Ramada Jarvis Hotel, Glasgow

...overview of the hotel and Ramada Jarvis. The following information was taken from their website.

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“Founded in 1990 by John Jarvis and David Thomas, Jarvis Hotels plc has established itself as one of the UK's leading hotel companies with a portfolio of over 60 hotels in around 50 locations throughout Great Britain.

In 1996 the company was floated on the UK Stock Exchange and in June 2001 ...
...of its hotels under the Ramada name in the UK.

Jarvis Hotels has now joined forces with Ramada International, adding 57 Jarvis hotels across Great Britain to the Ramada portfolio and bringing international standards to a UK hotel group.

From country houses to city centre hotels, Jarvis has always been associated with quality products and friendly service. The Ramada Jarvis partnership brings you the products you know, ... more

Ramada, Glasgow City, 201 Ingram Street, Glasgow G1 1DQ.

I'm updating this review as I received a response from Ramada. Jarvis, some of the contents of the letter I have placed at the end of this review.

My sister and I stayed at this hotel on Saturday June the 9th 2007, we were in room 309. The hotel is being renovated at the moment; however, I don’t think you’ll want to stay here even after the renovation once you’ve read this review.

To start with I’ll give you an overview of the hotel and Ramada Jarvis. The following information was taken from their website.

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“Founded in 1990 by John Jarvis and David Thomas, Jarvis Hotels plc has established itself as one of the UK's leading hotel companies with a portfolio of over 60 hotels in around 50 locations throughout Great Britain.

In 1996 the company was floated on the UK Stock Exchange and in June 2001 entered into a 20 year arrangement with Marriott International Inc. to re-brand 56 of its hotels under the Ramada name in the UK.

Jarvis Hotels has now joined forces with Ramada International, adding 57 Jarvis hotels across Great Britain to the Ramada portfolio and bringing international standards to a UK hotel group.

From country houses to city centre hotels, Jarvis has always been associated with quality products and friendly service. The Ramada Jarvis partnership brings you the products you know, together with the service you'd expect from an International hotel brand.

So, wherever you see the Ramada name you can be assured you'll get the products you know, together with the service you'd expect from an International hotel brand.

In addition to Ramada Jarvis Hotels, Jarvis also own and operate further properties under the Jarvis and Travelodge brands.”
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This hotel has 91 bedrooms, which believe me; you won’t want to stay in one of them. There are conference rooms, a bar, a restaurant, to be honest, I’m not going to waste my time listing all the hotel details as I normally would such us check out times and the bar and restaurant as I couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

The website where you book this hotel states “Stay at the Ramada Glasgow City and experience everything you'd expect from an international hotel company. 3 Star Property in a city centre location with Arts Bar & Restaurant.

We weren’t the only ones in the hotel not to try the bar or restaurant as we had a peek through the doors and although the restaurant is open till 10pm, at 9.30 the bar and restaurant were both empty and the staff were setting up the tables for breakfast, complete with huge mugs for tea and coffee.

In every aspect this was without doubt the filthiest, most unfriendly, disgusting hotel that we have ever had the displeasure of staying in.

The front of the hotel shocked us when we turned the corner from Queen Street Train Station; the frontage of the hotel was less than inviting, as the steps, marble walls and doors into reception had not been cleaned in a while and the glass doors had smears all over them.

We arrived around Noon and were greeted by a very friendly young lady, who informed us that our room wasn’t ready and that we could store our bags in a cupboard in the foyer until we returned.

We set off and didn’t return to the hotel till approximately quarter to seven in the evening. We walked into the reception area to be met by the unsmiling faces of two male employees, one of them, the most unfriendly and unhelpful was called ******. He booked us in, barely speaking to us, even when prompted we received no response from him other than a few grunts. We then had to ask which way to go to our room and were pointed in the direction of the lift. Nothing was said, no “Welcome to The Ramada” or even a “Good Evening” was forthcoming.

We went to our room and could not believe what we found there, from the minute we walked in the door we were totally disgusted by the state of the place. We didn’t have time to try and change hotels so we decided to make the best of it and just stay, however as we were getting ready to go out we discovered the room was a lot worse than we had first realised. Just before leaving I turned down my bed and discovered a huge disgusting, crusted brown stain on the blanket, we didn’t have time to ask for a clean one before we left so we decided we’d wait till we arrived back and request a clean blanket then.

In addition to this there were black marks on my sheets, the beds had no valance on them and my bed base had the most disgusting dirty marks on it. The wood round my sisters’ bed was covered in filthy stains. The ceiling in the bedroom had partially come down from what looked like water damage. The net curtains on the window were not properly fitted and were grey with grime. The window itself was also dirty.

There were crumbs on the floor and dust on every surface apart from the small table between the twin beds. None of the edges of the carpets or underneath the furniture had been vacuumed for what looked like months; the lamp was wonky and covered in dust as was the dressing table. And to top all this there was a pubic hair on my sheet.

The coffee and tea supplies were adequate, but the tray that they came on and the teaspoon had not been cleaned. The mirror in the bedroom had dust and marks on it.

The light fittings above the beds were covered in dust, so much so that fluff had started to form.

There was some kind of wiring coming into the room above the door which went into a conduit and down the wall, the wiring was very dodgy looking and there is no way that above this door had been cleaned in a long long time.

The bathroom was without doubt stomach churning to say the least, the ceiling had obviously had a vast amount of water damage and had been patched up, it was still dripping, which I found to my horror when it splashed on my back whilst in the bath.

