East Sussex National

“Couples weekend break”

Lovely grounds and spa, we did a little break to get away from kids and it was fantastic value, lovely facilities in the spa. My wife and I both got treatments and followed up with a beautiful 3 course dinner in evening. Our server Nicoletta was fantastic and anticipated our wants and needs reall… more

Lovely grounds and spa, we did a little break to get away from kids and it was fantastic value, lovely facilities in the spa. My wife and I both got treatments and followed up with a beautiful 3 course dinner in evening. Our server Nicoletta was fantastic and anticipated our wants and needs really well during dinner. All the team were nice, relaxed and made us feel welcome. Enjoyed breakfast following morning and the gym was fantastic, would have liked a slightly bigger warm up area but overall lovely.

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“Mixed feelings”

This hotel was booked for us for a business stay, and despite needing to be here for work purposes, I was hoping it could be a nice break experience away from home. I do not really like to leave negative reviews where possible but feel there is a general lack of attention to detail and the hotel co… more

This hotel was booked for us for a business stay, and despite needing to be here for work purposes, I was hoping it could be a nice break experience away from home. I do not really like to leave negative reviews where possible but feel there is a general lack of attention to detail and the hotel could have a lot of potential if some minor problems were resolved. So good news first: the beds are extremely comfortable and the rooms are fairly quiet, which meant we really did have a good sleep. I also used the spa facilities and had a massage which was really good and the staff was friendly there and helpful. Now for the not-so-pleasant part. The hotel was booked for 3 nights, on a bed and breakfast basis with dinner allowance, so we made use of the restaurant and bar facilities for our afternoon and evening meals. The food is the thing that peeved me the most: it is very tasty but there seem to always be something added to the dish that is not featured in the menu. I appreciate staff ask if there are any allergies, of which we had none, but every time we ordered a dish it came with additional or different items that were not featured in the menu at all. A choice is made on personal taste and I don't appreciate having to always brace for a surprise item on my plate that was not supposed to be there. I will explain: on the first dinner I ordered the sea bass fillet, which came with added coleslaw on top of the fish that was not on the menu. The next day at breakfast I ordered a vegan breakfast which was supposed to include tofu. The tofu was missing and in its place there was an extra sausage. The waiter did not comment on this as in he could have explained there were maybe missing ingredients in the kitchen that were swapped, which is understandable, but just plonked the plate on the table and disappeared as quickly as he could. The waiter appearance was also quite dishevelled and unkempt (shirt half tucked in, tie askew, unruly hair etc..) which is surprising as it was 7am and I assume his shift had only about started, but I could be wrong about that. The next day for lunch I ordered a cauliflower and sweet potatoes curry with onion bahjis. The curry had also large chunks of broccoli, of which again there was no mention in the menu, and the onion bahjis were missing, in which place I was served what I think were falafel? Again no mention of anything from the staff. At dinner I ordered a pizza Margherita. This arrived with a big handful of unwashed rocket salad leaves in the middle of the pizza that were covering almost half of it. Why? How can you mess up pizza? Please do review your menus and make sure all items that are going to appear on the plate are listed there so that customers can make an informed choice on what they want to eat. This is a 4 star hotel and it reflects very poorly on the overall experience. The other thing that did baffle us was the room cleaning process. The first day we placed the "please sparkle my room" card on the door handle very early, at 7am, as we knew we would be out for the morning and hoped to signal to housekeeping that the room was empty and available for cleaning. By 3.30 pm, when we came back to the room, the room had still not been serviced. We received a knock at the door at 3.45pm and a housekeeping cart offered to replenish our water and tea and then left. Room was not hoovered or bathroom cleaned. We had to request a spare toilet roll at reception... The second day we did not put the card on the door, for fear that it may have been mistaken for a "do not disturb" sign the previous day. By 3pm the room had again still not been serviced. We therefore left and came back at 4.30pm to hopefully give the staff additional time to do so. When we came back, the water and tea had been replenished, but the carpet had definitely not been hoovered as there were still chunks of mud and debris from having walked in the garden the previous day. I am not sure if the toilet was cleaned at the time but suspect it may have not. The checkout was straight forward enough, although the member of staff seemed unable to respond to a few simple questions (i.e. Would settling the account release the pre-authorization hold on the debit card? How long does it usually take for the money to be released into the holder account?) The staff member was "not sure" and "did not know". Hopefully we'll have the money released at some point in the next few days... The hotel is being refurbished which you can see it needs a bit of TLC and is looking a bit dated both in the bedrooms and public areas. Hopefully the refurbishment will also be an opportunity to refresh staff training.

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“my birthday”

The hotel is currently renovating its rooms, so it has to be taken into account that they are a bit dated. It isnt the best , luxurious hotel I have stayed in , but I felt for the price of the room , it was extremely good value for money. You have full use of the spa which , again isnt the best … more

The hotel is currently renovating its rooms, so it has to be taken into account that they are a bit dated. It isnt the best , luxurious hotel I have stayed in , but I felt for the price of the room , it was extremely good value for money. You have full use of the spa which , again isnt the best I have been too, but its clean , and has everything you need, though no bath robes if you are staying there and not having treatments. I did not have any treatments, so I can not comment on that experience. The evening meal, again not the best meal . But I enjoyed the food and it was tasty . I suggest , for breakfast, if you want a cooked meal, pay the extra £5.00 supplement, for them to cook it. Surely buffet cooked breakfast should be banned and are outdated. Not crispy bacon, it was hard, scrammbled egg cold and lacked taste. everything was cold or dried. The cheese , had obviously been out way too long and was dry. I was always under the impression that refridgerated food , should only be out for display for twenty Minutes. Clearly not the case here. We were in the dining area for the end of breakfast service. The waste of food was so sad. Its a huge hotel and I appreciate the staffing is kept to a minimum, but breakfast was very disappointing

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