Gladwyn Hotel Eastbourne

Arrived early and were greeted by a bare-footed male who was kind enough to let us to check-in early. The bare feet were not a big problem but it was certainly a surprise. Our family room was on the fourth floor, so no less than 60 stairs to the room - yes we counted them! The room was a fair size and well equipped with kettle, hair dryer, TV, DVD player, 'en-suite' partitioned bathroom with toilet and shower (sink in main room). The decor was not to our taste - red ! The condition of the room was clean and tidy but the decor was pretty poor. The wallpaper was hanging off the angled ceiling in one corner where the roof was clearly leaking. This was partly mouldy and very much in need of attention. The rest of the room was equally tired, with a poor finish to the sink surround, hastily painted skirting boards and an overall sense of 'cheap & cheerful'. The shower cubicle was dirty at the base and again, the decor was hurried.

Location was good; 5 mins walk to the sea-front and 10 mins walk to the main shopping centre, so we took advantage and did some shopping. Upon our return we opened our door to find our complimentary tea, coffee and sugar had been topped up. We also noticed a 'z-bed' had been removed from the room. Initially we thought nothing of this but the more we thought about it, the more uncomfortable we were that someone had actually been in our room while we were out rather than waiting until we returned. While we appreciate staff must enter the rooms to clean, etc., we didn't expect this30 minutes after we'd arrived. Very disconcerting.

We returned again to our room later in the evening, after a lovely meal in Eastbourne centre, then washed, dressed and made our way to the hotel bar on the ground floor (60 stairs albeit down) and pressed the buzzer 'for attention'. We were greeted once again by our bare-footed friend who was now limping badly and told us he had a broken leg. We asked if we could have 1 x vodka /coke and 1 x beer. He looked in the fridge and said he needed to fetch coke from downstairs. He then returned to tell us he had not had a delivery so had no coke nor beer (while rubbing his 'broken' leg), despite the fact that we had seen beer in the fridge when he had looked for coke!! We got the distinct impression he didn't want to bother serving us. So, we once again climbed the 60 stairs to our RED room and settled in for a quiet night in front of the 4 (yes, 4) fuzzy TV channels (although to their credit there was a good supply of DVD's freely available at the bottom of the stairs).

After a night listening to our very creaky bed every time any of us stirred, which was actually fairly comfortable to be fair, we had a very enjoyable breakfast. There was cereal, a full cooked English, toast, tea / coffee / hot chocolate and the service was both swift and very pleasant by a female member of staff who apologised for there being no bar the previous night and told us that she was 'only staff'.

All in all, not particularly impressive and we will not be returning despite the lovely breakfast.

More photos can be found at the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31382305@N05/