The Coal Exchange Hotel

Rooms where great, staff where very helpful

Room had lots of cobwebs and when using the spa bath, black plastic/dirt came out of the jets. No central heating, stand alone radiators were placed in room.

I’m so glad we decided to stay at The Coal Exchange Hotel in Cardiff. I’d been given the very important job of finding a place to stay overnight for my friend’s special birthday. I didn’t really know where to start, so I compared prices of hotels in the area. I was surprised to find that the ‘budget’ hotels Premier Inn and Travelodge were no cheaper than The Coal Exchange for the given dates! I had a look at the photos and reviews and it looked perfect for a special occasion. It was steeped in history with the interior design staying true to the period in which it was built. Originally, as there were five of us, I had booked the sextuplet room. It looked amazing and we were all really excited about staying there. Unfortunately though, due to maintenance work being carried out on that part of the building, we had to change our plans to three double rooms right next to each other. The rooms were beautiful. Floor to ceiling double windows, opulent wallpaper, ornate period furniture and a lovely comfortable centrepiece bed. The bathrooms had gorgeous jacuzzi baths and stone basins. The following morning we had a delicious breakfast in Culley’s Restaurant situated inside the Coal Exchange. The staff here are very friendly and go out of their way to ensure you have the best stay. Can’t wait to go back.

It was a great night. Very clean and convenient for anyone visiting Cardiff city. Will recommend the everyone

Location is ideal if you’re looking to visit the city centre there is no car park but it’s only a short walk from the train station. The hotel is located in a grade II listed building and although some rooms have been decorated well others are dark, and in need of some TLC. Though the beds were comfortable. Please note their Air Conditioning units are broken. Each room has an A4 welcome sheet explaining this and saying this is due to the building being old. Our room did have a Daikin Air Conditioning unit, it just did not work, so this must have been the case for a while. no air conditioning and the windows hardly open a jar so I do not recommend visiting on a hot day. They do supply a small fan but this did not circulate much air. Whilst some members of the team are lovely and made our stay enjoyable, especially Kieran (I am sorry I do not know the names of the others). The same cannot be said for the management team here. We raised a few complaints regarding our booking and have been dismissed and called liars with one complaint being the wait time for food and drinks. If you are planning to eat a three course set meal here (off their Pre Theatre menu) please allow more then 2.5 hours as apparently this is the minimum time they expect you to stay. We were there 2 hours and had to ask for our food to be bought quicker as we arrived at 17:54 for a 18:00 booking and needed to leave at 20:00 we were only receiving our mains around 19:30 (approx) and puddings followed at 19:55. Our other complaint being the company withdrew a final payment from the wrong persons card for a booking of 9 guests. Even though we had emailed, called and spoken in person and paid upfront in advance due to our lead organiser dropping out. This caused great distress for many members involved. As you can imagine when dealing with a large sum of money. Even though the company did return the money immediately, they say they take no responsibility in the fault and blamed us for not formally telling them although we have evidence that we did. We are still waiting for a resolution from the company and hoping they will take some responsibility and ownership for the issues caused but currently we’ve only had email responses claiming all of our statements are false and refuse to offer a refund including a minimum of our service charge back from our dining experience. I am not the first person in our group to write a review, but the others have been taken down. So I look forward to seeing how long this one lasts.

We booked this hotel based on the good reviews and appreciate historic buildings come with their quirks and upkeep challenges. However, this hotel needs investment in the rooms and infrastructure to justify the current room charges. The room was very hot. Appreciate it is not advertised as having AC but the curtains had been left open had the sun on it all day and was baking. There was a fan but little sleep had. Mattresses uncomfortable and had stains on it and the cover. Furniture and carpet stained. Wallpaper peeling. Plug sockets not fitting to tiles. Just seemed ‘done at’ rather than completed to a professional finish. We had been looking forward to our stay but a very disappointing experience, even more so because of the cost.