OYO the Rivenhall Hotel in Witham, Chelmsford

We had 5 double rooms at The Rivenhall Hotel for our family group to attend a wedding locally. We were a little disappointed to be informed by the hotel that the restaurant wouldn’t be open but they gave us plenty of notice. On checking out their website after we’d booked we were alarmed to read that the hotel was closing down completely. I called them and spoke to a very helpful receptionist who assured me that we had the ‘500’ rooms and these were the better rooms in the hotel. And so they were! They were comfortable, clean and had all we needed for our two night stay. Two rooms even had air conditioning. We were able to park our cars close to the rooms. Parking and WiFi were free of charge. It is true that the gardens are now somewhat overgrown and look a little uncared for but the staff were excellent and a credit to the hotel. Although the restaurant was closed there was a table in reception where plates and utensils were available for guests if they wanted to order a takeaway meal. With money spent to update some of the rooms I would have thought that the hotel could once again become a thriving enterprise.

Upon arrival you could be forgiven for thinking this hotel was permanently closed. By the time you checkout you'll wish it had been. If rebranded as a Walking Dead, zombie apocalypse style theme park it would score highly, as a hotel not so much.

Arrived and reception was flooded by an Indian wedding group who obviously had not booked enough rooms. Some rooms were not ready for 3pm check-in, why? Room was ok but had a funny smell, we were told to let the hot water run for a while to get rid of brown water 😂. Took me 4 minutes or so to get shower working and no hot water at all. Loud and inconsiderate wedding group were noisy late at night and in the morning. Overall this Motel is over priced and poor quality, I would not recommend @ £162 per night room only!