Valentines High Tea

Hello,

The service was terrible. Our waiter had no sense of placement when bringing items to our table. She brought our tea and literally just plonked it down not even placing our cups or tea pots infront of us.

We had a booking for 2 pax for afternoon tea for Valentines Day, on our tables were two packs of cutlery. The one pack had 2 forks and 2 knives. The other pack had 2 forks, a knife, a tea s**** and table s****. I’m not sure why there was this inconsistency after you take and confirm bookings via call and sms.

The service was horrible. Our waitress was never in reach and never looked over to our table. We were constantly waving at different servers to get attention. When we arrived at our table we were given afternoon tea menus - mind boggling. The booking had already been made and my preference for afternoon tea stated prior - multiple times via phone and sms.

The waiter eventually came to our table and asked us “so what would you like”. We were confused because we had booked afternoon tea.

Out of confusion, we looked intently at the afternoon tea menus and asked if we were expected to pick from the menu listings and she said “no it just comes like that, so are you going to have the afternoon tea” we were heavily disappointed at her vague approach to communication & service. We said “yes we are having afternoon tea, we don’t understand what you mean because we suspect it comes as is”. I communicated that we were ready if she would like to bring it she may do so.

My booking was for 3:30pm we arrived at 3.04 - we were told this was no problem. We got to make our order at about 3:15 and it arrived at about 4pm (it took 45 minutes to put a few cookies on 3 plates). Mind boggling.

As we were eating our treats I found a white piece of fibre in one of the cakes. Due to noone looking over or monitoring our table it took forever to get assistance. Finally someone heard my 10th “excuse me”, walked over to our table, and curiously listened as informed him that I needed a tea s**** & a cake fork due to our cutlery packs being inconsistent - mind you it had been an hour into our experience and didn’t even have the necessary cutlery. Then of course, I showed him the cake which had something like a white hair or fibre baked into it. I said to him politely “I think you might want to investigate what this could be”. This waiter left the table taking the fibre baked treat with him.

After a good while of trying to wave off flies from our treats and failed attempts at getting attention from servers to bring us something to deter the flies the manager eventually approached our table calmly sharing that the fibre was from a cleaning sponge (for example a sponge used to wipe surfaces or wash dishes)- I was not sure what to think.

He asked if I would like another one and I told him I was enjoying the cake and was sad to find foreign debris in it and so I told him I would not mind another assuming I would not find the same sort of object inside it. He later returned with a plate with 4 more little cakes and I assumed that this is the way they prefer to make up for it.

At this point I had still not received a teas**** or cake fork . My boyfriend and I had to share one tea s**** for both our cakes and stirring our tea through out the whole experience because no one cared to even check up on our table. At this point we were even still struggling with flies as servers kept rushing past us and forgetting our requests. When ever I managed to be heard after calling “excuse me, excuse me” countless times - our requests for basics were constantly forgotten or just simply took forever to be seen to.

We later ordered two glasses of wine which came in dirty glasses ( I’m talking lipstick stain, huge smudges right at the top of the bulb) and one glass of wine actually had crumbs floating around in it. We called our waiter over (after we eventually got her attention) and showed her what was wrong, she took the glasses away and in a few seconds returned with 2 sparking clean wine glasses- can’t help but wonder why we didn’t get these glasses earlier, especially since they were easily attained- however the wine had simply been poured over and thus one of the glasses still had crumbs at the bottom and floating around in it. It took forever to finally get someone’s attention to get it the 2nd replacement because she would just place things down and rush off again- we were undoubtedly an after thought for her. She would hardly confirmation of satisfaction.

After taking a walk in the garden we moved to the inside lounge - the waiter walked past us and said “oh you want the bill” when our glasses were clearly still full...

Obviously she would not have any idea of our intentions to have more drinks inside because our table was simply just checking change’ for her and we were only seen to after having to shout for the attention of other waiters. We of course told her we were going to sit inside and that we don’t want the bill.

About 20 minutes later she brought the bill to our table and said “ here’s your bill, whenever you are ready” this was the most horrid pinnacle and the last straw. We just looked at her confused because we had never asked for the bill and we were not even close to leaving.

She later learned that she placed an incomplete bill on our table because another waiter updated her that in the time that she was too busy for us we had already had more wine which we of course had to order through other waiters (as usual) - I do not appreciate someone rushing me to see to a bill, assuming my spending capacity, judging me and assuming that their tip would not be significant or dropping a bill on my table that I did not request.

After this I called over the hostess and asked for someone else to serve us . I have been a waitress before and it was NEVER acceptable to hint or just drop bills on a guest tables to rush them in order to close tables. I must also add that every time she was at out table she did not apologize for the sponge, dirty glasses, dirty wine, incorrect cutlery, bad placement of items on the table ( that we were constantly rearranging), lengthy wait time and she did not simply check in about our experience as a whole.

She would just bring whatever she had to and walk away and she would often sigh and act awkward towards us as well. She was extremely unhelpful at some point indifferent and then passive aggressive and at the expense of our entire experience UNCOMMUNICATIVE and UNFORTHCOMING about the MANY things that went wrong yesterday.

We went on to have more drinks and something to eat at the inside lounge and we closed the bill at 1044 including the tip. I tipped 10% when the new waiter brought the bill. Which I ABSOLUTELY REGRET as later I learned that this tip would still be received by the previous waiter (Nicole) whom I described in the paragraph before.

I have been a waitress before, I cleaned glasses 5 times a day and made sure to wipe them again before serving beverages in them. I worked at a 4.5 star hotel and gave my guests better service than what I experienced at your 4.6 establishment. We especially worked hard to ensure guests were happy after something went wrong with their food. A 2nd error was not an option. The fact that I went from 1 disgusting incident to another and then a disgusting gesture from an inconsiderate, impatient and rude waitress is shocking.

After closing the bill, we went to sit at the bar to have a few more drinks to try and end our night off on a more pleasant note. The bar men and our last waitress were very pleasant.

Many things can be rectified as they occur with guests in a hospitality setting but a blatant disregard at the service level for and after the range of discrepancies described above proves that myself and my guest were simply less important than the rest of your guests, just not deserving of basic kindness and equal consideration in the eyes of some of your staff. The reasons for that, I have explored privately and personally and I will not conclude that here. I sincerely hope you one day rid your establishment of this kind of culture and mindset.