The Grand Hotel

Our visit to The Grand Hotel, following a sombre day at a dear friend's funeral. On arriving at 18:50 I dropped in to ask about parking. This was my first encounter with Receptionist, Elaine. I had merely come in to ask about blue badge parking and asked whether the hotel had parking, it was raining and dark. She advised that I could park on the road which was free or at the station. I know now that the station was across the road from the hotel, sadly I did not know that at the time. Elaine also advised that I could park in the hotel garage at a cost of 10 for 24 hours. The garage was just to the left on leaving the hotel. As I was leaving she passed a comment about having to give directions, the guests seated opposite the reception desk laughed. As I was unclear of my bearings I directed my husband to the said garage. As a point of safety for all patrons, the entrance was extremely poorly lit as was trying to keep the security light on. Once parked it was trying to negotiate paying the parking fee in a dark building with a security light which stayed on for less than 10 seconds. When the light went out it was pitch black. My husband and I both experience difficulties with our mobility this did not help. Having finally paid the fee via my mobile we made our way out of the darken garage and returned to the hotel. Receptionist Elaine was checking in a family. My husband sat whilst I duly waited my turn, I queued for 20 minutes and at no time did Elaine acknowledge me. 19:40 finally made it to the reception desk, with no acknowledgement or apology from the Receptionist Elaine. We were booked into room number 108, when it came to handing over the key, there was no key. After much ado she sent the young porter Reece to the room to find out why the key was missing. He returned a short while later to advise the room to be occupied. We were eventually allocated Room 125. Sadly this attitude and behaviour marred our stay.

Whilst the staff were polite and friendly it was obvious that quite a few needed a lot more training for the quality of the hotel, having members of off duty staff coming to the bar area to hang out with their colleagues whilst they are working doesnt set a good example or experience for the guests. Equally closing up the bar while you still have guests wanting to use the facilities is a bit unprofessional especially without even informing the guests that this is happening. Also I felt that some of the areas beyond the main entrance area were a little tired, the carpet in the corridor to my room was very thread bare and the indoor pool had a hole in it and was generally in need of a bit of a refurbishment. On the hole I am happy with the price I paid through booking.com for my stay but if I had paid the hotels standard room rate I would have been very disappointed. Generally more training throughout is required on the finery of running a hotel the attention to detail was lacking.