Numa Brighton Pavilion

The room was clean and comfortable, with all the amenities, and the location was brilliant. I’d book again if I return to Brighton. This was my first stay at a Numa, and the experience was positive overall. It’s digital and self-service, and I happened to arrive while a hotel manager was there. They were incredibly helpful, smoothly checked me in, and upgraded me to a larger room in a quiet part of the hotel. I gave four stars because I hadn’t received any check-in information beforehand. I booked through booking.com and hadn’t realised it was self check-in. I was lucky someone came out as I arrived so I could get in, and that an employee happened to be in the ‘lobby’. Otherwise, I might have been stuck for a while. This needs fixing for future customers booking this way. I can see how this setup could cause problems, like having no staff around, but my own experience was good largely because of the employee who helped me.

The location is a 10/10, right in the middle of everything, with a Tesco Express just across the road for snacks and supplies. It’s surprisingly quiet at night, so we slept decently. The kitchen is a bit small, but it has all the essentials and we had no trouble making a proper breakfast each morning. A perfect spot if you want to be close to the action.

The room itself was nice and the bedding lovely, but the service was truly terrible. We arrived at 2pm and spent 40 minutes trying to check in through their app because it wouldn’t scan our IDs properly and the Wi-Fi kept dropping. There was no staff member around to help in the middle of the day. A noise kept me awake all night. With no night manager, I messaged an automated bot that couldn’t find the reservation. Eventually I reached someone who said they couldn’t help and suggested using the earbuds provided, but there weren’t any in the room. At 6am, still awake because of the noise, I asked for a free late checkout and was told none were left. My friend messaged in the morning and was told it would cost £20. Then at 11:55, the manager banged rudely on the door and told us to leave. I explained the noise and showed it to him, but he just rolled his eyes and said it wasn’t that bad. He was rude, tutting and rolling his eyes, and made me feel unwelcome. He said the night people don’t work with them, which seemed strange since it’s one organization. There was a man and a woman; the woman was much nicer, but seemed very unimpressed with how he spoke to me and handled the issue.

The rooms are large, the beds comfortable, and the location convenient, but there were some problems. The noise from bottles being emptied into bins at the bar next door was incredibly loud in the evenings. I also found a dirty sock in the minibar cupboard, a major hygiene red flag. The apology I got over WhatsApp felt dismissive, especially after I saw other guests being given apology baskets for their issues.