I asked for a quiet room and the lady at reception assured me I would be in “one of the quietest rooms we have.” However, for the four nights I spent here, there were serious noise issues. There appears to be little or no isolation...or soundproofing between the rooms, so that if someone snores loudly (as my neighbour did, for three of the four nights) you can hear it clearly…all night.
My request to move to another room for my second and subsequent nights was very badly handled by a night manager (who told me she was actually working in the bar, not the reception). When I raised the issue of noise she quickly changed the subject to ask whether I had had a nice day. She seemed completely uninterested in engaging with my complaint. When I asked her whether my snoring neighbour was staying for (m)any more nights, she quickly looked at her computer screen and said “no.” Yet when she said it, she sounded uncertain. So I asked her which room number she was referring to and she replied, again with obvious uncertainty, “both of them”.
It was not true.
After a second sleep-deprived night, not sleeping till after 2am with the noise, I spoke with the Accommodation Manager. When I asked her whether I could cancel the remaining nights, she asked me whether I wanted to do so without a refund! I insisted that it would be on the basis of being refunded for the remaining two nights. She asked me to come back in an hour to speak with the manager. I explained that I was busy, gave her my mobile number and asked her to give it to the manager and to ask him to call me to discuss the issue. She assured me she would do so. I never heard from him. It was the third night, and again I did not sleep till the early hours (2am).
On my last night there was noise from the nightclub downstairs that continued till very late. Much of the nightclub is located in a conservatory-type structure in the back of the building that is partly open. I could hear every word of the music till 2.30am, and crowd noise until even later.
When I was checking out I asked the Accommodation Manager whether she had asked the hotel manager to contact me. “I asked one of the staff to contact him,” she claimed.
There were other issues, too. The room itself, in the attic, was small and did not have much natural light. The pressure in the shower was weak. The walls were scuffed and the skirting boards chipped. There were no sofas or wardrobe. Every day the electronic room key didn’t work so I had to go down to reception to have it validated again - and walk back up several flights of stairs because the elevator was out of action for 3 days.
I paid €439 for all of the above. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I feel I've been ripped off.More