My wife and I, both of us senior citizens, spent a lovely five days at this hotel, which was made even better by the amazingly low price that we had paid for the privilege. We had absolutely no intentions of having another staycation, but the week before this short holiday we received a text message from Daish’s Holidays offering the stay for £278 for the both of us, which included return coach travel from Leicester to Eastbourne and the five days stay in the hotel on a half-board basis, so it really was a no-brainer of booking it once we had checked our calendar to ensure that we were free.
The coach journey there and back was excellent, made even better by the fact that there was only 20 people on a full-sized coach, which of course meant that we could all spread out across the coach to make our journeys even better.
Arrival was fine, although there was a little bit of an issue when we got into Reception, in that I saw our case sitting away from the others on the coach with a new tag on it. I asked what the problem was of one of the members of staff and was told that it was overweight, and that I may have to pay a surcharge of £10. So, here’s the thing; I decided to pack everything in one case to save on us dragging two cases from our house to the bus stop to get the bus into the city, and then from one bus station to another in Leicester. Whilst in Reception I checked the conformation email that Daish’s sent me and there was no mention of this, I checked the confirmation paperwork and this was the statement; ‘Maximum luggage limits apply; charges may be applied for excess luggage. Please see T&Cs’, and finally I checked the 2026 Booking Conditions, and in paragraph 20 which is on page 8 of 14 I finally find the statement ‘Please restrict your luggage to a suitcase weighing no more that 15kgs per person for holidays up to 5 days and 20kgs per person for holidays of 6 days or more. Any case weighing over these minimum amounts will be marked as a ‘Heavy Load’ and may be subject to an excess luggage charge of £10 per item which will be payable at the hotel. Guests will also be responsible for handling of their cases throughout their holiday’, so this was easily missed (I did browse through the conditions when I got them, but overlooked this vital piece of information), but then again it does say ‘Minimum’ instead of ‘Maximum’. It was agreed that I would handle the movement of my case for the remainder of the holiday, and I wasn’t charged, so all was good, but just something to be aware of.
We were on the floor 4 right at the top of the hotel, so I had quite a struggle getting the case up the narrow stairs as the lifts were full of other arriving guests, and I just wanted to get it up to the room and unpacked before dinner. Serves me right for not reading the T&Cs, and it’s lucky that I’m still fit for my age.
The room wasn’t too bad at all. It was a good size with everything we required for our stay. It wasn’t in too bad a state of decoration, and was clean on arrival and kept clean by housekeeping throughout our stay. For some reason the room was incredibly warm during the five days we were there, even though we had no heating on, but that was easily sorted by leaving the window open all of the time.
The en-suite wasn’t too bad at all except for one major issue that we had throughout our stay, in that the shower was absolutely useless. We couldn’t regulate the water temperature and it was coming out at no more than a trickle. We reported this to Reception next morning, and after the maintenance guy had been to take a look, it was decided that the mixer taps needed replacing. This was done next day, but didn’t make a blind bit of difference, so we ended up just taking baths every day, but these took for ever to run. We told Reception and the maintenance guy, who was standing there, told us that they always had a problem on floor four. We’re back again in December, so have requested that we are not put on that floor when we revisit. We spoke to other people on the same floor and they confirmed that they were having the same problem.
We were on a half board basis, and we’ve got absolutely no complaints about the choice of food or standard of food. We felt happy at every single meal that we were well fed. It also has to be said that our waitress, Elwira, was an absolute star, and a credit to the hotel. We had barely finished one course when she had cleared the dirty plates, and the next course was soon brought to the table. She works her socks off ensuring that she gave the guests she is responsible for the best service. Full marks to Elwira,
The entertainment was very good throughout our stay, and the entertainment room is quite well set out, and you could see the acts from most of the seating. There always seemed to be plenty of seats, and I’m pretty sure that the hotel was quite full, as the dining room always looked quite crowded.
All of the staff we encountered were friendly and helpful, and we always got any information we requested, so the hotel has a good team working for it.
As I’ve stated we’re back in December and we can’t wait as it really is a good place to call home for a few days, and we thought that we got tremendous value for money on this stay.
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