Meon Valley Marriott Hotel & Country Club

I love chain hotels; I just do. I like the comfort of walking into a brand name in any city in the world and maintaining some (albeit rudimentary) sort of uniformity, business culture, and standard. It’s important, particularly if you travel often, to have a base. I like what our Mormon friend, JW Marriott created… I am normally more than 4-​stars pleased with the Marriotts I have been to across several countries. This was unfortunately a bit of an exception.
The Meon Valley Marriott barely feels like a Marriott at all. It has a country club feel (the name is a give away) with lunching ladies and golf courses overflowing with pink team jacketed individuals retreating to the restaurant adjacent to the 36-​hole hilly pro course. The place is confused, drawing a crowd ranging from those seeking a week long escape in the form of a spa resort (note the large pool and excellent spa and gym facilities and did I mention the golf course) to groups of businessmen who commute to cities nearby.
I am a bit biased because there was literally nothing within walking distance aside from 2 pubs which are both a trek by foot (one is by footpath near the road, the other is a 18 minute walk across a no-​mans-​land strip of patchy farmland and uncultivated fields). Hope you like taxis and hotel food. Nothing but hotel food. I was forced to take all my meals in the Marriott. I tried ¾ths of the Sandwiches on the menu for lunch, my Cheddar and Branston pickle sandwich particularly lacking in pickle flavor or any flavor for that matter. My steak and blue cheese and caramelized onion on multigrain bread was lovely, but it took almost 30 minutes to come out. I cheered myself up with my first ever Shandy. To be fair, the breakfast here is pretty great, though I was craving the advertised omelette and the omelette guy was never around.
There is no cell phone reception in any of the rooms or hallways… which I assume is super helpful to those businessmen who have to communicate well into the night when necessary. At first I thought it was just our pals at Vodafone, but soon was relieved but chagrined to hear from others’ experience that it was all networks. Again, super helpful. The TV had barely half of the 35 channels promised as most were black screens staring at me with ‘no signal’ written across if you were lucky. The place is a maze as well, not only horizontally but vertically, requiring you to go up and down several mini-​flights of stairs before reaching your room. Pay close attention to the numbered room signs… you’ve need them.
Finally, the staff just does not seem to give any damns. No damns are given here, which is in stark contrast to the friendly, helpful, and accommodating Marriott staff I have encountered in the past. I usually check into the hotel ahead of my partner with the proper booking reference and corresponding credit card. The receptionist basically treated me as if I was an intruder or imposter, refusing to let me go into a room we booked after my long trip there. She pointedly asked me in the first person plural whether ‘we were changing the name on the reservation’. I had to wait upstairs in the restaurant until my other half came from work. Upstairs they also asked for my room number, which I wasn’t assigned… Good job making me feel awkward in your lovely resort. Every time I would come into the restaurant, there was no one around to even hand me a menu and after standing there for several minutes, I would have to go to the bar in the very back and stand in a queue to just get a menu. Once, when we were ordering pizza, the waitress looked at us in the eye and continued having a conversation. Our room service for veggie pizza took 50 minutes. I have never heard of it taking that long. in that time, I could have taken a taxi and bough a pizza from the nearest village. I could have made one myself. Though to be fair, this Spinach and Goats Cheese pizza was definitely THE best vegetarian pizza I have ever had. Whenever I would go down with my boyfriend for breakfast, they would ask if I had a separate room number, as if I wasn’t basically canoodling with him in front of them? And upon checking out they tried to charge for wi-​fi though it was included in our package/​code and they charged me extra for breakfast, claiming the room reservation said it had 1 person in the room even though we booked two, were given 2 keys, and 3 out of the 4 mornings we had breakfast together were correctly charged. Also, they just didn’t know anything about anything that surrounded the hotel. Both members of staff on duty thought the nearest pub was a 30 minute walk through swampland.
So yea, didn’t leave me with splendid memories, though the grounds are lovely. I realize that complaining about a country club/​resort is a 3^rd world problem, but I just had a ton of issues with this place. And for what it charges and the lovely facilities it possesses, it should really work on its customer service.

Pros
Friendly Staff!
Good Sized Rooms
Restaurants and Bar with outside garden (fourth Floor)
Nice looking Golf course
Gym and pool
Decent food
And they have Stella on draft a win win.
Free Sky Sports
Cons
Expensive Wireless costs — as expected
Needs some TLC on the décor, I mean Marriott should be luxury, only place I felt this was when i was in bed scattered with all those Duck feather pillows and brilliant white sheets.
As in a whole the experience was Good.

Pros:
Very nice staff
Decent sized rooms
Great workout facilities (that also double as a gym to which you can buy a membership)
36 holes of golf
Cons:
In the middle of nowhere. So… yeah. Nearest (small) towns are Bishop’s Waltham and Wickham, so you’ll need to go there to escape Marriott food. (I was staying on business, so I think escape is the right word.)
Breakfast can be very crowded on the weekends and there is limited staff, so usually there’s a wait, even with the overflow room.

My company’s office was in Whiteley & this was the closest Marriott that I could find without driving on the motorway. Super nice hotel, good breakfast buffet — offers lots of traditional American (English) options and UK (English) options. The beds were really comfortable, room service wasn’t bad, hotel staff was nice, they like Americans — it was everything I’d expect from a Marriott; rarely do you let me down Marriott!