Moxy York — Hotel in Great Britain

Enjoyed a two night mid with breakfast in fourth floor peak sleeper room, with view of York Minster. The hotel is in an excellent position, a short walk from the main centre. The hotel offers a discount at the nearby QShambles carpark. Our bedroom was a decent size, bathroom slightly compact but had everything needed. Powerful shower but the floor made you feel as though you were leaning due to the sloping towards the drain plug. Glass shelving in rooms very decorative but dirt and dust collectors. Nice size Smart TV. Appreciated the under bed sensor lighting in the night! Bed very comfortable and good size. Breakfast was enjoyable, plenty of choice, Does have hot mini omelettes and baked beans as an option other than the main cold continental available. The main reception/dining area was nicely decorated/designed, trendy furniture etc, with books, games and music. I am unsure if this space will be enough to entertain all guests, and outside visitors, during the main breakfast times. My main concern with the breakfast at the moment would be how it is being managed, or not as the case may be. We were not questioned by any staff whether we had purchased a breakfast, did not see any other guest questioned and saw a number of outside visitors walk off the street and help themselves to a full meal without any questions asked. With the way the breakfast area is designed, no obvious 'barrier' to get to the food, I can only see this being an issue getting payment unless someone is 'on guard' all of the time. I appreciate this hotel has only been open a week and accept there will be teething problems, including I guess staff recruitment. Even at this early stage the hotel did not give a fresh or clean feel to it. Tables had used breakfast plates etc left on them for over an hour, although I believe the hotel are attempting to get guests to clear away their own things. The two lifts were dirty from the point we arrived until we left, with small pools of liquid on the floor, dirty hand marks across the metal sides and quite a lot of a white liquid splattered across the mirror in the smaller lift. The new carpet in the hallway of the fourth floor appeared dirty, marks all across it, possibly from work men's shoes. It may have just needed a good vacuuming, it just appears as though more cleaning staff are needed throughout the hotel in general, but I think these basic issues should have been noted by staff and rectified at the earliest opportunity. I am not sure what the hotel policy is or will be towards the cleaning of bedrooms during the stay of a guest. Our room was not cleaned after our first night, which highlighted my previous observation regarding the glass shelving getting dirty. If the rooms are not cleaned every day then guests are not going to be impressed having to clean the shelves themselves due to how quickly they get dirty. I was unaware that the hotel was 'dog friendly', which is not a specific issue, but felt very uneasy when I saw a dog being lead around the food area and stood directly over a small pool of liquid. I cannot confirm this was caused by the dog but the liquid was not there a few seconds previously before the dog appeared. I would like to think the hotel would inform guests when booking a room that the previous occupant had a dog in that room, giving them the option to change or cancel due to any allergies or dislike of dogs etc. I am not sure 'what magic happened' when I swiped our bedroom card across the reader in the lift, as it suggested on the plaque. I thought the lift would go direct to our floor or lights and a fanfare would start. Instead, after swiping the card I still had to press the floor button before the lift would move, exactly the same as happens in every lift around the world. I guess the magic is that it makes you carry out two actions instead of one! Although I have provided some 'issues', I would confirm that we had an enjoyable stay and would recommend and...

TLDR: All fur coat and no knickers. A lot of effort has been put into the aesthetics of this hotel but the actual practicalities / comfort / utility of the hotel is really lacking.

More detailed review: The pros - the location is great for central York, and the discount with the nearby car park was welcome. Free (very weak) cocktail on arrival. The combined bar / lounge / chillout area / reception is a nice concept. Casting own content to room TV worked well.

However, the hotel has lots of really irritating things that really detract from the comfort and enjoyment of the experience.

The single biggest frustration was that the AC is fixed to heat only in winter and cool only in summer, with the advice being to open the window if needed. Which is pointless advice when the window only opens about 2cm. When we arrived our room was uncomfortably warm, we had to leave the window "open" all night, and it took until about 3am for it to be cool enough for us to get to sleep - and we were then woken by noise outside at about 8am. We had to leave our window "open" permanently for 3 days to have any hope of getting to sleep at all. At the price I'm paying here I should be able to have the room at whatever temperature I find comfortable, that's the whole point of having adjustable temperatures in hotel rooms - different people like different things. We both struggle to sleep in anything other than a really cool room.

The mattress and pillows used were very cheap and gave no support, we both woke up with neck and back pain daily.

The bathroom is TINY, obviously a hotel bathroom is never going to be massive, but it wasn't even possible to dry yourself off without repeatedly elbowing the walls / door / shower screen. There was nowhere in the bathroom or room to hang towels to dry (there were 2 hooks and a chair in the room but these were needed for clothes / coats as there's also no wardrobe!). The water pressure in the shower was really low.

Each morning there was work going on on the roof above us, lots of banging and power tools being used, literally vibrating our room. We had no warning when booking or indeed checking in that there would be work going on. No chance of a lie in at all, not what you want when you've been kept up until 3am because the room is so hot.

The room has a horrible, unnecessary motion-detection activated light that comes from under the bed. It's not possible to get in or out of the bed, or move the duvet, without lighting this up and waking everyone up.

The 'gym' was pathetically tiny - not even room to do...

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting at the Moxy York, but I think I was expecting a bit more than I got. Me and my girlfriend arrived very late on a Friday, a journey that took us 9 hours.

Once we arrived at 10PM, we were greeted with a surly staff member at check-in. I enquired if it was possible to get some food, apparently that was a no-go. I’d checked their website prior, and it mentioned 24/7 dining. Apparently, that was old news. Food stops at 9, even on a Friday.

We took our luggage to our room. The cleaning job was so-so. Cup marks were visible on sides, there was tissue down the toilet. Never mind, we went back down to the bar, as every guest receives a free cocktail on arrival.

We ordered our free cocktails from said surly staff member, and my oh my what a cocktail. Warm Ribena in a tumbler would’ve been kind. They were put on the side, and I assumed they still needed mixing, ice adding or some form of finishing etc. Nope, those were the cocktails. Wow. I checked the menu, £8. If I’d have paid £8 for that I’d have been getting my money back pronto.

The bar closed at 11 so we had a couple more drinks. Once the bar had shut, we noticed the staff members were still serving drinks – to their friends who were present at the bar. We felt like we’d walked in on a social gathering and were just a nuisance, getting in the way of their personal Friday night socialising sesh. It was very strange.

In any case, off to bed. 1 pillow each. Now I don’t want to come off as precious, but even at the cheapest hotels (and this hotel is far from cheap), you get a second pillow. Cue an awful nights sleep after 9 hours of driving.

I was awoken around 7AM with the sound of doors banging throughout the hotel. The rooms are insulated, but the doors are so heavy that when they’re left to close, they make the most obnoxious thud. This ensued for a couple of hours whilst people went about their morning routines. I’d left a “do not disturb” sign on the door. No point, the room wasn’t cleaned during our stay.

A positive is the late check-out time, 12 midday. We checked out and went down to see if we could get some food before we left. Still no dice. They didn’t start serving till the arbitrary time of 12:15PM, and given it was 12:07PM, it just wasn’t possible. We checked out, without any questions about how our stay was.

Would I stay again? No. Would I recommend to a friend? No. There are no doubt cheaper and better options available where you’d...