Afternoon Tea at Bath Spa Hotel in Bath and North East Somerset

Unfortunately afternoon tea at the Bath Spa Hotel was very disappointing. I took my daughter as part of her birthday present but we both felt our experience was not good. We were greeted politely but the waitress who served us did not really speak and did not explain the food that was presented to us. I asked for two slices of lemon for our Earl Grey tea and was presented with a whole lemon sliced up!!! It was £40 per person and I would urge anyone who reads this to go to the Pump Rooms in Bath as their Afternoon Tea experience is a whole lot better. For a luxury hotel this was very underwhelming.

The cake and scones were really nice. I ordered the vegan afternoon tea, and did think the sandwich fillings were a bit disappointing, all 4 were courgette sandwiches. My friend who had the vegetarian option had tomato, avocado etc in theirs (which could have been used for a vegan option) whereas mine was just 4 x courgette finger sandwiches, tasted fairly good but a very odd choice and would have appreciated a little more variety. The server was very pleasant and the tea was nice although a strainer would have been helpful when pouring loose leaf. Would also recommend they pop a little background music on as it felt fairly quiet. Overall a nice experience but have definitely had better afternoon teas for the price.

When we arrived we had a pleasant drink on the terrace at the front of the hotel, served by a friendly and attentive waiter. Sadly, that’s where the 5 star experience ended. Going in for afternoon tea I was met with ‘not sure if the table’s ready, oh, are there 4 of you’? Even though I’d booked and phoned the previous day to check the booking was ok. We were eventually shown to our table and told ‘I will bring drinks menus’ - she didn’t. She then came to the table and asked ‘do you want a drink, tea, coffee’? I said we’d booked afternoon tea, so we’d expect the drink to come with that, and I asked for an afternoon tea menu, including a list of teas, to which she replied ‘oh, yes’, as if that hadn’t crossed her mind. Then the afternoon teas arrived - one was dropped all over my daughter, but that was an accident (although apart from 2 scones that didn’t go on the floor, we weren’t offered any recompense). However, there was no explanation of what we were having and I had to ask the waiter what the cakes were. As I explained in a previous review, afternoon tea is supposed to be more than a few sandwiches and cakes being delivered to your table, it is supposed to be an event, and this certainly wasn’t. The sandwiches were very basic, egg mayonnaise (no cress etc), cheese and pickle, ham and smoked salmon - nothing added, no effort to lift them above basic. The cakes were ok, but there were only three each, I’m used to there always being four. All the while, the restaurant was very quiet - I’d booked to be in the drawing room, but was told, with no explanation, ‘it’s the dining room today’. Sitting in a large restaurant with only a couple of other tables occupied provided no atmosphere - one couple was playing a game of cards, but I suppose that’s not the hotel’s fault - then some people came in from the spa in dressing gowns, with one woman almost falling out of hers, which does little to add to the ambiance - can’t partially dressed spa guests eat somewhere else? Finally, a group of lads, who I assume were doing building work at the hotel sat at a table outside the window next to our table and smoked e cigarettes, one dressed in a dirty vest and the others in dirty work clothes, in full view of our table. Our bill arrived (without us asking for it) with a £20 service charge, which I asked to be removed (we’d not been asked if we wanted any more tea etc). Finally, when we left, a couple of staff were parked in an Audi sports car, right outside the front door, and another member of staff was blocking the door talking to them - I had to ask to get passed and there was no ‘thank you for coming’, he just carried on talking to the staff in the car. All in all, a pretty poor experience and nowhere near 5 stars. It almost felt as if the management was off for the day and the staff who were there just didn’t care - if you want a 5 star afternoon tea experience, don’t go to the Bath Spa!

We visited the spa and this feedback is only for their afternoon tea which was included in the package. We were a group of 4 . The staff seated us in the terrace area citing bigger table for the group. It took them 3 attempts to get us tea we had ordered and even then they got 2 wrong ( Assam instead of Jasmine). They brought the food and a female staff asked " have you been warned about the sea gull". We said no , what do you recommend? The staff shrieked and ran when the sea gull approached the food. Another male staff also just warned us and left. We were left to have our afternoon tea while fending a very aggressive sea gull. The staff did nothing to mediate the situation even though there was enough seating indoors. Also , the sandwiches were stale and cake was mediocre. All in all , what was supposed to be an enjoyable end to the relaxing spa day was marred with bad experience.

Having paid £35 per person for an afternoon tea, we were expecting good things. Our sandwiches had clearly been sat on the side for quite some time and some of the cakes were stale. But, we didn't actually know what we were eating at any point because nowhere/no-one told us what we had in front of us! I wouldn't visit again nor would I recommend this to a friend.

I went with two of my friends for a day spa with afternoon tea. The spa was friendly and welcoming and facilities were great. The afternoon tea however was disappointing. I had two finger sandwiches which equates to one slice of bread with crusts off, and my two friends noticed they didn’t have equal amounts of cake, one of them was short by a couple and again they had only two finger sandwiches. We asked if we could have more sandwiches and the response was ‘no I don’t think we can do that, you will have to pay extra’ so we just said ok and thought that this was it. A couple sitting next to us got there afternoon teas and we looked over and they had a selection of cakes and four sandwiches! So how come we were short changed. We looked at other afternoon teas, and they were the same. We paid a lot of money for the day and expected more that what we actually got.