The Ship and Castle

The harbour view from our good-sized room was great. Staff were really welcoming and friendly, and the food was a good standard with a reasonable choice. We parked in the council car park, just a few minutes' walk away.

It’s a lovely old hotel by the coast, with wonderful food. The rooms could do with refurbishment, though, and the bar is small, with just 15 seats. It’s due to close in October and reopen as a spa hotel.

We left exhausted and feeling ripped off after checking out early. The town itself is super pretty, which made the hotel’s horrible impression even more disappointing. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. At £140 a night, our tiny room was dusty, unbearably hot, and had no air conditioning or Wi-Fi. Nothing worked properly, including our toilet, which wouldn’t flush. The bed linen was dirty, and the walls were so thin that we heard people walking, turning taps on, and flushing toilets. We woke at least 15 times. We had to leave the window open all night, but it faced a pub that stayed loud until very late. We couldn’t sleep and woke angry and tired. Breakfast was awful too: dry eggs, burnt bacon that was greasy and stale, and terrible tea and coffee. The machine coffee was watery and barely resembled coffee, and there wasn’t a proper latte. We’d already paid for breakfast, so we asked reception whether there were any alternatives. They offered no help and no refund. The receptionist seemed nice enough, but did nothing to sort it out. Staff were unprofessional and unhelpful, and we found them impossible to reason with. It felt like they simply didn’t care.

On our April 25 trip with Caledonian, we arrived late because of the weather over the moors. The staff stayed behind and carried our luggage into the hotel in the pouring rain. It was our first bus tour, so we didn’t know what to expect, but they couldn’t have been more helpful. Breakfast had loads of variety, though the food was good but nothing special. It’s a shame it’s no longer on Caledonian’s list, as we’d go back for a nice few days.