Hotel Gleneagles, Torquay

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Sea view
Disadvantages:	Needs moderising, useless shower, broken toilet seat

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

There was a time when all Best Westerns were of a certain standard then you knew what to expect, but this one is unfortunately not one of the better Best Westerns I've stayed in and I'm sure there are many more hotels in Torquay better than this one.

I stayed here for 2 nights and having never been to Torquay before, had a bit of trouble finding it from the map on their website. Anyway, after eventually finding it, there were no spaces in the car park although there was the usual BMW parked right outside and blocking the door - as you come to expect at every hotel. I parked in the road outside - journey over.

THE STAFF: I found them to be friendly but didn't really have that much contact with them. I asked the receptionist/manager for directions in to town and although he didn't give me a map or print something from the internet, I found it after walking in the general direction he had said. During breakfast, service was fairly slow and they seemed a bit under staffed. Can't complain too much about the staff though, they were OK from what I saw of them.

THE ROOMS: First impressions were not that good seeing as it took me ages to get the door open. This is an old, outdated hotel and they still use mortice locks on the bedroom doors attached to a long hard plastic tag with your room 'name' on it (yes names, not numbers!). The key hole was very close to the door frame and with the plastic tag on the key ring it was dificult to turn the key without your hand getting stuck between the key and the door frame.

Once inside the room, my eye was immediately drawn to the patio door and the view beyond it - superb view looking out on to the sea and a small secluded cove in the foreground. Unfortunately that was the highlight of the room. Don't be fooled by this description of a 'sea view' and assume you are near the beach. It is probably at least a 20 minute walk to the beach/sea front.

The decor was old and in need of moderisation - a lick of paint at the very least. The TV was small and only had 4 channels. The bathroom was also dated, the toilet seat was broken and the plastic glasses were cracked by the time I got their protective plastic wrapping off.

Worst of all was the shower. Absolute waste of time. Where the shower head was fixed to the rail on the wall, at it's highest, it came up to my chest. The water pressure was also so low that the water dribbled out of the shower (at chest height), despite it coming out of the bath taps ok. Getting the right temperature also took a degree in physics (which I don't have) so I ended up having a bath instead. Very disappointing.

The bed was a double, well, 2 singles pushed together which meant a ridge running down the middle from the edges of the 2 mattresses. Not that comfortable. The room had a kettle and tea/coffee but I never used these.

FOOD: I only sampled the breakfast here and only once out of my 2 days. They had a buffet style breakfast for cereal and juice and had to order anything cooked which cost £13.95 - which I thought was a lot! I had beans on toast which was fine - but you can't really mess that up! I did notice though that many of the other residents eating breakfast had trouble opening the cereal packets. Pretty much all of the other guests were elderly and the cereals were the Kellogs 'Variety' packs - the small boxes, 1 serving per box. Well most people couldn't open the cereal packets. I didn't bother with breakfast on my 2nd day - got something from town which was much cheaper and nicer.

So overall, this hotel falls short of being satisfactory and if it weren't for the sea view, I'd have scored this a 1 star. It is also located 20 minutes walk from the town centre so not really in a central position either. There are probably better hotels in Torquay than this for value for money so I'd only recommend this as a last resort.