a&o Brighton Palace Pier

Rooms are clean, with a large bathroom. Staff was very nice, the bar/lounge area is very enjoyable as well and you couldn't find a better location if you tried. It is literally right on the beach front. There are no lockers in the rooms though (at least mine didn't have any).

Rooms are clean, with a large bathroom. Staff was very nice, the bar/lounge area is very enjoyable as well and you couldn't find a better location if you tried. It is literally right on the beach front. There are no lockers in the rooms though (at least mine didn't have any).

The good: The view from our room was amazing. We had a clear view over the Brighton coast and a small view of the sea from our room. The bed was relatively comfortable and the room was spacious, but that’s where the pleasantries end. The bad: Our first shock of the trip comes from when we entered the door, and we were made aware it was a hostel, not a hotel. There was extremely little advertising that this was not a hotel, and after looking at other reviews, this seems to be a common complaint. After this shock, we sat down in the lobby as we had arrived quite early (that’s not their fault to be fair). We asked roughly when the room would be ready and we were met with so much uncertainty we were worried we’d even booked the room. We then tried to check in after roughly 2 hours of waiting for the room to be ready, only to be met with surprise forms and ID checks. This is our first time travelling together, so this may be common place practice, yet the service was quite frankly rude and mean. We asked why we had to do this and we were met with a face being pulled and a very abrupt “Just do it.” After another hour of filling in forms, we finally arrived at our room, and in their favour, the room was initially quite good. It was spacious and the bed was comfy, yet then we entered the bathroom, and found that the bathtub was out of order, but more on that later. We then checked the shower, only to find that the shower head could not stay up on its own. After requesting a fix from the desk and waiting another two hours, our request was fixed, so props to them for that. Now, we had paid extra for breakfast and, if I’m honest, we were not pleased. The food was luke warm at best, and the general selection was just poor. A weird mix between a full English breakfast and a continental breakfast. This just irked us the wrong, and really cemented a 2/5 for us. The ugly: Now, as mentioned before the bath was out of order, and after a quick glance inside, it was made apparent this was because of a mysterious substance that was inside the tub. I don’t know wether the cleaning staff didn’t want to or couldn’t get it out (I don’t know which is worse) but we had paid for a bathtub, and so we expected a bathtub. We will be enquiring as to a partial refund for this, as the room in total cost us ~£130 for the night. After doing some research ourselves, we found a travel lodge room for a family of 4 costing the same. And I bet they at-least had a working shower at time of check in.