I took my girlfriend to The Bear of Rodborough to celebrate her birthday. We had a very pleasant stay indeed.
We booked a superior room which included a huge bed. The rest of the room was equally as comfortable.

On arrival we found the staff very pleasant and courteous. We booked for dinner, bed and breakfast which we enjoyed very much and this added to a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend.

In addition to this we also accidentally left a pair of boots in our room which the hotel forwarded to us free of charge. You don't often get service like that any more.

My husband and I booked this hotel for my Birthday weekend based on location and their website which looks fab. First thing that annoyed us was that we lugged our cases up the steps to Reception only to find that our room was in the annexe, so had to lug them back again. On arriving at what was in fact a nice room, realised that they hadn't asked us whether we wanted a newspaper delivered. I called Reception to order the Mail on both Saturday and Sunday (needless to say it didn't arrive on either day and I had to phone Reception both times). On the second day, they didn't even knock on the door to give us the paper, they just left it on the mat (for us to guess when it had arrived?)

We were gasping for a cup of tea on arriving, and realised they hadn't refreshed the tea/coffees, but had some tea bags of our own (couldnt' be bothered to call back yet again).

There was no head waiter in the restaurant, which appeared to be run by very aimable "kids", many of whom didn't even speak English. I realised that things weren't going to be great when the cutlery was arranged wrongly, with things missing and the waitor used the water glasses for the wine. Our empty plates were never taken - we had keep handing them to the staff when they brought the next course. The restaurant was also very hot indeed. On our second night we decided to eat in the pub as we didn't think we could bear another night in the restaurant and that was better. However, as you can imagine, despite telling us that they'd amend our bill accordingly, they of course still charged us for dinner in the restaurant the second night, so that had to be amended.

Breakfast wasn't great either - on the first day, they'd obviously run out of black pudding, so we had a semi-circle each (which was rock hard, anyway) and on the 2nd day we had the same thing with the black pudding and half a rasher of bacon too! I laughingly commented that it was just as well we weren't staying a further night, as they'd have run out of sausages too!

My opinion is that this hotel could be so much better and gets away with very poor service due to its location. No one appeared to be running the hotel which seemed to be lacking both a manager and a head waiter. We certainly will not be returning. This experience completely ruined my Birthday.

We stayed at this hotel due to its location as we were going to th Gatcombe horse trials and it was only 5 minutes away we arrived early the room wasn`t ready but was told it wouldn`t be long so we asked if we could bring the dogs into the garden to have a drink , one of the reception staff didn`t know so had to ask , we took the dogs for a walk along Rodborough common which was great, although you have to walk for about 5 minutes along a very busy road to get there ( which they dont tell you ) .
The room was great there was a half bottle of chilled Moet and a lovely box of fresh chocolates waiting for us when we arrived , although we were not offered the afternoon tea that was included in our package , I think you must have to ask ! nearly half of the downstairs rooms contained dogs so it must be popular for that , the people in the room next to us complained about the noise ( our dogs dont bark ) so if you dont like dogs ask for a room in the main hotel .
Our package included dinner in the main restaurant which was lovely although th bar menu also looked very nice . The only complaint I would have was the staff although they were friendly enough they didnt seem very well trained especially in the reception and restaurant . The lady at reception didn`t know what a turndown service was although when we were getting ready for dinner a housekeeper knocked on the door asking if we would like our bed turned down !!
All in all a good stay and we would return with the dogs if we were going to a event in that area

We stayed at the Bear for one night in three rooms for a special family celebration. I telephoned the hotel in advance to request a bottle of champagne an ice bucket and two glasses to be in the room on arrival for one family member's birthday. I called the day before arrival to check and asked again at reception when we arrived. Each time I was frostily assured my request had been followed. How then did they manage to translate that request into a half bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates!

The room was so small, when you opened the door it hit the bed! It only had a shower and no bath (no warning about that) it also turned out to be directly above the function room which had a disco playing until the small hours of the morning.
There was no remote control for the TV which meant that you had to stand on a chair to turn it on or change the channels. When we requested a remote we were sent one that didn't work and only at the second time of asking did we get one that did work. None of our party had remote controls in their rooms. My nephews later discovered a box full of remotes - what is that all about?
Dinner was OK but the 'medium' steaks turned out to be well done and no explanation was forthcoming from the kitchen when this was pointed out.
At check out it was impossible to reconcile any of the items on the bill because for some reason the hotel has a policy of splitting every charge between the rooms so if you have a bottle of wine, the cost is divided up and charged to each room separately making it impossible to ascertain the actual amounts charged. This is a particularly dodgy practice which always makes one suspicious unless it is something that has been specifically requested.
All in all, The Bear strikes me as an overpriced and overrated hotel with pretty poor service, average food and some below average rooms. At the prices they charge, I expected an awful lot more.. including a remote control.