Business reviews by user
1 Reviews by CarolineB
Clarice House - Colchester
Total waste of money
March 8, 2010
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17 of 27 people found this review helpful
As a group of 6, we booked a special "New year, New You" Spa day for a friends 30th Birthday. We booked this experience in January 2010 and attended in March. All the treatment times and lunch was booked in January. I have attended Clarice House in 2008 on a Bliss package and had a fantastic time. I recommended this spa for my friends 30th on this basis. However it appears that the current levels of service have fallen short of required expectations.
On arrival, the spa reception was hectic; we were taken upstairs for the first treatment of the day. During this treatment, two of us, received a handwritten note under the treatment door informing us, that our other treatments had been cancelled. Another of our party was then informed that our 1pm lunch was now pushed back to 2.30pm.
We then had to visit reception to talk to Val, the Spa Manager about the rest of the day. She was unapologetic about cancelling the treatments and informed us we were 'lucky' to have any treatments at all, as some of the therapists were off sick. We accepted that this was unfortunate, but then requested a refund for the two girls affected - as two of the girls were not having a manicure or pedicure. Val refused to provide any refund, telling us that refunds weren't given.
After a long, drawn out discussion, she offered the girls a nail varnish each. I was appalled at the lack of empathy for this situation. Offering a nail varnish, so the girls missing out on treatments, could paint their own nails? This in no-way compensated for the missing treatments.
This was just the start of a very bad day. We then had a discussion about moving the lunch. Considering the restaurant had our booking from January, it was completely unclear why they could not keep this booking. The restaurant manager was more approachable and at least apologised for this mistake. We had not eaten that morning, as we knew we had an early lunch for 1pm. Now putting that back to 2.30pm meant we were hungry.
We asked for anything to eat in between and were informed by Val that they were too busy to accommodate us.
Our other treatments were booked for 4pm. Now only 4 of us had treatments, one of our party decided she might aswell go home, rather than hang around for us. When it came to our afternoon time slot, the therapist informed us, that she could no longer provide both the manicure and pedicure, she could only do one. Again, no apology, it was matter of fact.
To summarise, we paid a spa day for 6 people costing over £300 for a special birthday. We received only 50% of the treatments, the lunch booking was completely changed and then our food was served late at 2.45pm!
Very disappointing.
I would visit this business again? No