Mercure Aberdeen Ardoe House Hotel And Spa

This hotel screams of former glory that has been ruined by poor management. I booked one night here as a special birthday present for my boyfriend. I called up in advance to arrange something for the room (e.g. chocolates, a cake, balloons, or rose petals) which I have done at many other hotels and never been charged a penny. At Ardoe, I was charged £10 for something called a 'chocolate plate', which turned out to be 3 stale, selection box chocolates on a plate that said 'Happy Birthday' in chocolate on it, plus a half-deflated balloon that had clearly been used before (who puts 3 chocolates on a plate for 2 people anyway). Based on the advertising, I pictured a romantic weekend relaxing by the pool, recieving spa treatments, using the sauna, sipping cocktails, and reading our books. Granted, it was Easter weekend so I should have expected more people, I wasn't expecting the whole hotel to be very much geared towards families with young kids. The pool is used for swimming lessons most of the day (from 9am onwards at weekends), and none of the staff members could give us a straight answer about when the facilities were even available. We heard 3 different pool opening/closing times from 3 different staff members. (It turns out last entry is 8:30pm, not 9:15pm as advertised). It was impossible to relax because the pool was full of children screaming and splashing anyway. I couldn't get any spa treatments as I wasn't aware you had to pre-book them (which was maybe on me, but I should have been informed when I booked). As for the staffing, the customer service was absolutely non-existent (and I blame management for this for poor training), when we went to reserve a table for dinner, two senior staff members at reception had a full conversation in front of us about how they were understaffed, everything was going wrong, there was a room with a toilet blocked, and another room was "filthy". We reserved our dinner table but when we showed up an hour later for dinner we were told our reservation didn't exist. In terms of drinks, I paid £16 for a pint of Corona (served in a Becks glass) and a single gin and tonic (with no lime/lemon), which is an outrageous price for anywhere outside of London. The bar was covered in empty glasses as well, and there was no table service, also indicating understaffing. We tried to order a negroni at dinner but the server hadn't heard of that cocktail. We then ordered two glasses of champagne to celebrate the birthday, and prosecco arrived. We pointed out the mistake but everyone seemed too rushed/exhausted to do anything about it. At this point we had given up too. The food was also substandard and overpriced, with very few vegetarian options. When the server asked if we'd like dessert, she responded "no" for us before we'd even had a chance to respond! I think she read our minds, but so much for upselling. We had planned to extend our stay on the Sunday by paying extra for late check out but in the end, we left ASAP. As we checked out, I mentioned that we hadn't been able to use the spa, and the receptionist just stared at me blankly - no response. Thankfully, my boyfriend kindly found the experience funny, like an episode of faulty towers, but I have to say I was quite disappointed.