Claremont Hotel, Eastbourne

...begin my review of The Claremont Lions hotel in Eastbourne I would just like to quote the description of the hotel on its brochure, I hope this is ok I just want to give you an insight into what I was led to believe I was booking into.

"Welcome to the Claremont.. A grade 2 Listed Victorian hotel situated in a prime position opposite the pier and famous carpet gardens with its fantastic views across the channel.

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...websites and came across The Claremont Lions, which seemed a reasonable price and sounded like it was well situated and of a good standard compared to the rest of the hotels in Eastbourne. Well the write up made it sound like an amazing standard but having stayed in a lot of hotels I know that's normally nothing to go by. After deciding on the hotel we were going to use I set about getting some comparables and came up with the hotels own website ... more

Just before I begin my review of The Claremont Lions hotel in Eastbourne I would just like to quote the description of the hotel on its brochure, I hope this is ok I just want to give you an insight into what I was led to believe I was booking into.

"Welcome to the Claremont.. A grade 2 Listed Victorian hotel situated in a prime position opposite the pier and famous carpet gardens with its fantastic views across the channel.

The Claremont offers an excellent standard of accommodation, food, service and a very warm welcome. In our sea view Compton restaurant we take particular pride in serving meals using the best local ingredients.

You will be impressed by the sense of space in the public areas. The rich wood finish and leather Chesterfields give a feeling of a boutique style. There is a new ground floor bar offering service throughout the day and you can relax on the terrace with a coffee.

All our bedrooms have recently been refurbished and feature en suite shower or bathroom, direct dial telephone, satellite TV, hospitality tray, hairdryer and many with fridges and DVD's.

INTRODUCTION
Leading up to the bank holiday me and my boyfriend were deciding on what to do and came up with a day in Brighton but the only problem is we live in the midlands so it is quite a way to travel so I set about trawling the net for a fairly priced room for the night up to £100. After a few enquiries it became clear you couldn't get a hotel in Brighton for 1 night over the weekend and due to work commitments it just wasn't possible to stay for 2 nights so we decided to opt to stay in Eastbourne for the night and travel back to Brighton for the day.

BOOKING PROCEDURES AND PRICES
I went through a few major hotel websites and came across The Claremont Lions, which seemed a reasonable price and sounded like it was well situated and of a good standard compared to the rest of the hotels in Eastbourne. Well the write up made it sound like an amazing standard but having stayed in a lot of hotels I know that's normally nothing to go by. After deciding on the hotel we were going to use I set about getting some comparables and came up with the hotels own website being the most expensive at £80, Lastminute.com at £69 and Hotel pronto at £59 which seemed really reasonable especially as I could get 8% cash back from the cash back website I use.
It was simple to book online it took my 2 minutes to complete my details and my payment information. I was then sent an email confirmation and the hotel voucher.
Booking online meant that if I needed to cancel the reservation I would lose all my money, however if you book direct with the hotel over the telephone you could pay a deposit and pay the rest when you arrive.

ABOUT THE HOTEL
The Claremont Lions used to be called The Claremont but it has been taken over and refurbished in April 2007 by the Lions groups whom have 3 other hotels in Eastbourne. The Claremont being its newest addition! There are 62 rooms in total with single, double, twin, disabled and triple rooms.
The hotel attracts all type of guests many being foreign tourists I think ourselves and 2 other couples were English, which is fine but the groups of tourist tended to take over.
You can check in to the hotel at 1:30 onwards and you have to check out by 11am on day of departure.

