We stayed here for 3 nights, having booked and received a good price for a "deluxe double room". I had wanted to stay here since delivering a training course a year previously in the Captain Scott room of the hotel, and was impressed by the public areas at that time.
The hotel has so much going for it- the location is fantastic, it is a stone's throw from bus and train stations with the NCP car park around the corner. It is a five minute walk to the castle, and an even quicker walk to the excellent restaurants and bars in the Brewery Quarter, so much so you can happily wear "car to bar" shoes for your night out. Try the Spice Quarter, Thai Edge and Bali- all wonderful places to eat.
The Captain Scott room where we had breakfast the first morning is very impressive and the reception and bar area are spacious and airy. The decor is modern and everywhere is clean. It should be perfect in every way- it isn't, because you get the feel of extreme penny pinching going on for everything.
On arrival the lift to the reception was out of order and a sign proclaimed there was no date for the lift to be fixed. Why not? There was just no way you could stay here with mobility problems but there was nothing on the hotel's website about this. Fortunately we are able bodied but beware they are 49 (we counted) steep steps in 5 flights, not fun with even the smallest amount of luggage.
Check in was fine, pleasant receptionist. We had asked for a room as high up as possible as we knew that St Mary's Street can be noisy given the amount of bars. We were on the 7th floor and the room was very quiet at all times. We had 3 windows which did not open but there was air-conditioning which could not be adjusted to lower than 19 degrees. When we arrived it was a very warm day and the air con had been turned off so the room was very hot and stuffy, it took a while for it to cool down.
The website had promised a cafetiere, and bathrobes, neither of which were there. The safe was locked shut. There was one handtowel, one bathtowel and a bathmat in the bathroom. There were 5 tiny jars of toiletries, none of which were replenished throughout our stay. I have no idea what was the difference between the double and the deluxe. The bed was very comfortable but we had to ask for an extra pillow as the ones provided were very flat.
In fact the housekeeping was very hit-and-miss- one day you would get 4 towels, one day one towel. If we had started asking for things that were missing we would never have stopped. One day you could not even tell they had been in- the quilt on the bed looked just as we had left it.
The safe was sorted out quickly and cheerfully.
So was the toilet paper that we ran out of, housekeeping having left us with a very small amount.
The bathroom is very modern but the extractor fan is not very effective, so much so there is quite a bit of black mould on the bath and between the tiles.
The shower is terribly erratic- sometimes it would cut out completely while in use.
The internal lift was working and was very efficient.
Breakfast the first day was in the Captain Scott Room. When we entered there were no servers to be seen. There were yoghurts and cereals and cold meats and cheese, croissants and muffins. The fruit juice dispensers every morning had about an inch of juice in. Once an item was gone, it was never replenished and this was an hour before the end of breakfast. We asked for 2 coffees and got 1 coffee and 1 tea. 2 racks of toast arrived, and we enjoyed our breakfast the first day. The second day it was a farce- there was no bread or bread rolls, we asked for toast but the server forgot our order, it was a struggle to get another cup of coffee, on each morning a woman in a suit came in and rearranged the remaining items but did not put any more out, just tried to make the buffet look bigger than it was.
The servers were more concerned with clearing away the tables than with actually serving the guests.
On the third morning we just didn't bother, we got our breakfast from Starbucks across the street.
One was left with the impression that what was done was the minimum possible acceptable, which was pretty poor as it is by no means cheap to stay at this hotel.
Overall, we did enjoy our stay, but with a little more care and less penny pinching this hotel would be great.
