Preston Hotels with Gym

Friendly reception, very clean, superb breakfast, great hotel, our only criticism was the room lighting was very poor. The bulbs must have been ultra low wattage.

Lovely hotel and very easy to find on foot from the train station. Early check in and late check out is not an add on. Requests will be put forward and it’s a chance you have to take on the day. They were very accommodating in letting me check in earlier. Thank you Front of house (reception) Georgia needs extensive training on how to speak to people. I said ‘mate’ in a friendly tone to her colleague. She aggressively told me not to call him that! I apologised and asked if I should be calling him ‘sir’ she said ‘yes, that’s better’ I was so embarrassed, she made me feel like I’d done something awful like swear. I later asked other members of staff if it was offensive to say ‘mate’ in Preston. It isn’t? So then why was I spoken to in such a tone. They said she was probably in a bad mood & took it out on me. THIS IS NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR from any staff member towards a paying guest! The Room Heather is an absolute credit to the team. She had my room ready early. It was immaculately clean when I got there. Beds are very comfortable, I slept like a baby. The domestic team were so kind and helpful at any given moment. Whether it be for extra towels, milk or tbags. Nothing was too much for them. It was a nice view with a window that opens enough to let the breeze in. Ac worked lovely especially with how hot it’s been. Breakfast I’m allergic to eggs. I wanted a warm breakfast. I requested a vegetarian sausage that was eggless. They don’t serve these. Ok I later asked if there was a vegan option. They said the sausage was vegan but not suitable for egg allergy sufferers. So it’s not vegan? It was such an ordeal I just had cereal the first day. They were happy to correct themselves that it was in fact a vegan sausage. If it had been a better experience I would’ve taken pictures. But, to feel like an inconvenience is not an experience I’ve had before in a hotel of this stature.

We stay here quite regularly - not because the hotel is fabulous but because it's the only one in the area which has proper king sized beds available, and because the location is perfect as we are driving down the A6. They don't do weddings either which means you dont have all that noise to contend with. Hopefully now it's being rebranded this update will continue throughout the interior. The rooms are very dark and dated. There was a slight issue when we arrived as my message did not seem to have got through to say we needed a ground floor room due to mobility issues and by the time we arrived they had all been allocated and most of the lifts are currently being replaced, but the reception girls quickly got that sorted and gave us a family room with 2 double beds. The mattresses were in dire need of replacement - terribly saggy and one of them had a huge dip in the middle making them extremely uncomfortable. The duvets are horrendously heavy. There is no need to have something so heavy as you can get a good amount of heat from a much lighter weight duvet. I struggled to move under it as it weighed down so much and I have arthritis in my shoulder making it almost impossible to turn over. We did ask at reception for something lighter and were given sheets to use instead but the weather turned a bit cooler so the sheet was just too thin. I cannot imagine how the cleaning staff cope with changing the covers on these monstrosities daily when people check out. The cost of the 3 night stay for us was around £450 for room only. Extremely expensive. If we had booked B&B it would have been over £500. I do realise the spa/pool etc is probably covered in this price but perhaps a different price bracket to include or disclude the amenities might be a better idea as we were only basing ourselves there to sleep, and go out and about all day. The only other issue we had, which was of no fault of the hotel in any way, was the way some other guests had no concept of the amount of noise they make nor did they seem to care. We were wakened regularly to doors being let slam shut rather than gently closed at very early hours (there were a lot of workmen/businessmen staying) and in the room directly above us there was at least one child who sounded as if they were using the bed as a trampoline to bounce off of, onto the floor with a massive thud then run up and down the floor constantly from 6am each of the mornings.

When we arrived the barrier was down. We had to do that awkward thing of move the car over as far as you can and then stretch to reach the button to contact staff. Unfortunately the staff member who answered the gate intercom was a little hard to understand and she cut us off rather abruptly with the gate still remaining down. We pressed again and the gate allowed access. We checked in and I advised that I had already paid online via paypal. The staff advised that any payment was not an actual payment rather a hold - I would still need to pay again. If you use paypal you will know it takes several days to show on your account so I could neither prove nor disprove their claims. We got to our room and were pleased to be in an annexe as there was a wedding going on. Nice room size etc kettle, coffee machine, mugs, tea and biscuits. I checked in the bathroom for glasses and there were none available - I would assume that a hotel charging over £100 per night would at least supply plastic cups or proper glasses to drink water from. There was plenty of storage available and a decent hairdryer. The shower was nice - however the glass door was not long enough to prevent significant amounts of water hitting the floor - the bath mat was sodden. The shower tray and grout work as well as an area near the radiator had mould/blackening to it. There was also a random hole in the ceiling - possibly an old leak? The food was great although it took a while to arrive. I did ask for mild peppercorn sauce and no mushrooms - my food arrived with mushrooms and no peppercorn sauce. We left the restaurant believing that the meal would be added to the room - a member of staff followed us out advised that many people may have sat at the table and they needed a room number (this was given when we arrived at the restaurant) and could we pay now?!; perhaps they need a better booking/checking system in place? We then went through to the bar there were several tables which had been left with glasses on them. They were only removed when we sat at one of these tables, the table remained unwiped. The two staff on didn't come over to see if we wanted more drinks and didn't interact with other people who were hovering also intending to purchase drinks. I eventually took my chair and sat in front of the bar waiting for the staff to return from a patrol; neither asked if they could help so I shouted over. I believe this is indicative more of a lack of training in customer service than rudeness. Children from the wedding were becoming a nuisance by this point and were pretty much unchallenged by staff. They were running in and out, up and down stairs taking milk from the fridges and leaving plastic rings on the floor. They made enough noise to be heard on at least the first floor as the fire doors were help open by magnets. In our room we hoped for peace and quiet only to be left disappointed by music echoing over from the wedding - this finished just before midnight. The bed was comfortable and we slept well. The gym was lovely and quiet at 8am although the sauna hadn't quite heated up when we headed in there around 8.40ish. Breakfast was mostly tasty - the black pudding lacked any flavour - the scrambled eggs and hash browns were great. The tea was the wrong colour and tasted like very cheap teabags. There were bits of chips on the floor from the food service the night before.