Harbour Beach Club Hotel & Spa — Hotel in South Hams

My partner and I recently stayed at the Salcombe Beach Club, here is a breakdown of our honest opinions: ||||Bar/breakfast: ||||We arrived early so we thought we would grab a drink at the bar, when my partner came back to our table he said it was £22.44 for 2 drinks, he checked this with one of the staff members at reception later that evening and they explained that our bill had a 12.5% surcharge on top which we were not made aware of at point of purchase. The reception staff did put this right for us and refund the surcharge, but this is something we were not aware of or informed about when ordering these drinks nor was a receipt offered or provided at the time of purchase to confirm that this had happened.||Our room rate was called ‘bed and breakfast’ however we looked at previous reviews here and found that if you wished to order a hot breakfast from the menu, there would be an additional charge of £10. This was confirmed when we spoke to a member of staff in the evening. We have stayed at many hotels, and this is something we have not seen before. We were offered a hot breakfast twice during the morning, at which point neither member of staff informed us of this additional charge which we felt lacked transparency and set the wrong expectation of us as guests.||The continental food however was nice with a selection of pastries, fruit, toast. Staff were friendly and attentive too.||We didn’t eat at the restaurant during the evening of our stay, but whilst sat in the bar on arrival, we did notice food being sent back to the kitchen at this time, we opted to eat in the town instead later in the evening.||||Spa: ||||Complete waste of time, we were in there for 5-10 minutes and then left, the pool was cold and not being used by any of the other guests, sauna and steam room were tiny and there was a small hot tub that could fit about 2/3 people in. ||||Room: ||||The marketing team need to review their wording on the website, we contacted the hotel prior and were offered a reduced rate on a “superior sea view double” upon looking at the website, this was advertised and marketed as one of the better rooms within the resort. We were happy that we’d been offered what we thought was a bargain on a very premium room.||Upon arrival, we noticed our room looked quite different to the pictures on the website. Our family have stayed in this hotel before, and they showed us videos/pictures of their room which was considered the same level as ours, but it looked completely different! I believe as we paid a reduced rate, we were given a less than desirable room. We did feed this back at the time, but there was little alternative offered as the hotel was fully booked which was understandable. ||I’d recommend carefully checking the details of the website to ensure you are satisfied with the room level being offered. We also had a connecting door in our room which we were not informed about until we were shown our room and unfortunately, we could hear our neighbours loud and clear, and they did try our connecting door, which we didn’t like.||The room was spacious, airy and the bathroom is modern, you also get Gin and tonic which is a nice touch and a selection of mini-bar items in their fridge, we also liked the provided soaps in the bathroom too. The bed and mattress were very comfortable, and we slept very well. ||||Shuttle Bus: ||||The shuttle bus into Salcombe is fantastic, the chap who drives this bus is super friendly, very helpful and gave us good advice on where to go for food and entertainment. ||I unfortunately didn’t catch the driver’s name, but he was fab!|| ||Staff:||||I will say the staff are friendly and welcoming. Interacting with the staff at this resort was a highlight of our stay, and we found good service generally across the board, we came back on an earlier bus which was arranged by the sister hotel in Salcombe, nothing seemed like too much trouble, and they were happy to help us too. ||The issues we faced at the resort we believe were not down to the staff on the ground, but of wider issues within management on managing expectations and transparency with guests. There were clearly some new staff who were working there, but they were kind, courteous and genuinely helpful. My partner found a more senior member of the bar staff abrupt with new colleagues when they were asking for help and guidance within their role, this was the same colleague which overcharged us at the bar earlier in our stay without informing us, we hope that their bad habits do not rub off on the newer staff members here.||||Overall, for the price we had paid (even at the discounted rate) we felt it lacked value compared to other hotels within the Devon area, my partner has previously stayed at other Harbour hotels in Southampton, Christchurch and Brighton of which they were more transparent in their offer to guests. We both felt the issues we faced could have been avoided during our stay by being transparent with guests and willing to listen to feedback directly to avoid complaints across the board. The Salcombe Harbour Beach Club has the makings of a great stay with an exceptional location and service, and if they are willing to make a few changes to the website and set clear expectations when booking (including informing us of interconnecting rooms, extra charges before they happen etc), we may have given...

Gosh what a let down this hotel was.

The car parking space we were asked to park in was swarming with wasps. When we got out of the car it was really very unpleasant, and both cars either side had a carpet of wasps over it. We let reception know.

Our room was disappointing, 1 for it being on the ground floor so the gorgeous view was obstructed by people sitting outside and moving from the carpark to reception with luggage. This level room also gives no privacy as anybody can look in to see what you are doing. 2 there was an adjoining door in the room which is never good for noise. It is frustrating that the ground floor rooms are charged the same as other levels. They really shouldn't be, it is not the same experience. Reception could move us for the second night to a floor above but we'd have had to have vacated our room for 11am and wouldn't have got the other room until 3pm so for us this would ruin the stay moving our luggage mid stay etc. So we stayed put but were disappointed.

We were informed that no cards could be cut for rooms so we'd have to keep coming back to reception to be let into our room. There was no apology for this or goodwill gesture. It was poor and we wasted a lot of precious holiday time waiting at reception for somebody to take us to our room. This also meant that the staff on reception were stressed, and that a lot of the time there was no member of staff manning reception. With an issue like this another member of staff should have been brought in to help reception out, it was a nightmare.

