The Royal Bar & Shaker — Restaurant in Lancaster

Won’t stay here every again.

First issue was the ‘cat park’. You had to pay £5 per day for something that hardly resembles a car park. There is only 4 spaces and you have to park in a stack mode - meaning one car goes all the way up then the second one goes behind you. So if you are planning on leaving and someone is parked behind you and they already left, then you’re screwed.

The rooms are spread between few floors and it feels like you are going to Narnia to get to your room. There is no lift so good luck with the suitcases! Anyone who has mobility issues will struggle on these narrow steps. Didn’t like that part.

The room was extremely hot, even with the window open and all radiators off. Not only throughout the day but night too. I really do not understand how the hell could a room get this hot at the end of September?! There was one window with like two sections. Only the top section open and only on one side. Not enough to cool the room down. The room just stayed hot throughout the night.

The bed was a small double and the most uncomfortable bed I ever slept on. When you sat down on it, it felt like you were falling through. It was so soft it felt awful. There is no way two grown adults could fit on it. When we tried to sleep that night we had to sleep in the opposite direction to each other because we couldn’t fit on it. The bed was low as well so it was difficult to get up.

Bathroom was relatively small. The shower although powerful and hot was rather small and it felt claustrophobic.

The worst part about the place is the noise!!! We had earplugs with us but for those who sleep with earplugs you will know if the room gets hot, a pressure builds in the body and if you are wearing earplugs you will get very nasty headache. So they were useless to us.

What we didn’t know - because it is not advertised anywhere, not on booking.com; not on google; not anywhere else - is that they have a live music!!! OMG!!! You could NOT sleep through that! Not only the music but the crowd, the vibrations throughout the building from electric guitar and the massive speakers they had!!! It was around 11.30pm when it stopped. We were still awake because of that. Awake, tired and annoyed as hell!! Then the crown leaving… another two hours of people walking by, singing, screaming, cars going off in the distance, some knobhead driving up and down in his loud car!!! My husband managed to get some sleep with the earplugs in. However, I didn’t. I stayed up until 4.30am because it was so hot in that room I felt ill. Eventually I managed to fall asleep and get 3 hours of sleep. This was all so bad for us as we were driving the next day and wanted some rest.

I woke up with a migraine and felt ill. Couldn’t even eat much for breakfast. The breakfast was the only GOOD thing about this place. My husband enjoyed it. I couldn’t eat and to top it off they were playing loud music in the bar as well.

I feel that the way they advertise the place is misleading and wrong. They do not tell you everything about the place and the pictures are done so it looks inviting and good. If you want quiet and comfortable night go...

Tldr: way too noisy.

So we booked a Friday&Saturday stay here in Morecambe, having only visited the town a couple times before and not being familiar with this particular location.

No viable parking, they had space at the back, for fiver a day. It got insured to move forward and be blocked in, which whilst maybe better for security did leave us a bit anxious on being trapped there. Chiming with other reviewer, found it a touch odd basically when In bar the v first thing was staff asking for full payment upfront, including the 2 days parking. Did make me wonder what but factors are coming next. Now we're basically trapped.

I should state the good points in that room was decent seeming value for what it was with breakfast and the breakfast was good. The staff were generally fine and bright young people and I could see the building was well maintained and doors in the stairwells clearly did some effective soundproofing in that direction as possible. I think the cleaners deserve particular credit, this place is dog friendly but cleanliness wise seems to put most of Blackpool etc region to shame by comparison.

But despite I think the windows being double glazed, what it was up against on the evening is v gl with that. Love band seemingly playing just outside until 2330-0000 with v heavy bass and also neighbours bar performances and bad boy racer drivers and general feral locals all made for quite the chorus. &I was awoken by arguing and feral local activity around 0130 and wife didn't sleep at all because this until the witching hour 0300-0400 or so. Picking up somewhat again quite early in the morning afterwards. With window closed the room became very hot and stuffy even with all heating off. We did have some local wandering earlier and saw some local feral sights. I myself grew up on a council estate and recognise some signs to stay safe enough. Coastal life seems to be something a bit else. I do gather this in late September is a part gasp of the summer season and visiting on a random Tuesday out of season we'd probably see none of this and all the charm to them generally match the reviews seen here. But quite the difference and no warning on the listing or in the messages at all like seem at other venues when wedding receptions etc on and they weren't anything as bad and impactful as this. We couldn't face another night like this on a Saturday and there's no reasonable adjustment possible to inform the staff of to correct this. When I stated checking out early they responded perfect, which was the succinct response I did want as I was already exhausted by that point and didn't welcome futile endeavours, although for them I bet that was. No premier Inn good night guarantee here seen, implied or delivered. I can put some things down to experience but I think so could the operators of the venue, and so not for us in summary on this occasion and corner cutting and omission by the operators and other such manger has to be heavily...

We booked a large suite with sea view on the first floor of this hotel. Upon arriving the barman immediately asked for payment, which I made with no problems. I then immediately got informed (post-payment) that we have been given a very small room with a smaller bed and no bay window on the third floor. The hotel did not tell us the room wasn’t available until AFTER taking our payment and then when they were walking us up the many (additional) stairs to our room. The floor in the bathroom was dirty, no wardrobe, and no manager to speak to - they had, conveniently, left for the day.

I complained and they said we could have a couple of drinks or a free meal - we had no plans to eat or drink there so that wasn’t really suitable for us.

The main thing that I felt was completely unacceptable is that they took payment for the full rate and did not tell us until immediately afterwards (like one minute after) that the room wasn’t available. This is awful practice - actually illegal - and in clear breach of the consumer rights act and trade descriptions. There was no offer of a partial refund and only an apology given and an offer of drinks or a free meal.

Later on we returned to the hotel via the back door and there were two men sitting, in darkness, at the bar. The front door was locked, all the lights in the main bar area were off. and we came in through the back door to two men staring at us, saying nothing in the darkness. It wqs deeply weird and didn’t exactly make you feel safe staying in a place that appeared to be having a lock in with no staff around.

We did not stay for the breakfast which was included in the room rate. We felt really uncomfortable in this hotel and like our presence was an annoyance to them, and coupled with the weird lock in, no management present and ripping me off, I have no option but to recommend staying well clear...