Nightmare Hotel experience.
On Friday 9th November 2007, we booked a double room for 2 nights Sat 10th and Sun 11th November. We paid in full on arrival. On the second night we returned to the hotel after our day out just before 9 p.m. The hotel was in complete darkness and locked up. We had our keys with us but all of our possessions, clothes, toiletries and my wife’s daily medication were locked in the hotel. We were unable to raise anyone and no-one answered the phone. The hotel phone was redirected to the proprietor’s vodaphone which only gave us the voicemail service. No one responded to our many voice messages and text messages. There was no-one on site and apparently no other guests. Eventually at 10:30 p.m. we had no choice but to book in another more expensive hotel, which luckily for us had a room available.

On returning to the hotel the following morning at 8:55am the hotel was still locked up. A heating contractor waiting outside told us that he had spoken to the proprietor ten minutes ago on his mobile phone and someone was coming to open up. The cleaner arrived at 9:05 and the proprietor at 9:50 but only after I phoned him and insisted he attend. He still had not returned any of our calls. We were offered a hollow “sorry” and weak excuses. He told he would see us on our way with one night’s refund that he handed to me in a sealed envelope and offered a bottle of wine as compensation, which we refused. When we insisted he pay our additional costs for the night at the other hotel (only another £25) he refused, became abusive, and said he had expected that WE would be reasonable people. He accused US of being rude, unreasonable and uncaring of his problems and he actually threw us out refusing to speak to us any more. We left realising we could not expect any rationality from such a person.