Booked this ‘hotel’ through *********** on Monday 8th January 2024, seven days in advance of a 15th January check-in. It was booked primarily as it was advertised as ‘dog-friendly’; however, being wary of ***********, thought I had better check direct with the establishment. Five unanswered e-mails later, I telephoned on 11th January, only to be told by ‘Tony’ that, actually, they only have two rooms that are dog friendly, and the one allocated to me wasn’t one of them. I was told to cancel on *********** and book directly through the hotel website. I actually booked it over the phone with Tony who, to his credit, said he would do a bit of room jiggery-pokery and it would be OK. On arrival, I advised that I hadn’t brought the dog (or the wife for that matter, although they may join me the following day). I was shown to my ‘dog-friendly’ room, which was at the very top of the building accessed by narrow, steep stairs; not exactly ‘dog-friendly’ with a dog the size of mine (if he had been there), but a minor point I admit. The room itself. Well, basic, to say the least. Initial impressions were ‘OK’; however, on closer examination several flaws were evident. There are wall lights positioned above the bed, but no obvious switch to operate them! Eventually, after hunting for them, they were found hidden behind the headboard and all but inaccessible – it took a bit of manual dexterity to manoeuvre my quite large hands behind the headboard to switch them on and off, meaning that it was virtually impossible to switch them off at night without almost getting out of bed to do so. It rather defeats the purpose of having ‘bedside’ lights; very awkward. Also, it would have been helpful to have been told where the switches were when shown to the room, rather than having to indulge in an otherwise unnecessary mystery search! Also, the vertical blinds on the main facing window were inoperative and stuck in the open position. Am I to sleep with the blinds open? I had to manually wrestle with the mechanism to close them. I shouldn’t have to do that, and the faulty mechanism must have been known to the management. There is also no blind on the bathroom Velux. Now, you are some considerable distance from adjacent properties, but in theory anyone so minded in these properties could conceivably see you walking about naked in the bathroom. Further exploration revealed a filthy duvet crushed into a gap in the built-in wardrobe. Poor. The television is cheap and gives the impression of being about the size of an A4 piece of paper, it’s tiny. The wi-fi is so poor that the reception is patchy and so pixelated (watching BBC Northern Ireland, incidentally) that I gave up and switched off. Useless. The remote had a mind of its own as well, and I had to virtually insert the remote into the television to get any response. The wi-fi is BT ‘free’, which continuously cuts out after even the briefest inactivity meaning you will be constantly reconnecting whatever devi
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