This was a cheap hotel to stay at on a Sunday night but was convenient for my planned flight from Bournemouth Airport. I genuinely have no idea why they’re trying to be part of Accor though, they need to leave or they’re perhaps likely to be thrown out soon enough.
There was a lot of noise from neighbouring rooms even at check-in, which reception could hear. I should have really upgraded as Platinum Accor and I say that not out of privilege, but because they didn’t really seem to care about anything. I’m also not sure why they’re trying to be part of Ibis Styles, there’s not really much here that fits into that brand.
There was a welcome drink which they didn’t pro-actively mention but I claimed anyway. There was no welcome gift, but I could be asked about does it matter? Well, it sort of does, because most hotels in the Accor chain are complying with the standards they request and the Polish hotels operated by Orbis are offering ridiculously high standards. They’re upgrading, giving welcome gifts and almost going too far in meeting their obligations. It must be galling to the decent hotels to know that some other locations are not interested in committing in the way that they should.
There was no-one else in the bar area, which is actually reasonably pleasant. They don’t offer food, but the bar is open throughout the evening. This feels sub-optimal really, some considerable money has evidently been spent here in providing a decent and nice environment, although the marketing is all over the place.
I like this, it feels like a better way to contact the hotel.
In what might sound illogical, I’ll rate the breakfast as a disgrace to Accor even though I liked it. There was no hot food other than bacon, sausage and mozzarella rolls. I had the very last sausage roll and it was terrible, just junk food. Other guests didn’t get anything hot.
The reason I mention that I might not be being fair is that I liked the breakfast as I didn’t want any hot options. I had a lot of chorizo, indeed, I had all of it. The muffins were OK, but the fruit was absolutely fine. The yoghurts were adequate and the juices, when they refilled them, were generic but OK.
My complaint is that integrity is important. Don’t advertise a hot breakfast when there isn’t a hot breakfast. The reality that the hotel happened to stray into what I wanted isn’t perhaps the point. The online reviews are also very poor, there are clearly substantial issues here where guests continue to be disappointed.
The breakfast room was large and clean, this is clearly what the hotel used to have as a restaurant area. Again, someone has pumped money in here and so an effort has been made at some staff.
The rooms next to me came back at around 03:00 banging about. I’m oblivious to noise generally, but there should have been someone at reception dealing with this.
If this wasn’t an Accor hotel and I stayed here, I would have been content for the money. But, they’ve signed up to certain standards by being part of Accor and they’re playing fast and loose with it as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s important that managed hotels understand that they represent their brand they’ve signed up to and not just their own venue.