The Grand Brighton — Hotel in Great Britain

Location is good. However, i had a terrible experience at the hotel during my one night visit.

The hotel claims to be a 5 star hotel in their meta description on Google. - this is quite shady, as when one arrives at the hotel it is clearly a 3 star hotel. The hotel is super old and run down. Carpets are old, the wood in the elevator is super beat-up, and the metal finishes are seriously scratched. The baseboards around the hotel are broken, near the stairs,etc.

I got an Inward facing room - as I am quite sensitive to light, and I was mostly going to be out of the room. My room on the second floor was facing an outside AC/HVAC/exhaust unit, the sound from the unit at all hours of the day and night was incredibly high. I thought the AC was on max inside my room, only to discover it was in fact turned off, but that the sound was coming from outside. In that outside area, for an unknown reason, there was a huge focal light, that with the blinds shut in the room, it felt as though there was day light outside. There were also a few spider webs on the ceiling on the corner of the bed (one could see them when laying down).

They claim to have parking. In some places, in hindsight, they say that it is first-come-first-serve. We arrived just before 4pm (check-in time) - i would assume we would be part of first-come. We chose the hotel because it had parking. My partner has been feeling quite sick, and parking the car was a hassle which I did not want to experience, as I had to take care of her. Upon arrival the parking was full. This led me to have to go park the car and spend 30+ minutes to do so - as despite there being a car park behind the hotel, there is a lot of traffic.

The hotel porter: Consequently, because there was no parking, i left the car on the loading bay outside for 1h upon arrival, it was 20 minutes check-in (due to the queue), 20 minutes unload (i did it myself because there was no one to help), and 20 minutes to help my partner who was feeling sick. The upon arrival the porter had informed me that it was not run by the hotel, and I could get a fine if i left it outside for some time.

The next day the porter came to me and said “you almost got a ticket yesterday” i replied “yes, i took a risk”. He said “it’s not about that, it makes our lives harder when you keep the car here” and pat me on the shoulder attempting to dominate me or teach me a lesson. Please do not touch any guest. And I would not expect anyone else at any other hotel saying this to a guest.

The truth of the matter is that I would not have left the car there for 1h if they had parking, as they said they did on booking.com and their website - which was one of the main reasons we chose the hotel.

Concluding: shady information, old premises and...

We stayed for the week 16th to 20th September. Apart from the excellent bar & restaurant staff (all credit to them!) our experience was far from pleasant. I am 86 and my wife is 80. We both have physical mobility problems and heart conditions. Our first introduction to the hotel was that Lift No.1 was out of order .. "Use Lift No.2". By the next day, Lift No.2 was also out of order .. "Use the Service Lift". This was now the situation for the rest of the week! One service lift serving 6 floors.||The "Service Lift" is tiny, not to mention dirty, for the use of staff moving cleaning equipment & stores between floors. On our floor, there was still a flight of stairs in order to reach it. Our main problem was, having got to the lift, it was always a long wait for the lift to arrive, and when it did, was frequently fully occupied, either with other residents or staff with large trolleys. This came to a head on the day we were due to leave, with a taxi booked for a specific time to get us to Brighton Station | for a specific train. We vacated our room at a time to allow us to be in Reception when our taxi arrived.||We only just made it in time, but at the expense of extreme discomfort, because we waited a full 15 minutes for the service lift to arrive with sufficient room to enter it. We had to 'pass' on THREE lift arrivals. I therefore had to carry two heavy suitcases down half a dozen flights of stairs. My wife has difficulty with stairs, with or without cases.||Access to bedrooms was by using a small black 'stick' to poke into a hole (instead of the customary plastic card). I met one lady on a stairway landing who had dropped hers on to the heavily patterned carpet which rendered the 'key' virtually invisible. We eventually found it by treading on it. Inside the bedrooms there were no security locks or chains, so that staff members could just knock and walk straight in .. which happened on two occasions when one of us was undressed. Room cleaning did not seem to be routine. One staff member said he would return after 3 pm to service the room, and we never saw him again. The so-called fridge was, in reality, a warming cupboard, and the secure safe was unusable, being stupidly positioned on the floor of the wardrobe which would require getting down on hands and knees in order to operate it.||The fire alarm went off twice one afternoon, and there had been no written or verbal warning that these were TESTS.||The bathroom toilet had a very inefficient flush, and no toilet brush was provided. On one occasion we had hot water coming out of both washbasin taps, even when left running for a long period.||All in all our experience of a so-called 5-star hotel was appalling and not worth the money we paid...

Memorable stay at The Grand Hotel: My family and I stayed at the amazing Grand Hotel Brighton to celebrate my birthday and to get together as a family like we usually do during Christmas as this has not been possible since COVID-19 2020. I booked the King Suite (room 733) and 5 double rooms for 11 of us. We were 3 separate groups and all the bookings were made in my name. My group was the last to arrive at the hotel but my family members didn’t have to wait but were all checked into their separate rooms before I arrived with my husband and 2 adult children. The experience we all received was truly exceptional, the Concierge service was excellent and very welcoming. I must add that the concierge staff are truly commendable in the service provided at all times as our requests were many as we were many! They were always helpful in assisting everyone.

As my husband was shielding we requested for a large table and 11 chairs in the King Suite so we can dine in. I was impressed to see beautifully dressed banquet table with sitting for 11 of us, two ice buckets and 6 large complimentary bottles of water on the table, the table was beautifully set and ready for our celebration meal, staff definitely went the extra mile. The King Suite is truly amazing and luxurious with separate large lounge, guest wc and breathtaking Seaview. Although the large banquet table took some space but there was still plenty of space in the room for us to continue the celebration and relax after dinner. The lounge is large, spacious, well decorated with very comfortable sofa chairs. Room service was very prompt and excellent in delivering freshly prepared delicious meals.

All staff members were very helpful, very professional yet friendly. The amazing large buffet breakfast met all our dietary needs with very wide selection. A section was arranged in the restaurant for my party and table set for 11, so we sat together and continued with the birthday celebration. I particularly enjoyed the avocado and chilli as I love avocado but had never seen this unusual but delicious mix. It was good to see many healthy options.

Staff members all round were remarkable and truly outstanding. The Grand team made our 6 glorious nights stay from 11th April 2022 very pleasant and enjoyable. We had the most memorable time as a family and were all impressed by the excellent high standard of service and will definitely visit again as a family.

I’m truly grateful to The Grand Hotel team for contributing to make my birthday truly special and making our stay an unforgettable experience as a family. Many thanks to...