First Impressions Always Matter
As a single parent, I was particularly looking for inexpensive deals in local hotels, on our trip to Cornwall. So, the things I look for in a hotel will always be cleanliness first followed by location and then price.
Everything else can follow swiftly after. I chose to stay in the Beresford Hotel after the reading the reviews that the rooms were clean, and that it was so close to the beach. The Beresford Hotel was bang in the middle of the Premier Inn and The Newquay Beach Hotel. Each hotel was a different price, with similiar star ratings, but I had found a great deal for our stay at The Beresford Hotel on Booking.com.
The reviews were good and so were the images of the room online, so I went ahead and booked.
Once we arrived, my first thoughts of the exterior of the hotel, was that it was in real need of a good old paint job and a tidy up. It looked quite outdated.
Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was how messy the reception floor was - it could have used a really good hoover. The reception staff were very friendly and that immediately put me at ease. After check in, we went up to our room. We were placed on the third floor.
I had a bad knee and decided to take the elevator, but the elevator sign read that it was ONE person at a maximum, in the lift. The lifts were tiny. On the other floors, the maximum number of people it would take was two. So my son and I had to walk up three flights of stairs with our small suitcases.
The more I looked around the hotel, the more I panicked about the seeing the state of our room. The hotel carpet was very old, stained and in complete tatters- it was lifting up away from the floor. There were cobwebs on the windows, in every corner, and I was glad I hadn't chosen to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner there.
I dreaded seeing our room but once we got inside we were really surprised. The room was fairly modern, tidy and dare I say CLEAN! I could finally feel a sense of relief and I looked forward to the rest of our stay. I did pop out to get some antibacterial wipes just to be on the extra safe side, and done a clean over myself.
The wipes were clean, so The Beresford Hotel was not ruled out completely for a future stay.
The location of the Hotel was ideal. We were 15 minutes away from the train station and 12 minutes from town. All the sea view rooms were already taken but the nearest beach was literally a road away. We had it easy!
Overall, I guess my rating for the Beresford Hotel would probably be 3 stars out of a possible 5. The cleanliness of a room is definitely a NON negotiable for me, so at least there rooms were clean!
Although I'm not so sure we would return, staff at the hotel did really well in making us feel comfortable by greeting and speaking with us all the time. We couldn't wait for the following morning to tuck into the local favourite,'The Cornish Pasty'.
Have you ever tried a traditional Cornish Pasty? Read all about ours here!