The bath itself wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t very clean either, it had a hair in it and was dirty and there were three bits of enamel that had chipped off and one of them had been half fixed with what looked like enamel paint. The sink had dirty marks all over it and another hair, both of which I can assure you were not ours as they were short dark hairs and my sister has long dark hair and I have red hair.

Down on the right hand side of the toilet was absolutely disgustingly filthy, this corner had not even seen the sight of a brush or a cloth or cleaning fluid in ages, the tops of the skirting boards were caked with muck, dirt and dust, the wall and floor were grimy, covered in dust and hairs and there was a tampon wrapper sitting there as well on top of all the other grunge.

We went out and arrived back at the hotel at ten to midnight, to be met again by two unfriendly faces; I requested a clean blanket for my room and was asked “what for?” I said the bed! I was told that a new blanket would be brought to the room. My sister also asked if the hotel was being renovated, expecting some kind of explanation of the renovations that were going on and why we hadn’t been told about them when we booked the hotel, she was told “Yes” and that was it.

We went up to the room and waited till 12.15 am when reception rang the room to say tell us that they hadn’t forgotten about us but they could not locate a clean blanket, we were told that this was due to the fact that the hotel was being renovated. I don’t understand how a renovation of a hotel would mean that no clean blankets could be found; surely they have a laundry room for the room cleaners to collect clean linen from. Even if the hotel is being renovated and the laundry room had been started on. I would surmise that the laundry room would have been moved to a different location. If there is no laundry room, how on earth are the rooms being changed on a daily basis? This however is what I suspect is not happening at this hotel as the bedding on both beds was filthy.

At 12.30am I was presented with a folded blanket by one of the men that had been on reception, I was asked if I could manage to carry it, I said “yes I could”, and he turned and left. I said “no apology then” and shut the door.

I unfolded the blanket and started to put it on the bed and as it unfolded I could see a horrible brown stain on it; at this stage I thought I’d turn the blanket over and try to go to bed to get some sleep as we had to get up early in the morning.

I turned the blanket over only to find lots of stains, far worse than the ones I had found already. I have added pictures of the first blanket and the second.

At 12.35am my sister rang reception and told them that the second blanket they had brought up was dirtier than the first one and that they should come and have a look at it. She was told that they would be up soon.

At 12.55 (almost an hour after my initial request) the same man that had brought the first “clean” blanket arrived with another that he said he had got from one of the other beds in an unused room and he apologised this time. We showed him the blanket and he said that it had just been washed, I said that there was no way this had been washed as the marks on it were crusted and would not have looked like that if it had been through a washing machine. He proceeded to put a knot in the second blanket, at which point my sister Norma said “I don’t think I’d be touching that as I can hazard a guess at what the crusted white stains are”. He said “Don’t worry; I will be washing my hands”.

The third blanket was actually a lot cleaner and showed how dirty the blanket on my sisters’ bed was. In fact she slept with no blanket that night and neither of us used the top cover as they were both visibly dirty.

This room and especially the bathroom were the worst I have ever seen in any hotel in the world that I have ever stayed in. Price should not under any circumstance reflect in a lack of basic cleanliness in any establishment.

The hotel brochure in the room stated the following:

“As Part of Ramada International, the global hospitality leader, we have a promise to exceed our guests expectations, a promise to provide the best possible stay”.

“Everyone at the hotel is dedicated to your comfort, safety and satisfaction”.

The Brochure also states that “Meeting the needs and expectations of our customers has always been our highest priority.”

In actual fact they did exceed our expectations of how much dirt and dust, unhygienic stains, including other people’s body hairs and sanitary product wrappers that you could find in one hotel room.

Under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, we are entitled to expect the accommodation provided to be of a satisfactory standard, and for it to be as described.

This of course, in this instance, was most definitely not the case.
Both my sister and I had our first ever weekend away together ruined purely by staying in this sub-standard, disgustingly filthy accommodation.

We found our stay particularly bad as a lot of people in the hotel were tourists, obviously on holiday and we were embarrassed at the level of uncleanliness and unfriendliness in this establishment; after all this would be their first view of an hotel and people in our country. Truly abysmal and a sad reflection for tourism in Scotland.

Will we be staying here again or recommending it to others? I think not, even when renovated, the standards of cleanliness are so low that I don't think I would not risk it.

We have written a letter to Ramada Jarvis the contents of which are mostly included in this review.

We are awaiting their response…….

On the 22nd of June I received a reply to my letter from Ramada, in which the customer services executive apologies for failing to meet our expectations.

The letter further confirms that the hotel is being redeveloped and should be finished within 5/6 months.

The letter states that this does not offer an excuse for poor housekeeping and that they will retrain, should anything be highlighted. (Err I thought I did highlight the problems!)

They say in light of my feedback,room 309 will be inspected and they will undertake the appropriate action to ensure that it is adhering to their laid down standards. (Personally, I'd sack the cleaners and have a severe word with the manager).

The letter also states that there was no excuse for poor customer service and the relevant personnel will be addressed.

They finish the letter by offering to update me on the progress of the redevelopment of this hotel, and, at that time should I be willing to give them another chance "SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY", They will arrange a complimentary one night stay, including breakfast for both myself and my sister.

As a gesture they refunded the cost of the accommodation, I should think so, we should have been paid to stay there!

Will we take up the offer? Well My sister and I are quite tough robust people, so when It's reburbished, we might just take our chances.

If we do, I'll update this review. We will however, not take up the offer of the free breakfast, a dirty room is one thing, a dirty kitchen is not something I'd take a chance on.

Once again, thanks for reading.

Sheena McCowan 2007. 

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