The Crown Bar & Bistro — Restaurant in Lancaster

My husband booked this hotel so I might not come up as verified user. But I was there. First the positives: the bar/bistro downstairs looks nice. The staff working there, and showing us our rooms, was nice. The beds were clean and comfortable enough. The hotel's location is great. But then. Four days before travelling we received an email warning us that there were quite a few stairs, and no lift. On arrival we were asked to pay upfront. It wasn't a cheap hotel either, and not normal procedure. After climbing what were indeed a lot of stairs with a lot of bags and two children, we got to room seven, which consists of a sort of entrance room, separate shower room, and two separate bedrooms. One bedroom (if you stand close to the window there is a sea view) has a double bed, a wooden chest with things to make hot drinks, a broken chair, and a tv with no remote. The door was damaged and the walls not that clean (the decor was also very dated but that in itself doesn't matter). The duvet cover was damaged. The second bedroom felt cramped with two separate single beds, and no room to walk around them. The headboards didn't feel particularly clean. The TV didn't work, and the remote that was found there was sticky and didn't work for the other TV. One of the duvet covers here was also damaged. The shower room had a shower, a sink and a toilet. The light didn't work. The one in the shower itself did so there was some light. In all honesty the shower worked fine even if our kids were too spooked to use it. The glass shelf above the sink was so unclean that we didn't put anything on it. There were a few stains on the wall, and the top of the tap was missing. Then there was a bit of mould in the shower. None of this was a lot, but all added up made it unpleasant. The fire doors between the rooms were so heavy that our daughters couldn't open them, even just to use the bathroom. There was no place to spend time together as a family unless all of us were sitting on the bed. When we wanted to leave on Sunday there was no one there to take our key and check out. My husband went back an hour later (around 9.30) and as there was still no staff, he just left the key in the room with the doors unlocked. Overall it felt heavily overpriced. Next year we will...

With careful consideration I've decided to rate this hotel and bistro three stars. The food is ok, the portion sizes are huge and it's always busy for evening meals, the service then was friendly and attentive so that side gets five stars. What let the food side down was the breakfast. We stayed there three nights, so had three breakfasts. The food was medium, but the thing that irked me was that tea and toast wasn't included in the breakfast - it was extra. The first morning was confusing, on the menu it says that breakfast is a set amount and anything extra is £6 (cereal, toast, tea, coffee etc).... So if I wanted a cooked breakfast that costs £7 but then I have to pay £6 for one slice of toast? After asking about it the server said they would only charge £1 if I just wanted a slice of toast....but it seems very inhospitable to not have toast and tea as part of a breakfast? I'd rather pay a larger amount for breakfast itself than have all these confusing extras. To add to this, the person serving us wasn't very friendly, was very abrupt and verging on rude, it didn't make me feel good about coming for breakfast. The rooms were just ok. Everything smelled like cooking food as it's in a bistro so, unavoidable. The doors do not lock behind them when you shut them, like you'd expect in a hotel. The top room is an absolute nightmare to get to, which is the one we stayed in, there's no lift or bag service so if you're disabled or not great and thousands of steps don't stay here or try and request a room on less steps. But there's always steps. Steep, unending steps. The location is ok, central Morecambe. The view was ok, we got some ocean views. The prices are ok also which is why overall three starts is my...

On arrival it was easy and painless to check in, friendly staff and we’ll sign posted, we were on the 2 floor and had 2 flights of stairs to walk up but this was what we expected anyway after reading reviews, our room was pleasant and clean and we had everything we needed including iron, ironing bored, tea coffee facilities and a charger port for phones, the bed was so comfortable and clean, our view was lovely and we could see the sea front when sitting in the bay window. ||We went out for some food and came back around 10pm and although we were shown how to open the door we couldn’t as we were doing it wrong, I rang the number provided to tell staff members and they were so helpful, they said they would be there in 5minutes to let us in, by the time I had got back up stairs my friend had managed to get in (we were doing it wrong) I felt so bad for calling staff members and I felt awful having wasted their time, they were polite and understanding. ||We checked out in the morning no problems at all and went to visit family in Morecambe later that day we came back for some lunch and we are so glad we did, the food was out of this world so tasty and reasonably priced, everything was homemade and piping hot we all had empty plates beautiful and the right amount. ||All in all we would defo stay again and most definitely eat there again!! We were lucky as we could get a table on the off chance, it was quick and we didn’t have to wait...