Best Western The Stuart Hotel

The food was fresh, full of flavour and beautifully presented at every meal. I had a wonderful stay, with a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere and consistently excellent service. The staff were friendly and attentive from the moment I arrived. I’d happily recommend the hotel for its hospitality and dining, and look forward to returning.

Lauren and the team are always friendly and welcoming, and do their best to make sure your stay is comfortable. The hotel meals are lovely, freshly cooked, hot, tasty and plentiful. Some bedrooms and the corridors serving them need renovation. The hotel is trying to get that work done, but these things take time. The rooms are still clean and comfortable, which is the main thing for me. Thanks, Lauren and staff.

The staff were nice enough, but the hotel felt run down and wasn’t very clean. The room was warm, though old-looking, with scruffy carpets and marks on the otherwise alright bed. The restaurant looked shabby, the food and drinks were expensive, and the shower had no pressure. The lights clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a while, with lots of dead insects and dirt. Sorry, it just wasn’t what I expected.

The room I ended up in had an okay mattress, but I’d been moved from another room where the mattress felt like it had been picked up off the street. The rooms are outdated and poorly maintained, with broken bathroom tiles, thin walls and creaky floors. The shower was just about bearable once I found the narrow spot between scalding hot and ice-bucket cold. I needed a hotel nearby at the last minute after a train cancellation, and the four-star rating swayed me. That was a terrible mistake. I wasn’t expecting luxury, but I did expect a basic standard for its rating. A bad experience can make or break a reputation, and I’ll never set foot in another ‘Best’ Western hotel. The other hotels around the train station look shabby too, so roll the dice or take a taxi to a more modern hotel further away.