Saturday, August 27, 2016

Hotel Review: Palace Hotel, Buxton, Derbyshire, England - August, 2016





I stayed at the Palace Hotel in Buxton in August 2016. Two of us stayed for one night, bed and breakfast, which cost £89 with Booking.com. The hotel is an old building dating back to 1857, from the exterior it has an impressive gothic facade, inside the lobby and reception are quite spectacular, with marble columns and ornate decorative features.



Being an old building the hotel also has some challenges, and there are many places where paint, plaster, fixtures and fittings simply need replacing.



The hotel currently appears to be owned by Barcelo, although much of the online references to it, and branding at the hotel states Britannia are the owner. It will be a real benefit to the hotel if Barcelo are the new owners, as my previous impressions of Britannia owned properties have been that they lacked investment and were not clean enough. I hope for the sake of this hotel that Britannia are no longer the owner, as Barcelo are the kind of organisation who could transform this entire building to the magnificent state in which it should be in.



Check-in to the hotel was not permissible before 3pm, we had to pay £4.50 to park the car on site overnight, but this was a bit of a rip-off as many people were coming and going to use the leisure club without paying for parking. This practice of charging guests for parking needs to stop.



Staff at the hotel were friendly and very chatty, overall they are a credit to the hotel. However I have to say that they were a little too chatty (e.g. early Monday morning when we were attempting a lie-in, the conversations in the corridor between cleaning and maintenance staff were too loud and went on for too long, although I now know how they all spent their weekends and where they dd their shopping)!



The hotel has a swimming pool, no surprise for a spa town, it is to be expected in a hotel like this. The pool was fairly small, around 15-20 metres in length, but the water was stone cold. 21 degrees due to the boiler being broken. Nevertheless we braved it for half an hour. It is an old pool with very high sides, meaning that the water slops against the side and splashes back, making swimming in it more challenging than in a modern pool.



There was a gym that we didn't use, and even a room with a punch bag in it and free weights.



The bar looked very nice, but we did not use it, just down the hill from the hotel (through the gardens), over the road and to the right is the amazing Buxton Brewery Tap House, once found you will not want to drink beer anywhere else, they had some amazing beers on, and as a bonus there is a Poke Stop there too (yes I am a nerd).



The restaurant was large and impressive, but again needs maintenance to plaster, paint and fixtures in places. We had breakfast there, the buffet was extensive, although things seemed to run out quickly. It was good quality food though.



This film features views of the hotel from the exterior, the gardens, entrance, reception / Lobby, lift / elevator, second floor corridors, a detailed inspection of room 215, the bar, restaurant, breakfast buffet, a function room and swimming pool.



Overall I did enjoy my stay at this hotel, and  would consider staying there again, but I do hope that the hotel is refurbished sooner rather than later.



To see a film that I made of Buxton, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVhLZGJjeSA .



This film is a Moss Travel Media production – www.mosstravel.tv



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