LOCATION AND ACCESSABILITY
There is no parking to the hotel so once you navigate your way to the seafront and locate the central pier the hotel is a couple of metres to the right where there are no public parking spaces, so you have to drive round the back of the hotel and park on the street or drive further down the road where there is parking on the seafront. Apparently there is an NCP car park nearby but we couldn't locate it. Having to park 5 minutes away from the hotel wasn't a problem for us as we only had an overnight bag and the weather was good. If we had been staying for a week with a couple of kids and it was lagging it down then I don't think I would have been so content.
My only worry was that we may get a ticket which would have been a pain especially as there were contradicting signs everywhere and a very small passage in the hotel booklet saying parking on the front was ok but not in the summer and sometimes only accessible for a couple of hours! Really helpful!
On the walk to the hotel we soon realised traffic wardens would take at least a weekend to even put a ticket on our car because there were cars everywhere on pavements, in disabled bays and even in taxi ranks!
Most hotels in Eastbourne don't seem to have car parks, which is a real pain. The hotels position despite access is superb it does have beautiful views over the sea front and is right next to the pier so you don't have to go far for a nice walk, which is good especially at night.
A 5 minute walk behind the hotel takes you into the town area, which has everything you need from a wide range of shops, bars and restaurants to corner shops and the local cinema. The location of the hotel probably couldn't get any better it is in the hub of everything. If you were to visit this hotel for any reason it would be for the location.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND CHECKING IN
After finally locating a car parking space we walked up to our hotel which looked impressive from the outside it is a large white building with a big sign outside stating it is an AA 3 diamond awarded hotel which put my mind at ease when we saw the old curtains and dark flowered carpet at the entrance, I thought the rooms will be ok I am sure.
The entrance outside the hotel was nice there were a couple of tables outside with people sitting having drinks at them which was nice to see, once inside there was a smell of what can only be described as an old peoples home it was warm, stuffy and smelt of gravy. We then tried to understand what was the reception and what was the bat because they were both joined together so you could literally check in and order a vodka and coke at the same time talk about cosy.
Once we pressed the bell two gentleman came to the desk and asked our name they then located our details on the computer and confirmed what we had booked which was nice and seemed efficient. I then asked if it possible to upgrade to a seafront room as this wasn't an option on hotel pronto. The man serving looked at me gone out and said erm no sorry they are all full. I didn't believe him I got the impression it was either to much hard work to swap our details or he just didn't know how to sort it out as he just passed us an already made up key card with room number. I can't say the service was bad as he was trying to be pleasant but just didn't seem to understand a great deal. After we were given our key card that was it no directions to our room or where to go at breakfast.
After we had the card we managed to locate a lift but it only went up to the next floor we got in but when we got out the whole floor was derelict literally I dint know where we had ended up but we just got back in the lift and went back to reception we then found some stairs and walked the 3 flights to our room.

ROOMS
On the approach to the room it seems fine. You are met with a double brown wardrobe with matching bedside cabinets and dressing table. There was then an average sized double bed with yellow and green bedspread with matching curtains. You then ventured into the bathroom and oh my it is something else. There was an avocado suite with a toilet that didn't flush a sink with a shelf that over hung that far you banged your head on it when you brushed your teeth and a bath with shower over. The bath had a huge crack down the side but seemed clean enough which was the main thing. This was until I saw the window from the bathroom that was all rotten and covers in black stuff. Behind the bath and shower there was a horrible yellow coloured stain with mould creeping up the wall. I don't know about anyone else but I was just totally put off. I can do fogey but this I couldn't do! I couldn't use the shower and I didn't even want to sleep in the bed but as it was only for the one night we just went out go so tired we just slept on top of the bed, which was actually quite comfy. Our room was on the end near the stairs and the door so I kept waking up with people moving around.
The walls were so thin you could hear everything.
The general room seemed clean it was just the bathroom which really let it down.
Apart from the room basics there was a fridge, which was nice to have not that we used it but it would come in handy if staying for a while. There was then a hospitality tray of 2 cups a kettle, some (warm) milk and 2 packets of my favourite custard creams! I didn't make a cup of tea but my boyfriend did and you could see the milk floating on top so he decided to pass.
To the side of the room was a TV that couldn't have been any bigger than my PC monitor and it only had channels 1 to 4 so where the satellite was I do not know.
I must say there were a couple of things in the rooms that just had me in stitches there was a leaflet asking you to fill in the maintenance problems in your room so as you are out they can come in and fix them, well it would be a big job to get that bathroom refitted whilst we went out for our evening meal!
I then read the line "this hotel supports a clean …" then I read "clean air policy no smoking" well I thought they were printing leaflets saying they were a really clean hotel!

