Paul Meakin
Google
Review for The Lawrance Luxury Apartments, York
I rarely feel compelled to leave a negative review, but my experience at The Lawrance, York, was deeply disappointing, particularly as I had booked this stay to celebrate a milestone 60th birthday with family.
The problems began even before we arrived. Despite booking and paying in full weeks in advance, we received no arrival or access information two days before our stay. Multiple calls went unanswered. When I finally made contact, I was told the information would be sent later that afternoon — it wasn’t. On the day we set off to the apartments I did manage, 1 hr before we arrived to speak to someone who explained a “system failure" was at fault, though Booking.com advised no such failure was reported on their systems.
On arrival, we were told check-in was not until 3 p.m., despite having already struggled with our luggage from a distant car park. No luggage storage was offered, and no flexibility shown i.e. that our one case coukd be stored in an empty room until ours was ready and then moved across, despite the disruption this caused to our planned celebrations. Attempts to find a reasonable solution were met with flat refusals.
When we finally accessed our apartment after returning early from lunch and hauling luggage back from the NCP again, we found it to be far from the "luxury" standard advertised. Apartment 11 is functional but let down by numerous issues: scuffed walls, unfinished paintwork, a very small television, only four coat hangers and no wardrobe, and a filthy, unusable mirror on the dressing table. The blinds did little to block out light, and I was awake before 6:30 a.m. The bathroom, while modern in design, was marred by poor finishing, including badly applied sealant and rust-stained tiles.
Despite reaching out to management directly to give them the opportunity to address the situation privately, the response I received was appalling — defensive, accusatory, and completely lacking in professionalism. Rather than acknowledge the legitimate concerns raised, they shifted blame onto me and accused me of rudeness, which is frankly beyond belief.
Overall, this was an extremely poor experience from a company that clearly does not value genuine customer feedback or understand the fundamentals of hospitality. Needless to say, we will not be returning, and I hope this review encourages future guests to consider alternative accommodation where service and quality are taken seriously. Try Malmaison, it's cheaper and far superior.
Paul Meakin
