Du Vin Bistro Cambridge

The room itself was good once we got to it. The bed was big and comfortable, I enjoyed the bath, and the water pressure was good. There was also a nice selection of tea and coffee. I like this hotel for its location and accommodating staff, and I’m sure we’ll stay again, hopefully with a little help next time. Getting around the building was tough with our pram and bags. It’s old, cramped, and a bit of a rabbit warren. There is a small lift, but we still had to manage some stairs to reach our room. They knew we had a baby and pram because they’d set up a cot, so it would have been appreciated if someone had thought to offer help at reception.

The old fashioned layout was really cool, and the bar made the experience for us. Poppy, who was behind it, was incredibly friendly and hospitable. She suggested the Altitudes Red to me, a wine connoisseur, and it’s now one of my personal favourites. We’d heard good things and were excited to visit, but the experience blew us away. 10/10.

We hadn’t booked, and the restaurant was full in the middle of Sunday lunch, but the staff were super accommodating. Poppy took us downstairs to the bar so we could have a drink while we waited for a table in the bistro. She made a huge fuss of my nephew, little Marlowe, and made us feel so welcome. My cousin, his wife, their son and I had gone to Hotel Du Vin for food and drinks. It’s a really friendly place to get some grat food!

The building has charm, the room itself was lovely, and the location is excellent. The furnishings were beautiful, the bed was one I wanted to take home, and there were L'occitane toiletries. But we left with mixed feelings. The service and handling of problems were well below what we expected at this price, and I can’t easily recommend it after our stay. With better staff training and more attentive management, it could be a fantastic hotel. Everyone was polite, but politeness only goes so far when basic things aren’t working. We’d splurged a little on accommodation for our Cambridge trip because of the reputation, high booking ratings, and good value. At check-in we asked whether we could get a breakfast bag on the last day, as we had to leave at 2 am for our flight. The receptionist said they don’t do that. We’d paid extra for the quite expensive breakfast and couldn’t remove the last day from the booking, so that was our loss. Something also went wrong at check-in and we seem to have been given the wrong room. The central heating was off, and when we woke up the room was 12 degrees Celsius (53 fahrenheit). The thermostat didn’t help. My husband went to reception, where someone else was on duty, and they apparently switched the heater on centrally. That still did nothing. It was so cold I considered moving to another hotel. When we complained a third time, the receptionist said they’d done everything they could. Finally, they came up to try to fix it manually and managed to turn off the system feeding outside air into our room. This was halfway through our stay. There were other things that made the young staff seem poorly trained in hotel operations and problem-solving. No one was rude, and everyone we dealt with was polite, but that didn’t make up for the lack of flexibility over a simple takeaway breakfast or the difficulty resolving basic issues.