The Langley, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Buckinghamshire

“Luxury champagne afternoon tea”

We celebrated Mother’s Day as a family with a champagne afternoon tea in a beautiful, luxury setting. The décor is elegant, the food delicious, and the cakes are truly exceptional in both quality and presentation. Service from the team was superb attentive, warm, and made the whole experience feel … more

We celebrated Mother’s Day as a family with a champagne afternoon tea in a beautiful, luxury setting. The décor is elegant, the food delicious, and the cakes are truly exceptional in both quality and presentation. Service from the team was superb attentive, warm, and made the whole experience feel special.

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“Not worth the price or hype - hugely disappointing and not a Luxury Collection”

I just finished a three-night stay at the Langley and I must say (and regrettably so), it was a disappointment. It simply does not warrant merit the price or the Luxury Collection Brand. I have listed the pros and cons below in detail, but do want to pay special shout out to Jana at Reception who w… more

I just finished a three-night stay at the Langley and I must say (and regrettably so), it was a disappointment. It simply does not warrant merit the price or the Luxury Collection Brand. I have listed the pros and cons below in detail, but do want to pay special shout out to Jana at Reception who was lovely upon check in. My overall impression is that the owners are trying to run this place on the cheap by avoiding critical maintenance, hiring poorly suited and trained staff, and not adopting much cheaper materials / facilities than warranted at a property of this nature. This is a shame given the building itself is beautiful and could be a gorgeous destination. We will not be back to this property and recommend against visiting. It is simply massively overpriced and over hyped as reflected in its quickly eroding Trip Advisor rating. Pros: - The property is absolutely beautiful, as is the adjacent park. We really enjoyed several picturesque country walks. - The building itself is also beautiful and generally well kept. That said, the décor was more mass market and less custom 5-star than I expected. - The spa treatment and relaxation rooms were excellent, there was not the breadth of complimentary refreshments / snacks in the relaxation room that I have experienced at other Luxury Collection Properties. - We were offered a complimentary upgrade upon arrival due to my Platinum Elite status. Cons: - The food is simply not good enough and perhaps the biggest disappointment: o the Churchill Lounge / Bar food is borderline unacceptable; flavourless, poorly cooked, and unsophisticated. The carrot ginger soup was tasteless, and they used brown/black avocado in our salmon tartar – simply unacceptable at a Luxury Collection property. Our pizzas arrived stone cold. o Our dinner at the Cedar was disappointing: the burrata dish was tasteless and lacked complexity, and the beef wellington was extremely salty. The menu did not mention that the wellington beef was braised, which again is a detail you’d expect at this property. 2/3 of our breakfasts at the Cedar were enjoyable. We experienced severely undercooked eggs on our first morning. o Room service was atrocious: our food and drink arrived uncovered (no heating dome, etc) on a tray without salt and pepper or anything, and with only one set of cutlery and napkin. The Cesar salad was awful – dressing unevenly applied – some leaves of lettuce had no dressing while others were completely covered. o The afternoon tea was fine – sweat treats where nice but the sandwiches are very light on filling. - The service (beyond Lana) was simply atrocious. In general, there is a serious lack of attention to finer details / practices and almost all staff clearly do not have experience in a higher end environment. For example: o Every single night after 11PM, staff would dump a massive amount of glass bottles into a recycling bin outside the property, directly under our window. This created a loud “crashing” noise that woke my partner twice. o At breakfast, our coffee orders were forgotten about multiple times. o One morning, there was a loud fight in the kitchen between staff that lasted more than 5 minutes. Guests in the dining room could hear staff yelling and swearing at each other – again not acceptable. o There is no bell/door man when you arrive, meaning you have to carry your own luggage up the stairs (stairs, not steps) up to the reception. This could be very difficult for an elderly couple with large suitcases. I’ve never experienced this at other Luxury Collection properties or frankly any other high-end properties. o We reserved the racquet court because we were told we could play pickle ball or tennis. On our second day, we were told we couldn’t play pickle ball because the staff member responsible for erecting the net was not present. On our third day, I offered to erect the net myself, only to find out when doing so that the net was not a pickleball net, but rather a kid’s beginner tennis net. It was 4-5 feet too small for the pickleball courts and also too short. - Other Issues o The spa thermal facilities were likely nice at one time, but have not been looked after properly. The jets on the hot tub were not working, and the entire facility lacked cleanliness. There was flooding throughout the changing room floors and throughout the spa area (which creates hygiene issues), and the steps into the hot tub are visibly dirty. o The tennis / pickle ball court is painted asphalt, which absolutely destroyed by shoes. Again, at a 5-star property you expect property hard tennis courts. In closing, Marriot needs to revoke this property's Luxury Collection label because it is misleading to customers. I have been to several other similiar properties that are Autograph Collection and far exceed the Langley. For example, Mount Juliet in Kilkenny Ireland is an Autograph Collection but is far superior to the Langley

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