PUBLIC AREAS
To get to the rooms you have to pass through at least 2 fire doors which I understand are necessary but they are made from a real thin wood and are covered in signs saying please do not bang which is great in theory but impossible with the windows open on every floor. It is even better when you have your bedroom right next to one so you can hear the door banging backwards and forwards all day and night.
Once you get into the main foyer, which is pretty, much an area of lets say jack-of-all-trades master of none. There is the main reception come bar, a table and chairs to the front of the hotel and 4 tables to the left of the hotel in a separate area for relaxing. This area consist of a piano, TV, video player and 4 board games scrabble, chess, deal or no deal and monopoly which is all good and well but when there is also a coach load of German tourists having a conversation it makes the area not so relaxing.
The furniture is all very old fashion mainly in dark wood with small coffee tables to put your drinks on. The décor was very dark and you could tell certainly hadn't been refreshed over a decade ago let alone just over a year ago which was very disappointing.
My favourite area was the outside tables granted there were only two but because the positioning of the hotel was good it was lovely just to sit and watch the world go by especially when it started raining because the seating area was undercover and because of the trees and railings you were protected from the wind and it was actually quite warm.

BREAKFAST
After waking up a bit blurry eyed me and my boyfriend made it down to breakfast. The room again was date and had strange see through curtains with what looked like Christmas fairy lights surrounding them however the position of the room was spectacular it was so bright and over looking the seafront the windows were large letting in lots of light and the tables for two were set into personal alcoves which were lovely.
On entrance to the breakfast room there were no staff around so we just sat where we wanted others followed us and everyone was pretty much sauntering around there was no procedure which seemed silly as no one knew where to go or where to sit or anything. We were then greeted by a lovely waitress who served us tea and toast and pointed out the buffet area which consisted of weetabix, a couple of other cereals, a yoghurt yes only 1 yoghurt left and some fruit juices. We were then asked what we wanted for our cooked breakfast and it was either Kippers or traditional English. We both opted for the traditional English, which sounded great. When it came out well it was so shiny and small it looked plastic! There was a rock hard sausage he size of a cocktail sausage, a large thick rasher of bacon, a tiny halved grilled tomato, a fried egg and two shrivelled up pieces of rock hard bread. Well I wasn't expecting anything else it actually exceeded my expectations to be honest. Although I didn't eat much of the breakfast my boyfriend thought it was fine but he is a builder and has a stomach of steel, I had quite a few rounds of toast and some cereal and was quite happy was full up and the fruit juice was very nice.

CONCLUSION
I understand we all pay our money and take our chances when it comes to hotels, I don't expect great things for £59 a night for two people and of course I knew it wasn't going to be a 5* standard and in my heart of hearts I knew not even a 3* standard but being advised this was a 3 AA diamond rating and had also been recently refurbished I thought it maybe ok.
I wasn't utterly disgusted with the hotel the staff were nice and friendly and the bed was comfortable but knowing the problems in the room made me feel at unease. I can put up with dated and flowery carpets with matching curtains and bed spreads but I do draw the line at mould, cracked baths and damp.
I know people will wonder why we didn't ask to change rooms or make a complaint but it was seriously not worth it if you have been in the hotel you know straight away that all the rooms were the same because the public areas were kept in the same order which was a real shame.
I am only so grieved because the hotel has so much potential and you cant blame the staff, as there are no way enough to look after a 62-bedroom hotel. I really think the hotel inspector should make a trip to this hotel because at the minute it is in complete breach of the trade descriptions act! The hotel is so big and I am sure not being used for its full potential they really could do with spending some time, money and love on redesigning the public areas and at least a quarter of the rooms just to keep the hotel going. The Sunday we left the hotel there was a craft show being held in the hotel which was attracting lots of people to think if the public areas were up to date they would have lots more potential business.
When all is said and done we had a fabulous time and we only stayed for one night so there was no harm done but I won't be going for a revisit and I certainly wont be recommending it to anyone unless some drastic action is taken. All I can say is if that hotel has been refurbished in April 2007 they must have missed the room I stayed in! 

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