Elgin Hotel, Blackpool > Reviews > The Elgin hotel, Blackpool

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Poor
Quality of Rooms	Terrible
Standard of Service	Excellent
Quality of Facilities	Poor

Advantages:	lovely food and good service from the waiters
Disadvantages:	Everthing else about the place

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I have already done a review about Blackpool, and I absolutely love the place, we went to Blackpool two years ago on a family holiday, myself husband and three kids. We booked our holiday through The Belfast Telegraph travel agentsand we went through Ulster Bus tours, the price was £800 approx this included traveling expenses and the hotel.(Bed, breakfast and evening meal). The hotel was the Elgin and we were told that this was a great hotel for families.

Arriving at the hotel

We arrived at our hotel at about 7.30pm and had to que at the reception to get our keys this I didnt mind but our dinner was at 7.45pm and we still had to get our luggage to our room, we got our luggage sorted and went down for dinner, the food was beautiful and the service from the waiters was fantastic.

First impressions of the hotel

Well there was everything you would expect to find in a hotel a bar, a smokers room, dinning room, reception and a T.V room, the decoration was nice and there was a nice view from the smokers room.

The room

Pity about the upstairs in the hotel, as you went further up the decor got worse, The room we got was pathetic, there was 5 of us and supposedly we got a family room, (yeah right) there was a double bed in the middle of the room, at each side of the double bed there was a single bed, leaving no walk space in between but in the far end of the room there was a single matress on the floor.

There was tea making facilities and a television and of course you had a bathroom but very little else, including space, we had one cupboard and one chest of drawers between us all and with kids this wasnt enough, but we tried to make the most of what we had......... or more to the point what we didnt have.

Entertainment

We arrived late and didnt fancy doing a lot that night, considering we had been traveling for hours, so we stayed at the hotel to see what the entertainment was going to be like well it was bingo which I am not into, so we sat in the smokers room, and the kids had juice and crisps, but it was then that we realised that there was a lot of elderly people staying in the hotel (no disrespect to the elderly) most of them were the friendliest people, but we came across a few making faces at the kids for talking when they were watching T.V. We couldnt do anything else as there was Bingo on in the main bar, and we had already been told to "BE QUIET" when getting the kids their juice, so at this point we started to feel a we bit out of place.

Breakfast and Dinner time

We went for breakfast at 8.30am and again the food was beautiful and we had been assigned a waiter, who was to serve our table for the remainder of the week, he seemed really friendly, he would have a chat with us and the kids.So anyway we went out and about that day and came back at 5pm for dinner, we got our dessert which was lovely, and the waiter came back with an extra helping of ice cream for the kids, which we thought was pretty nice of him. This continued until about day four, when he told us he was no longer able to serve us, as he had been told off by the manager for giving the extra ice cream, I found this a bit misreable, but what can you say.

We were amoung very few other families

As the days went on it became more clear that this hotel only really catered for old folk. We were amoung a hand full of families, which we were not informed by the Belfast Telegraph Travel agents that this hotel was mainly for old people. The entertainment was Bingo every night, which hardly suit people with young kids.

Buying lunch at the Hotel

We went out on day five and arrived back at the hotel around lunch time, we were really hungry and decided to have lunch in the hotel, all that was on offer was sandwiches, so this is what we had, the waitress took down the order down wrong, she came back with about three big plates filled with sandwiches, as well as this she brought two wee plates filled as, we got it sorted out and got what we had asked for, she came back with the bill and my jaw nearly hit the floor, when I seen the price........£18 and this is the gods honest truth.
thinking there had to be a mistake we enquired about the price, only to be told that the bill was correct. Well we reluctantly paid for our very expensive lunch, and needless to say we never bought any more food from the hotel.

Distance from the Hotel to the Promenade

Another thing we quickly realised is that we were miles away from anywhere, so we had to travel everywhere by tram, although we bought a ticket that done us all week, I think this was about £60 for myself, husband and eldest child, the other two kids were free. But we had not bargained for this.

Trying to speak to the Hotel manager

We did try to bring certain things, that we were not happy with to the managers attention, but not surprisingly, everytime we asked to speak to him, he was no were to be found. We went to the Travel agent when we came home and complained to them, they apologised and advised us to write to the manager and explain everthing that we were not happy about, so we did this and the we got a reply full of excuses, but no apology.

Whos to blame

I know not everything was the hotels fault, some of the blame has to lye with the travel agent for not informing us about the hotel, but due to the Elgin hotel and The Belfast Telegraph travel agents, our holidays was ruined to a certain degree, although we tried not to let it spoil things and enjoyed everything else about Blackpool.

So if your going to Blackpool on a family hoilday avoid The Elgin Hotel like the plague, NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL.

Thanks for reading
I have also done this review on dooyoo