Both nights in our room were very noisy, sadly the people next door to us decided to watch TV at full blast until 2.30am and the adjoining door let us hear all of it, and on the second night of our stay the fire alarm also went off at 4am meaning we got a grand total of an hour and a half sleep as neither of us could get back to sleep after getting dressed and going into the corridor due to the fire alarm. We again expected to hear some sort of apology for this or goodwill gesture but heard nothing. This isn't an unlucky occurrence either a friend of mine I discussed this with after said they couldn't sleep all night due to noisy people in the room next to them too. You can also hear everybody on your corridor shutting their bedroom door as they are so loud.

Breakfast is frustrating that it does not include the option of a cooked breakfast in the price. We paid a lot of money for our room each night and we felt it was very petty that £10 per person was added on.

Service for breakfast, and dinner is very poor. The staff members are all lovely but they take an order and then it never arrives, or they bring you somebody else's. It took 40 minutes for our cup of tea to arrive and the staff member ran out with it saying he had gone on his lunch break and totally forgot. Very poor. He then said our scones would be with us in a few minutes and 20 minutes later no scones. Another member of staff went to the kitchen and came back saying they didn't have a ticket for the scones so they were not being made. Dinner wasn't good either with very long periods of waiting. We decided to eat at the South Sands hotel opposite the second night as the service was irritating us so much. Although the food wasn't great there their service was miles better. We told the girl that her team could teach the Habour Beach Club a lot and she said they received that comment many times.

Before we came to stay we were sent an email asking us a few things before our stay, it asked if it was a special occasion, I said it was our anniversary, but sadly nothing was done for this, so why ask.

I phoned reception to explain these issues before checking out. She said she'd look at amending the bill. But when we came to pay at check out there some large errors on our bill. The people next to us checking out had the same thing.

The location, design of hotel and spa are great but the rest of it is not a 5 star experience. We would rather go to Boringdon Hall or Bovey Castle for our special...

We booked a two-night stay at the Harbour Beach Club to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

The hotel is what I would describe as a frustrating mixed bag, and this is why:

LOCATION The hotel’s location looking out across South Sands is truly spectacular – so much so, I’d argue there are few more beautiful places in the UK.

ROOM We booked a Sea View room around a month before our scheduled stay and were allocated a room on the ground floor (room 005) - unfortunately, this room is one of two adjoining rooms on this floor where every word (and other noise) from the room next door (room 004) can be heard clearly between the adjoining doors and poorly sound-proofed walls.

Indeed, on our departure morning, I could even smell the gentlemen next door’s deodorant seeping through the gaps in the doors. We were lucky in that the guests in the adjoining room chose not to stay up until the early hours watching TV, as this could potentially be a major issue should other guests be less fortunate with their neighbours.

When paying more than £300 per night for a room, being placed in one with an adjoining door is really not what I’d expect from a supposedly top-end hotel.

RESTAURANT This, unfortunately, is where the Harbour Beach Club seriously needs to improve if it is to be worthy of it’s £300+ per night room charges.

The bar service is hit and miss to say the least – I’d expect bar and waiting staff to be a bit more proactive in their table service, yet this was not the case for much of our stay, with staff often standing around chatting rather than asking guests if they would like further drinks or providing menus / wine lists to newly seated guests, even during non-busy times.

The food in the restaurant is below average in our opinion. My wife’s meal on our second night was borderline in-edible, with burned skin on her cod and under-cooked potatoes that looked and tasted very much like they had come from a tin. My fish and chips was little better and unfortunately the thick, greasy batter became quite sickly.

For our first night, we chose to eat at the nearby Winking Prawn restaurant at North Sands, which was incredibly good in comparison, with excellent service and a wonderful menu of fresh fish caught locally.

Breakfast was a pleasant enough continental offering, alongside a cooked breakfast menu that comes with a £10 surcharge on top of the high-end nightly room rate – this is completely unacceptable and needs to change.

How on earth can a hotel charging room rates of more than £300 per night not include a cooked breakfast?!

EXTRA TOUCHES The hotel provides some complimentary gin in rooms, which would be a nice touch were they not to charge for the tonic water that goes with it!

The hotel also provides a shuttle service in an electric van to and from Salcombe, which is a great touch, although when we took this, the driver arrived 10 minutes late then spent another 10 minutes in the car park insisting that another guest park their car in a specific space while we all waited in the van.

SPA The spa at the hotel is excellent and the 90-minute massage treatment I had was among the best I’ve experienced anywhere in the world, with real attention to detail from the initial form right through to the treatment itself.

OUTSIDE SPACE The outside decking area looking out across South Sands is very nice, although many beds and chairs were dirty during our stay and didn’t appear to have been cleaned for quite some time.

IN SUMMARY The Harbour Beach Club is in the perfect location and has so much potential, but is let down by these key issues:

Selling rooms like ours for more than £300 per night that are adjoined to another room with poor soundproofing is a very poor look for a supposedly top-end hotel.

The young bar and restaurant staff appear to be extremely poorly managed given their lack of attentiveness to guests and general demeanour in some cases and the food from the kitchen was disappointing to say the least.

For those reasons, we...