Mercure Burton upon Trent Newton Park Hotel

We stayed for 2 days over Christmas. The staff all worked incredibly hard, were cheerful, helpful & accommodating. The general areas of the hotel were lovely & had character. The grounds were picturesque & well maintained. The room we were in had a lovely view but needed attention, we only had 1 chair & 1 bedside cabinet, apart from that the room was comfortable. The food on offer was plentiful and delicious. Wine was expensive & not very palatable. Overall we had an amazing break & would like to thank all the staff for making our Christmas so memorable.

We went for a big family party and the hotel is a lovely old building with a nice garden. The service from the staff from check in to check out was excellent. We had a large family room which was nice and clean, but it was looking a little tired as was other rooms. But is an old hotel I suppose and it does have character. The bar ran out of ingredients for popular cocktails very early but the food was great. We had breakfast in the morning which was a buffet style and probably the best I have had. The only real big problem with our stay (which we accept was a one off but it still happened) was they were unlucky enough to have a broken waste water pipe outside. This meant most of the downstairs of the hotel had an awful smell. It would not put us off coming back but it wasn't the nicest aroma to be at a party.

I really hate leaving bad reviews but this '4 star' hotel serving up subpar facilities and food really needs some work. Our first room was awful: very damp, smelly, stains all over the walls and ceilings, mould around the bath and damp stains in the shower curtain and lampshade in the room, as well as the nets on the windows. There was also loads of flies (both dead and alive) all around the room, alongside all the dust. We complained to reception and they gave us a couple of other options for rooms, neither of which were that great but we chose an option that didn't smell as damp as the first. There were still lots of flies, and the ceiling in the bathroom was peeling with the damp patches, but wasn't as bad. We went to the bar area for a while and then for food in the restaurant (which was okay, but unfortunately seemed microwaved and cheap cook-from-frozen pizza). Upon returning to our new room, we got into bed and discovered a huge spider (the biggest I've ever seen) in the bed covers, and it actually bit my partners ankle. After this, we felt so uncomfortable in the room, that around 1am we checked out of the hotel and found somewhere else to stay. We didn't get to try the breakfast that was on offer since we had already gone elsewhere. A terrible experience, and the worst place I've ever stayed (which includes shared hostels in various places around the world). I would like to add though that the staff were very apologetic and tried their best to help us, but unfortunately there weren't many rooms left due to a wedding being hosted.