The Richmond

This is a fantastically located hotel — The World Museum is 5 minutes walk away, one of the best beer pubs is 2 minutes away (Ship & Mitre) and 5 minutes from main city centre. Beware that there is major construction taking place beside the hotel (student accommodation i think). Our view was of a building site which made my heart sink when we arrived. We were awoken at 7am with lots of hammering and drilling. Really unimpressed and disappointed that the hotel had not tried to place us in a room away from the construction. It was a Sunday night so assumed it wasn’t too busy to do this. Luckily I had ear plugs as we didn’t have the energy to phone and argue with the staff to get moved. The room was very spacious but to the point it felt a bit empty and souless. Gaping spaces in the room just felt unwelcoming. Plain décor with the exception of the bright carpet and bed head. Comfy bed and non-​feather pillows which we prefer. Don’t try checking in early as we discovered they turnaround the rooms very late. I arrived back at my room around 5.30 and the cleaning service was only then leaving. Very unusual. The air con was good as we stayed during unseasonably warm weather so nice to sleep in coolness. In terms of service, the staff seemed a bit distracted and didn’t seem particularly helpful. My favourite part of the hotel is the spa which is located in another building opposite — very hot jacuzzi, with a cool small pool, and a warm small pool, with sauna, and steamroom. The sparkly lights were not on when we visited which i was disappointed with as the pictures on the website make it look really pretty. Also, they don’t seem to have many padlocks for their lockers. My husband and i had to share a locker which was inconvenient being in separate changing rooms. It was a reasonable hotel but i wouldn’t rush back and would certainly avoid until construction of student accommodation is finished!

Fairly ok, but had several mishaps: room key card stopped working, breakfast card lost by reception so did not have the hot breakfast promised, housekeeping and maintenance simply would not leave us alone, décor seemed rather tacky, TV remote very frustrating to use…
One of the few redeeming qualities was some staff members, including a very helpful bar staff member and a woman who got us some toast, yogurt, fruit, tea, etc for breakfast when reception messed up the hot breakfast.
Despite this, we won’t be staying again.