s bravas and some fries.|The Salads arrived and they looked like they had been thrown together, we assumed a mistake had been made and everything was coming together so we waited and waited , we then asked the waiter what was happening and that we had actually ordered the salads as a main course.||He then went to the kitchen and returned 5-10 minutes later with fries, Potatas Bravas and the so called “focaccia “. It was at this point out it was very clear to us that the Gastronomy was focused on the wedding and not Hotel guests.|My wife asked for no egg or onion but to have avocado in her salad; it came with avocado but chef decided to also omit the tomatoes. My salad had the stated ingredients but was bland and poorly presented. We only ate half of the salads, they were really poor quality||The Patatas Bravas was also very poor and such a contrast to day one, dry tired potatoes that had been refreshed - most village tapas bars would have done better .|My biggest issue was the focaccia which was not focaccia - it was two pieces of the standard artisan bread cut to look like the “stated” dish with some cheeses and minuscule pieces of sun dried tomato. It was disgusting and we pointed this out to the waiter and he acknowledged it was not focaccia, and he took it away. I’m astounded how a Hotel of such advertised levels of Gastronomy thinks this is acceptable. Better to say we don't have any foccacia …||The waiter took the “focaccia” off the bill , that is not the point, we didnt want free food we wanted quality food and that is what they purport to provide .||Throughout all of this we are in the midst of wedding guests going to and forth so we decided to retire to our room. We were then subjected to loud noises, of screaming and shouting until past midnight, somewhat different to the promise of being able to “find peace”. We eventually went to sleep in the early house ahead of our journey back to UK. At the very least I would question why the wedding guests were not told to keep the noise down or return to the events area.||If you are having a wedding at a small hotel you either need to make sure it is very self contained or they have to take over the whole hotel. If they can’t control or contain an event they should have contacted us in advance & given us the option to stay elsewhere.||So our final 2 nights of our extended trip went from being exactly what we had expected to giving us the worst dining experience and nights sleep on our whole trip.||It’s not acceptable and in our eyes very disingenuous to treat Hotel Guests as second class guests to a more commercially lucrative wedding. Its greedy.||So you are thinking of booking here or have booked I would strongly reccomend you check if they have an event at the same time
