George R.
Yelp
The good parts are very good, and not so good are quite poor. On balance downsides outweigh positives.
Check-in was a breeze. The chap at reception was charming. He made us very welcome.
We got a double room for two including breakfast for one night (£100 but a next day car parking brought the cost to £108.)
The room was good with two wash basins, bath & shower, bathrobes with slippers, bottled water, ginger biscuits, a large telly, good air con and a coffee pod machine that provided hot water for tea.
The hotel is stunning and liberally filled with the history of the shipyard, White Star line and the ship that was alright when it left Belfast.
The hotel bar is huge. The bar staff were friendly and attentive.
We had drinks that night and next day lunch with family in the bar. It was good in terms of service and food for the adults.
Car parking isn't at the hotel itself, it's not convenient for guests, it utilises the Titanic centre pay car park a few minutes walk away so the hotel was clearly set for swathes of coach tourists.
When we arrived at reception we had to take our luggage to our room and then drive to the Titanic centre underground car park.
There are signs at the hotel that threaten clamping if you park outside for any time. Tedious. Can't imagine staying here in our cold wet winter or spring.
The walk to the car park is ok in dry and mild weather but a turn off in wet, cold, icy weather. I've no idea how disabled folk would cope. We parked up 23 hours.
The hotel processed the parking ticket. We brought our cases to the car rather than the equal inconvenience of retrieving the car from parking to go back to the hotel.
The ticket came up at £23.5 discounted to £7.5. As a paying hotel guest it felt a rip off in on top of the lousy inconvenience of parking here.
Worst by a long way was the breakfast experience. We were offered times on arrival that didn't please us, but chose the earlier time as we were booked into the Titanic centre at 10am.
Turns out that this time was to suit the staff not guests, as we were still there at our preferred arrival time and for at least 15 minutes after, and not one guest turned up for brekky.
When we arrived we stood five minutes to be seated before a staffer bothered.
My patience was exhausted. Once a waitress did bother she wanted our room number and flicked over pages and back again, looking puzzled she asked for our surname repeating the flicking, re-checking and couldn't find us.
Then she asked what time we opted for but that didn't seem to assist. It's not that the place was crowded - far from it.
She did invite us to sit down just in time - as it had to be 10 minutes from we first arrived at that point, I was about to give her a piece of my mind.
The unacceptable delays were why we were still there beyond the time we would have chosen to come down. The fact is we could have arrived at our preferred time - it wouldn't have mattered.
It got worse. I was specific about my cooked breakfast order. I was completely ignored. Breakfast arrived covered with a silver dome which the waiter lifted with a flourish.
The idea I suppose is to reveal tasty, well - presented food but no I got greasy food I didn't want and I didn't get food I did order.
I wanted eggs cooked one way they weren't cooked this way. I asked for extra mushrooms, I got two mushrooms.
I wanted the tomato well cooked, it was burnt one side and barely cooked on the other all by a lazy cook that couldn't be a trained chef.
This is a cook that didn't mind a greasy plate. This is greasy spoon cafe standards.
If you served this food in a prison Amnesty International would be unkind about you and you'd do well to avoid a riot.
I don't get it, as they sure weren't over worked. The sausage was finished off in an oven (if not stuck in an oven from the start) it was plastic skinned, cheap meat.
The batch deep fried thin potato bread was made from dried potato flakes in a factory where it should have stayed.
The black pudding was over cooked, the coffee was lukewarm, sour and the bacon was the grimmest I've had in many years.
It was folded in two, oven overcooked to toughness, yet the bacon rind was a repulsive soggy white gunge - another 'stick it in the oven it'll do ye rightly' attitude that beset Irish tourism forever.
The 'cook' and their manager should seek alternative employment, preferably not involving cooking nor managing humans.
Lastly we were woken very early in the morning by an inconsiderate sod making a lorry delivery.
I think it was a Brakes refrigerated lorry that parked right under our window. It was pitch dark and the driver kept the refrigerator running an hour and a half.
I'd stay again, but I'm not sure I'd be enthusiastic about it.