The Shankly Hotel — Attraction in Liverpool

I want to preface the review by saying that we discussed the issues we had at the time with the management of the hotel but did not receive any responses, as promised. I don't believe in slating a hotel online for poor service or facilities but I feel future patrons should know what they are paying for when they're making a booking. I stayed with a group of friends for 2 nights over a weekend in July, and we booked 2 rooms for 8 adults in total. On arrival at the hotel, we received the keys for both rooms, however, in one of the rooms that was assigned to us, one member of our travelling party discovered that someone we were not acquainted with was already in one of the rooms we were assigned. This was addressed at reception with the check-in staff, suspecting a mix up in rooms, and after some 'investigation' by the hotel into the matter, we were advised that there was no one in the room when they checked it out and an alternative room was provided. The change of room was fine, but this incident seemed to set the tone for the weekend.

As a group, we got ready to head out for the night on night one, and after eating in the hotel restaurant, for which the food was good, I returned to the room to use the facilities before we left at 9pm. On our return to the room later that night, myself and 2 friends discovered that 80% of our bathroom was soaked with water including a puddle on the floor. After initial inspection, we couldn't understand where the water had come from, despite checking the toilet, sink, shower and bath for leaks. The shower did not have a curtain and the showerhead was stationary over the bath. We subsequently reported it to the night staff on the front desk, and one person came up to the room with us to inspect the flood and clean up the mess. The unused bath towels, bath mat and toilet paper were all wet, despite not having been used at this stand by any resident of the room, and no satisfactory explanation could be provided by the staff member, despite noting they would check for leaks in the bedroom on the floor above. No follow up was provided to us. We addressed the issue again the next morning at reception with a lady who appeared to be in a senior position. She apologised for no follow up the night before and for the condition of the room and she asked for my email address and said she would investigate it and contact me. No email was received from the hotel since this to explain what happened.

On our return to the hotel on the last evening to prepare for departure the next morning, we determined, after using the bathroom facilities in full, that the only way the bathroom could have been so wet the night before, was if someone had been in the room using the shower. We unfortunately have no proof that it was used by anyone else outside of the 4 room residents, but all we know is that the place was bone dry when we all left the evening before. Luckily, after what had happened on our arrival with the other room, we ensured to leave no valuables in the room the first night when we went out, so nothing of value was missing on our return.

Aside from the above, the room was not in great condition. Wallpaper was peeling from an area of the ceiling, there was a smell of damp in the room, the window was bolted shut (due to new regulations were were told by hotel staff) and the air conditioning was not working properly, so on a relatively warm weekend, the room was very stuffy with 4 adult residents. The curtains were not blacked out in any way, we only had 3 bedside tables for 4 beds and I also discovered blood stains on the mattress protector under the sheet on my bed the night before we checked out.

One thing I do want to point out is that the hotel service staff that we had interaction with were very pleasant and provided great service, but the management of the hotel and how it's being run is clearly letting it down. I've worked in hotels before and I'm aware of how a business like this needs to be run to be successful. The location is great but that's about all it has...

Visited in August on a hen package. We had issues during the stay which resulted in some of the package not being taken due to lack of communication and organisation on the hotels part?

We have emailed them on numerous occasions as we had a train to catch when leaving & we advised Rosalie we would be emailing to get it resolved as we couldn’t stay to discuss due to the bookings.

The below email is what has been sent and not one response has been received! Not even an acknowledgment of the email!!

“Good Afternoon

We stayed with yourselves on a package from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st August. We were advised that we would receive an itinerary ahead of our arrival and a menu to pre order from, neither of which were received despite numerous calls chasing this up. Rosalie was adamant this had been sent on the Friday evening but nothing was received and this has been double checked upon our return home.

