New Park Manor Hotel

Wow, what a huge disappointment. Whoever did this hotel’s website was brilliant at taking flattering photos and writing estate agent-​ese in describing the place. This is the kind of place that gives English hotels a bad name. I can see easily how tourists will get taken in by the beautifully presented website and feel like they’ve been seriously ripped off when they get shown into their cupboard of a room, before being fleeced in the bar.
A lot of people come here for the spa attached to the hotel. It’s really not worth making a special journey. The spa is tiny, has very few facilities, and isn’t all that relaxing, due to the fact that there’s at least one door that slams itself shut very loudly whenever anyone walks through it.
The spa dealt with, onto the hotel.
We were put into what is basically an attic room, and a tiny one at that. To be fair, the website makes no secret of the fact that these rooms ‘feature sloped ceilings’. It doesn’t tell you, however, that you are tucked into the slope so much that even my wife, a tiny 5’0″ woman, found it difficult to navigate around the room. For my part, I was unable to stand up to pee and anyone taller than an average two year old child shouldn’t expect to be able to take a shower.
For £135 per night (and they usually ask for a minimum 2 night stay at the weekends) you really expect much better, even at a hotel that thinks it’s at the premium end of the market.
On the positive side, dinner at the hotel restaurant was passable, if overpriced by 25%. The food was well cooked and presented, although I was very disappointed that when I ordered a side dish of new potatoes I wasn’t informed that the main dish I’d ordered already came with potatoes.
For anything other than dinner, travel into one of the nearby towns and avoid eating at the hotel bar. The tuna used for one of my open sandwiches tasted like it came out of the tin, and the crab mayo for my other sandwich was massively over-​seasoned, to the point of being inedible (I’d have sent it back except that staff had disappeared, possibly out of shame). The biggest laugh came with the pretentiously arranged ‘fat chips’ that we’d ordered: 12 soggy chips for £3.
The only reason this hotel gets two stars is because it really is in a lovely location, and I suspect if you’re willing to pay through the nose, the more expensive rooms might be passable. The staff here are really friendly and willing. It’s just such a shame that the hotel they’re working at doesn’t deserve them.
If you want a good spa/​hotel, Pennyhill Park (
) is head and shoulders above this place.

In 1666, King Charles II made New Park Manor, in the heart of the New Forest and was his favourite hunting lodge on his return from exilein France apparantly!
We attended a wedding reception here and it was a really lovely venue. The grounds are probably most impressive, with a huge terrace and even a swimming pool. The reception room was rather standard in comparison to the beautiful old style rooms and ceremony room. We found the staff to be very friendly and they even gave us a lift back in the early hours as all the taxi companies had closed (it was a Sunday!).
Not the cheapest of places — x5 drinks cost £25 a roundOUCH, but a very nice venue and a lovely setting for a wedding.