Dunchurch Park is ok but not special (Dunchurch Park Hotel (Rugby))

Member Name: KELLY170980

Product:	Dunchurch Park Hotel (Rugby)
Date:	12/03/09 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The beautiful gardens

Disadvantages: just nothing special, nothing to make them shine out from the rest

Dunchurch Park is a beautiful; Grade II listed Manor House, which is on the outskirts of rugby in a village called Dunchurch which is a lovely village with plenty to offer and some great restaurants and stores. Dunchurch Park is a hotel, conference facility and training centre.

It provides the venue to many events also that some of the locals find interesting such as wedding shows, clairvoyant evenings, charity evenings, themed events, murder mysteries etc etc, so its always worth checking out there website or the local papers if you indeed do live local to the venue as they tend to put on a few events each year.

It is owned and run by the signature group, which in my experience demand a high level of service and quality from their staff and venues, although this venue I feel is not quite to the standard of others in this chain.
Being a local myself I have experienced many sides of the services provided by Dunchurch Park, such as..

Conferences through work
Teambuilding days
Private dining (Sunday lunches)
Weddings
Fairs such as wedding and craft

So I feel that I have experienced a lot of what Dunchurch park has to offer and to be honest, I have found it very good on most of the occasions I have visited there in may ways, although there is nothing that shines out at all, its just good....I hope that makes sense.

The hotel is set in the most gorgeous gardens and grounds. I think this is a huge reason on why many couples choose this venue for their weddings as the picture opportunities are brilliant, there is one particular room, which I think is called the garden room, which overlooks the gardens, and I went to a wedding there a few years ago and the pictures the photographer took of the guests on the patio area, of the garden rooms were quite simply stunning. There was one particular picture of my friend (the bride) sitting on the steps that lead down to the gardens and it's exquisite.

The food also served at the wedding was beautiful, we had a buffet style wedding breakfast which was really nice, it was mainly cold meats and salads, pastas and rice's etc, but the way it was presented was stunning, dressed hams and turkeys. Although my friend did comment on it should be nice due to how much it cost, I must admit when it comes to this venue, you don't really go there unless you have a bob or two or its free or paid for by your company.

The hotel is very beautiful inside also and has retained many of its original features, such as its wooden panelling, open fires, gorgeous ceilings and architrave and daedo rails etc but also is very neutral and modern in its colours choices and furniture.

The hotel has 89 bedrooms and although I have never had the pleasure of staying at the hotel, I have heard from other friends and colleagues that the rooms were ok, and that the breakfast was quite nice. The hotel also has many other facilities including a tennis court, croquet lawn, putting green, gymnasium, ropes course and dedicated outdoor activity area, I think these are used a lot for the teambuilding activities they offer in conjunction with the conference facilities.

I have on many occasions attended conferences and meetings at Dunchurch Park and I must say that they were always very nicely organised, with plenty of refreshments and equipment and the lunches I have received on the several times I have eaten there were to a good standard, nothing special but the buffets have been nice, cold meats, salads, bread, jacket potatoes and that sort of thing.

The staff again have always been very efficient and helpful and to be honest they are what you would expect of a establishment of this standard, but I do feel that they could be more friendly and be a little more effort into the service they provide, its ok being served nicely and being given what you ask for but if you do not get a smile, or some kind of personality it just does not feel the same, it just feels a little robotic.

Anyway I especially like the wedding shows and craft fairs that I have attended there, they are always well organised and very informative which lots on show. The last wedding show I attended with my sister was brilliant, there was lots of freebies, and on arrival each bride to be was given a goodie bag packed full of goodies, such as make up brushes, soups, samples of perfumes etc ( I may have accidently on purpose pretended I was getting married.... Again!!)

The car parking facilities are good and also when there are events on they tend to have car park assistants on duty to direct you to a space and to help you out.

***Prices***

This venue is not the cheapest available in the area, and i'm not sure of exact prices of all services but I have listed below some of the prices I know.
Price of the hotels vary from what room you would like to from which website you are booking through or whether you book direct with the hotel but the average price seems to be around about 95.00 gbp for a double room for two with breakfast.

The wedding shows and fairs always tend to be free to attend.

Conferences again depend on what you need, etc lunches, refreshments etc, but I think the times I used this venue in the past I paid around about 45.00 per head


Overall it's a nice place and many locals think a lot of the place, mainly I feel due to the surrounding. In my opinion it's nice and I defiantly would not say I have found anything to be that terrible about the place, but I do feel there is many other places in the area that offer more for the money you pay.
I also feel that it's not as friendly or the atmosphere is not as pleasant as other hotels and conferencing facilities I have used, and again I can not pinpoint anything in particular to back this up other than it feels cold in some kind of way.

Summary: Its all just ok, the staff, the food, the surroundings etc