Barceló Buxton Palace Hotel, Buxton

After having read several mixed reviews of this hotel on the internet before I stayed there, I was a little unsure what to expect. Having stayed there for 1 night I think the reason for the varying reviews is that in some ways the hotel is excellent, but there are some aspects which let the hotel down and it is probably the extent to which different people are bothered by these more negative aspects which results in such mixed reviews (I have read ...
...giving it 5/5 and lots in between!).

The positives...

In my opinion, the front of the hotel and the communal interior areas are beautiful, particularly the reception area and restaurant. There is a grand sweeping staircase leading up to the bedrooms, a lovely old-fashioned wooden revolving door into the hotel, elaborate pillars, a lot of gilt and grand decor. It reminded me a little bit of the Titanic. The entrance area ... more

After having read several mixed reviews of this hotel on the internet before I stayed there, I was a little unsure what to expect. Having stayed there for 1 night I think the reason for the varying reviews is that in some ways the hotel is excellent, but there are some aspects which let the hotel down and it is probably the extent to which different people are bothered by these more negative aspects which results in such mixed reviews (I have read many reviews giving the hotel 1/5 and many others giving it 5/5 and lots in between!).

The positives...

In my opinion, the front of the hotel and the communal interior areas are beautiful, particularly the reception area and restaurant. There is a grand sweeping staircase leading up to the bedrooms, a lovely old-fashioned wooden revolving door into the hotel, elaborate pillars, a lot of gilt and grand decor. It reminded me a little bit of the Titanic. The entrance area and restaurant are very much what you would expect of a four star hotel and had a lot of character that some more modern hotels lack. In addition, the reception staff were very friendly and chatty, helpful and gave a good impression of the hotel from the outset. The lady who checked us in seemed genuinely interested in our plans for our stay, and all other staff we spoke to were also polite, if not quite so friendly.

The not so positives...

After checking in we took the lift up to our room with our bags, the lift was fine and also quite grand, as were the corridors and all of the bedrooms had large, solid doors befitting the style of the hotel. Once in our room we were, unfortunately, less impressed – there was not one single major thing that let the room down but lots of little things added up to give the impression that the room was not of the standard you would expect in a four star hotel. When we arrived the room had a bit of an odd smell (I thought McDonalds, my boyfriend thought more salt and vinegar crisps) – the window was open but this didn’t seem to have helped.

Although the room was generally clean, there was mildew on the bathroom ceiling and a sticker stuck on the side of the desk, and the welcome book thing with information about the hotel was dirty. This gave the impression of a lack of attention to detail. The bedding and curtains were very nice, and clean, and seemed quite new, but the rest of the decor was very old fashioned and didn’t match the bedding & curtains. This gave the impression that the bedding, cushions and curtains had been replaced to give the room a lift but the rest of the room had not been refurbished for a long time, and the fact that things didn’t match added to this overall impression. The walls were artex-ish at the top, then underneath that was a very 70s looking flowery wallpaper border in odd colours, the wallpaper underneath that was slightly better but, again, dated. The carpet was ok. The worst things about the room were:

 The en-suite which was clean, but cramped and dated, the toilet and bath were very close together and you were practically touching the shower curtain when you sat on the toilet, and the toilet also moved when you sat on it which was quite disconcerting!
 The lighting in the bedroom was very poor – even with the main light and two lamps on the room was very dark – investment in some better lightbulbs would help no end.
 The view out of the window was of a sort of flat roof thing, some peak district scenery would have been nice
 The appliances were very old fashioned, most noticeably the telephone and the kettle, the TV was OK but very chunky rather than flat screen. There was no fridge.
 There was only one desk chair (albeit a nice leather one) and no other seating! In a room for two people to have only one chair is not very good!

Plenty of towels were provided but one had a hole in it, which again gave me the impression of a lack of attention to detail.

As mentioned previously, the rest of the hotel was of a much better standard although there were a few small details that typified what let this hotel down – some cobwebs on the corner of the wall next to which we were sat for breakfast, and the dusty artificial flowers on the tables (not the sort of artificial flowers which you struggle to tell whether they are real or not, they were very plasticy!).

The breakfast itself was a standard help-yourself buffet with tea and coffee (but not toast, which was self-service) delivered to your table. There was a good selection of hot and cold breakfast things and we were impressed that they made vegetarian sausages on request (me and my boyfriend are both veggie) although we had to chase them up after they didn’t arrive for ages, but we were pleased to get them in the end (this was a nice touch not offered in many hotels). The croissants and other pastries were very nice, and I also had some of the fried potatoes which were very tasty. However, my boyfriend was less impressed with the other hot buffet choices – he thought the beans, tomatoes and egg weren’t very nice.

As I was only there for one night, I didn’t use the gym or pool, so I can’t comment too much on those, but I did have a wonder along to have a look, the pool looked nice but rather small, there seemed to be quite a lot of fitness equipment and there was a separate weights room.

The grounds at the front of the Palace were well maintained and attractive, and location wise the hotel was only a few minutes away from the town centre on foot, and very close to restaurants and shops. The train station was right next door to the hotel so it would be very handy if you were arriving by train.

Value for money:

We booked this hotel through lastminute.com and got quite a good deal - £62.50 for the room, although you have to pay £3.50 for parking when you get there. We did enjoy our stay there, but there were a number of little things that let the Palace down, so I don’t think I would pay the same price for a room there again.

Perhaps we were spoilt by our fantastic stay at Audleys Wood hotel in Hampshire a few weeks ago, but I felt the standard of the hotel rooms at the Palace was less than what I would expect of a four star hotel.

P.s. When updating this review to put my pictures on I remembered another small detail that I wasn't very happy about - open and face-up on the bedside table was a leaflet about films, including adult films, which should have been a lot more discreet, we didn't have children with us but there could have been, and it seemed quite tacky.

On a positive note I also forgot to mention that the cushions on the bed were really nice, and the bed was very comfy. 

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