Lynne
Google
Disappointing stay at this 4 star rated hotel. My friends and I booked this hotel for a 6 night stay after reading an excellent review and article in ‘The Daily Telegraph’. While there is no question that the hotel is in a beautiful building (albeit in need of some restoration), the services are sadly lacking and the staff attitude somewhat defensive, to put it politely.
Daily housekeeping was cursory, the kettle in the room did not work properly and there was a constantly dripping tap in the toilet. The hotel provide one tea bag (Earl Grey only, so if you don’t like Earl Grey I suggest you take your own tea) and 2 small sachets of instant coffee per day in the room and offer a ‘present’ of one small bottle of water in the fridge on arrival. No milk, no biscuits, no other little treats that you might expect of a decent 4 star hotel. The breakfast is all self-service but is fairly good, though, as in most hotels, the hot food (scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages) is not very hot.
The hotel is centrally located, a definite plus. But there was a dead rat left at the hotel entrance for 4 days and it was not until my friend suggested to reception that public health authorities should be advised that anything was done about it. Also the central courtyard was full of leaves and was not swept once during our stay which rather spoilt the hotel aspect. We didn’t use the hotel pool so can’t comment on that facility.
All in all I would say this is an over rated and definitely overpriced hotel with no clear leadership from management (there was apparently no hotel manager or deputy manager on site for 3 days when we arrived) as to what is expected of this standard of hotel. It also felt that the hotel was understaffed and those that worked there had no pride or joy in their job, with a few exceptions. I would not stay there again and would not recommend it.