Prior to arrival it was confirmed that we would be staying in one of the Grey Rooms, upon check in the room we were given bore no representation to the pictures we had seen, no kitchen area and just beds in the room, we were swiftly moved to another room (419), which was better but again did not look like the Grey Rooms which we’d been advised we would be staying in, however it did have a small kitchen area so we settled with this. The room was clean and tidy, however the Bluetooth connectivity in the room was non functional and the TV signal very intermittent, it kept freezing every few minutes so we weren’t able to listen to music when relaxing or getting ready which was extremely disappointing.

We went down to dinner on the Friday evening and despite pre ordering we had a very long wait for the food to arrive, we did amend a couple of dishes as there were some on the menu that weren’t on the website which we’d used to pre order due to us not receiving the menu via email.

Afternoon tea and cocktail making we had no issues with at all and Liam who conducted the masterclass was fantastic.

On the Saturday evening we went down to our booking for tea and bottomless prosecco only to be advised that it had been cancelled, after some discussions between staff members we were seated, however no one seemed to know what we were entitled to and what it included which made us very nervous!! Due to the amount of time we’d waited for this to be resolved prior to being seated and the slow service the previous evening we had to leave as we had another booking elsewhere. Ahead of leaving for our other booking we queried with reception if we needed anything for entry to the club only to be informed that the club was no longer part of the same group so this was no longer included, this left a very disappointed bride to be!

Upon checkout we requested an invoice as advised by the lady we spoke to on reception on the Saturday evening so we could ensure we’d received everything we’d paid for. We did not receive the day to night package due to this being cancelled and a delay in us being seated and no one being sure what was going on! This is showing as a value of £55 per person on the invoice, I would therefore appreciate this if this could be refunded…..”

4 emails sent & not one single response or...

First of all, I’ve stayed a dozen of times at The shankly and the reason I always come back is how beautiful it is and how unique of a hotel it is. Me and my partner have made it a tradition of going for our anniversary every year back to the Shankly but after this visit, I really cannot see myself returning. The price has definitely risen quite a lot and the qualities is just nil. We booked a deluxe spa bath room and when we first arrived to our room, it looked very basic and from all my times of staying I’ve never seen a room like this at the shankly. I rang the front desk and while on the phone I was walking around the room and noticed dust on countertops fingerprints on metal work including the sink tap which is just an absolute no-go and shows me that the room has not been cleaned properly (I worked in a hotel as a cleaner for two years and it wasn’t a very good hotel but if the standard we had to clean two was better than what we experienced at a high end hotel somethings wrong) and there was used disgusting cotton earbuds right next to the bathroom mirror which nearly made me sick and that really showed me that this room had just not been cleaned as to miss that is crazy. We got moved to a different room and was told it was an “ upgrade” and at first glance yes it was until we turned the lights on in the main lights were broken and not just broken but flickering and as these were the main lights, they were huge (I have included a picture down below unfortunate I couldn’t attach the video) so we had to have the lights off our whole stay of being there. Then, if you look at the photos attached, the standard of the room was just incredibly disgusting, not cleaned and so many broken things throughout the room, including in the bath, which is one of the main reasons we stay at the Shankly. We ran a bath and when we went to turn the top off the bath was gone. The plug was broken but I’m actually glad it was as we could see the limescale marks all around the bathtub once the bath water had left the tub and when I had a closer look, it was just disgusting and you could tell it hadn’t been cleaned. The tiles in the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned which you can see in the photos and with filled with mould in the grout and black mould on the outer rim of the bathtub. There was poorly fitted bathroom tiles which were coming off dust cobwebs behind the sink and on the material work of the bathtub there was big yellow stains on the floor which I’m not sure what that was from the floor and around the bath tub you can see in the photos had Dirt and mould. It was the worst day I’ve had in a long time in a hotel and when you pay that type of money, you don’t expect this kind of quality at all. I’ve never had to change rooms in any hotel I stayed up and felt terribly embarrassed to ask to change rooms and hence why I didn’t wanna go back and complain about the second room. We just got up early and left around 9 o’clock, but for our anniversary, it really was disappointing and specially staying where it all began and having this experience, which means in the future our tradition has stopped. It’s not worth the...