Best Western the Grand Hotel Hartlepool

Rooms is nice and near to office. Service is good and the rooms is good. Overall it is value for money.

Nice hotel staff. Very friendly

Dreadful. I've seen reviews before where people have said 'if I could give it zero I would'. So dissapointing for a Best Western. Admittedly I've not stayed in one for a while and maybe they have gone down a bit but this was pretty shocking. Where to start, well, the parking wasn't exactly as advertised because for a hotel of this size it was pretty shocking. We got there around 5pm and were told where the free parking was, and then about the other parking, and advised, if we needed to park elsewhere just do it for an hour as the 'council run' one next to the hotel was free from 6pm until Monday morning. The room was a decent size, but we had chosen an executive, so that matched that element of what we would expect. Now for the negatives, the corridor from the main stairs to the room absolutely stank of **** but it seemed there was nowhere for that smell to go because there were no windows or any extraction fans to allow air to flow. The decor in this area was also very dated, and the wooden frames of all the corridor windows were painted a dark grey, just why? Inside the room there was not a single piece of furniture that matched which made me wonder if they had raided the British Heart Foundation furniture shop over the road to purchase it all. We were only staying a couple of nights but no drawers for 'smalls' clothing so that all stayed in our bags. You could not open the windows and it was absolutely stifling, despite being in late September. The bathroom was massive, but had a very small bath with the shower in it and one of those annoying glass doors to stop the floor getting wet (they never do!) The water was very slow so I am glad that I discovered that during a freshen up shower as would have needed a few more days if I needed to wash the shampoo out of my hair. Also, I would have ended up needing treatment for burns as it was piping hot and could not be adjusted. The ONLY plus was the Indian restaurant downstairs, which can be accessed through the hotel. Great food and nice staff. The bar in the hotel was pretty awful too, and as for the breakfast, well, it was dreadful buffet on the tiniest heating serving thing, sausages and bacon barely cooked, and everything else all dried up, and just two slices of bread left in the basket. We went to the Wetherspoons close by in the end, which was usual Wethersoons standard, but the staff in there were really good. Would not go back to this hotel, not even if you paid me!