ROYAL TERRACE HOTEL

Unreal place, beautiful building filled with fantastic art.

Booked via IHG as we’ve had really good experiences at Voco hotels including the sister hotel in Edinburgh. This was a real mistake, a couple of days before check in I got a welcome anticipation email from ihg, run of the mill type looking forward to welcoming you. But I did notice a page to click on that informed me that due to ongoing staffing issues the restaurant and room service wasn’t operational. They did however say breakfast was being served as usual. I did contact them and suggested they could have let guests know when booking since this was ongoing for some time. We checked in and were informed we’d been upgraded to a premium king which we thought was a nice touch. That was until we saw the room. Rather tired and rather peculiar. A large room with a rather tacky four poster bed frame surrounding a standard king divan. No sense of style or aesthetic value. Housekeeping was poor, bottle tops from previous guests found under the chairs and bed and rather a lot of dust. I understand this Voco is an old Crowne Plaza, old is the operative and any refurbishment hasn’t made it to the rooms, the premium king at least. A MASSIVE tv perched on top of the blanked off marble fireplace suggested interactivity, smart tv, choice. No, just the usual 5 hd channels and no casting because the wifi connectivity had been switched off. Any chance they could switch it on. No. Heating was none existent and ranged from chilly to just about bearable. I tried the various control buttons and looked up the device online as there were no instructions but all that happened was the heater/air con made a few clicking and clacking sounds and blew out cold air so I switched it off. Reception weren’t any help, I asked for assistance and nothing happened, I mentioned it again the day we checked out and they told me they had no record of there being a problem…
Breakfast was ok, nothing special and a bit run down although I have to say the staff at breakfast service were brilliant. Really upbeat and helpful. They kind of made the stay bearable.
The bathroom in the room was again tired and ill thought out although I wouldn’t be surprised if I were told it was freshly refurbished. When deciding on bathroom furniture, think it through. Choose a washbasin stand that doesn’t take up a quarter of the limited space and above all make sure it doesn’t interfere with one’s ability to sit on the loo without having to turn sideways as there’s not enough leg room.
I was informed at checkin that the manager wanted to gave a word with me, related to the ongoing restaurant problem I thought. I was told the manager on duty was the maintenance manager and maybe I should wait until the general manager was on duty, I agreed and said I would let reception know when I was going to be around. When I did I was told the manager was in meetings but they would get hold of me. They never did.
Would I stay here again, probably not. Would I stay at another Voco, not sure. Would I stay in another brand IHG hotel, maybe.

Very friendly staff esp Bala Ganesh, who was taking special care during breakfast time in the restaurant.

The private terrace garden is fabulous. The reason to book this hotel.

We booked through a third party website and they gave us the wrong room but couldn’t do anything since the other rooms were booked out. I am an understanding person so it is not the hotel’s fault if there was a mistake and they could not fix it, but the woman could have at least offered a partial refund or AT LEAST said she will tell her manager to contact the website to resolve the issue as it will just happen again.
As whoever books with that third party site will just experience the same problem we had..

Also asked the receptionist if they had any bottled water and she said no & to go drink from the bathroom tap :)

they did have bottled water, not sure why she lied or could not be bothered to help but for a 4 star hotel it would be nice to have a little better service ????

The room itself was lovely though.