The Dove Inn

Very comfortable staff extremely friendly plus breakfast amazing quality

Nothing

Clean

Noisy from traffic. Green light on ceiling on permanently (probably an old emergency exit light). I wrongly assumed because it was an Inn - it was a pub with food. Separate business downstairs and no food after 3pm.

Positives: nice selection of tea, coffee, milk etc and lemonade in fridge. Kitchen equipment was all functional and relatively new. Oven was clean and effective. TV had already been signed into something you could watch (fire stick?). Electric sockets in good places, luggage stands in both bedrooms. Shower was clean and effective (recently refurbished but not the rest of the bathroom). Dark curtains in double room but not in twin unfortunately.

On face value this is a nice enough spacious apartment. It’s a shame about the lack of attention to detail though. There are 4 bed spaces but only a 2 seater sofa and only 3 glasses. The only securing door is a cheap thin plywood door with a 2 lever lock - no yale. The outside fire door remains open at all times. It wouldn’t take much to give guests a key to the outside door. I felt somewhat unsafe there. The Dove Inn isn’t a pub, it’s a cafe open during the day so it’s like a ghost town at night. The glasses were dirty, like they’d never been washed. A well-used dish sponge was provided and hand soap rather than dish soap. The bath towels were smelly and crispy like they’d been dried too slowly hence the smell. Although it isn’t obviously dirty, the whole place is shabby, a bit grubby and in need of total redecorating. It was 28deg inside (16 outside) when we arrived. I managed to open the windows with difficulty as the interior glazing had been muddled so didn’t work properly. However once the windows were open the road noise was very intrusive. I couldn’t wear my usual earplugs because of the poor security situation. I rigged up an intruder alarm using metal utensils, pans and chairs by the door, but I needed to hear it. There was no fire information and no fire equipment such as a blanket in the kitchen. The door locks were not compliant with UK FHL standards and neither were the windows.

Wow, where do I start? As for staff, there is none, as fot facilities there is none, on arrival we went through the what we believed to be the main front door and was greated by a woman at 3.00p.m saying its closed but I can show you to your room which was dated with old bedding, not that it mattered as we left immediately, nothing is open at all in the inn, I had messages from the owner which were insulting calling me a child, the BBQ area is open to use if a staff member is there but there is no staff, the so called bar is not open only for events, not in the description,the restaurant is not open at all, the cafe is next door from 10 till 3 but you can't check in until 3.00 so waste of time that is, the owner messaged me saying there is a pub down the road and shops are 2 miles away, joke tbf, I would not stay here for free, nothing to do except sit in a room,It should say pub and the restaurant is closed bar snacks there isn't one.Better places to stay than this one unless you want to go to bed at 3.00p.m

Nothing at all very misleading, oh it will tell you what you can do in the welcome pack when you arrive, may you should know before you go.

Location

Traffic noise, beds a bit uncomfortable. No clean towels or toilet rolls

Great location - we wanted to visit Norwich and Bury St Edmunds and also went to Southwold. The beds were comfortable and the property had a nice garden and a cafe - we didn't use it but it would be handy for breakfast. Car parking was easy and it was straightforward finding the room and accessing the key. Great shower and the room was extremely clean. There's no wardrobe and no hangers - obviously this isn't an issue for most people but there are hooks and I had folding hangers so all was well! The owner was contactable via text and responded quickly to questions about fish and chips!

The room was very hot. Windows are sealed and the only way to let cooler air in was to open the door. The owner has put a tower fan in but it wasn't a comfortable place to be in warm weather. There is also some sort of alarm/monitor on the ceiling with an extremely bright green LED that lights the room up at night - if you like to sleep in the dark, take an eye mask! That said, the beds were very comfortable and we did generally have good sleep.

It was in the location where we were looking to stay for the night.

Thought we might get some where to sit and have a bit of food and a drink when we got there. Wasn’t the case because it was bingo night. We had to park our car in the road as well because the properties car park was full. Never expected that because there’s only 3 rentable rooms in the property, and it’s advertised as a cafe. Advice would be check if there’s anything going on there before you book a room. And upstairs, where the rooms are, has obviously been reconfigured since it was a pub. Another bit of advice is make sure you have a form of lighting with you if you’re staying in the flat. The light switch when you enter the flat is not by the door, as I expect it to be. The light switch is down the corridor opposite the kitchen area.