we ate at blakes restaurant recently and i was not impressed at all with the service or menu. The food we ordered - steaks where very tasty and well presented however there was not enough options on the menu to inspire me. The service was terrible. No one came over to check if food was okay which you would expect from such a high standard restaurant. I had to go off to find staff to clear table - 20 mins after we'd finished eating. There was only 1 guy on the restauant floor who was on the telephone at the door majority of the time. No other staff around. Had to actually put our coats on and walk to the door before someone came over with bill. There was only 2 other tables occupied so the place was not busy at all. Where do the staff go? to leave a restaurant floor with no staff is poor! 10% service charge added to bill.... which i paid, however shoudn't that be up to the customer? (if you where happy with the service or not)

I am not one to complain about most things but my recent experience just doesn’t quite live up to what I was expecting after looking at the website.
The first point I would like to make which is very important is that this hotel is really not geared towards kids AT ALL!
I spend most of my life away on business and stay in hotels all around the world from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and sadly I was quite taken back with my experience at this hotel and disappointed to be honest. It has the potential to be a great hotel it just needs those finishing touches. What most major hotel chains lack is that “personal touch”. The staff, are professional yes but there is a point where you can be too professional and lack even a personality. I would like to point out in my opinion the following observations of this hotel which I think go against it and wouldn’t really take too much effort to put right.

No Smoking Area at all (inside or out)
No children’s Menu in the restaurant
No bathrobe in the room (even though it stated there should be one)
The shower was only a trickle due to the size of the massive shower head. (It’s ok having that big head for a wide spread of water but you have to have the water pressure to make it work, and it doesn’t)
The free wifi access is a step in the right direction but it is so slow it really is unusable.
The plug sockets in the room are placed randomly. Clearly no one put any thought into placing these when they were installed.
Service was VERY slow in the lounge area. I only wanted a coffee but had to wait nearly 15 minutes to get served.
A little gripe I have, is that you have to put your room key in a socket in the wall to make the electricity work in the room. Ok I have no issue with that but when you remove your key it then sets the Air-con unit to default to “on” at 17 degrees. Every-time I left the room after getting it nice and warm I came back and it was freezing! I couldn’t really see a way to configure it to change it either!
For a supposed luxury hotel you have to walk up stairs to get into the main lobby. Lord only knows what would happen if you have a mountain of bags to carry!

It’s not all bad however I would like to point out the following plus points.

People complained in other reviews about it being noisy. I didn’t hear a thing it was perfectly quiet for me in room 323.
The room was clean and tidy and the maids did a good job of turning down the room during the daily clean.
There was an iron in the room which you don’t normally find in most hotels so a plus point there.
John the doorman during the day was very helpful in giving directions and the only member of staff there which seemed capable of holding a simple conversation.
Location is always important with city breaks and the location of this hotel couldn’t really be anymore perfect.

Anyway thought I would air my thoughts for those of you still reading this review.

We stayed here on Sat 28th January for one night as a romantic break for myself and my partner. We had been really looking forward to getting a night in the Hard Days Night Hotel as we were both big Beatles Fans. The location of this Hotel is excellent and the information on display is fantastic!
Check in was formal and business like and not very friendly. We were given our room key and directions how to get to our room. The doors on each floor have to be opened by your room key also which flash for 3 seconds to let you in. If you dont get it, you will have to keep trying. Quite annoying when your carrying luggage. I also found the lifts to be very small and slow.
We were extremely disappointed by the size of our room, (107) it was tiny!
We had paid for a deluxe room, and you literally couldnt swing a cat in it. Once we had set our cases in we literally had to climb over the bed to manoeuvre around the room. The picture above the bed was the only real Beatles related item in the room apart from a pen and the TV channels. Our room was situated right above the main road and although we didnt mind the noise, Im sure it would bother other people.
If you dont have your curtains closed theres also a danger of being seen from passing buses and buildings opposite. We liked having a window in the room but I also thought it would be quite dangerous as they opened straight out onto a ledge over looking the street below. Noise levels inside the hotel however were terrible. We spent most of our first two hours listening to a child crying. I presumed it was coming from next door. It was only when I went to get fresh milk for coffee that I realised the child was 2 rooms up from ours.
We went to the hotel bar for a drink, (what we thought was the hotel bar) and stood for 10 mins waiting to be served, only to be told by the girl behind bar who had ignored us for most of our wait that this bar was only a service bar.
Why oh why put a service bar in the main part of the front lobby for all to see?
We then moved to the actual bar and waited another 15 mins to be served. We were quite entertained though by the bar man roaring at a customer to get out! And jumping out from behind the bar to remove him!
We then had a bottle of beer and a cocktail and were charged £14!!!! My partner who is a smoker then went outside for a quick one, and was told rather rudely by the door men to move away from the door.
There were no seats anywhere in the bar or the Hotel Lobby so we gave up and went elsewhere for the evenings entertainment.
Breakfast was terrible, the sausages and bacon were very greasy and the eggs extremely dry and over cooked. The girl that brought it to our room for us, knocked over a full glass of milk and walked out. No apology or anything. My phone was damaged and our boarding passed to get home ruined.
I really wouldnt recommend this hotel and think for the price we paid we could have spent our money elsewhere and got a lot more value and better treatment. Extremely disappointed

Last February, as part of my husband's Christmas present, we stayed at this hotel over the weekend. I'd managed to get a really good deal so the price was very reasonable. My hubby is a big Beatles fan and this weekend did not disappoint. We stayed in the Pete Best room which was very comfortable and had drinks both nights in the Bar Four which we thoroughly enjoyed. All around the hotel are wonderful black and white photos of the Beatles and other memorabilia which added to the atmosphere of the place.
Mathew St and the Cavern Club are just around the corner from the hotel and on Sunday afternoon we went in to listen to a John Lennon lookalike, he was brilliant!
Our weekend included a trip to Paul McCartney and John Lennon's childhood homes. These are owned by the National Trust and you have to book the visits well in advance, so worth it though. We also did the Magical Mystery Tour which was good fun and informative. Normally you would have to book this in advance and even though I did, as it was February there were lots of spare places.
We also wondered around the superb Albert Docks and had a look around Liverpool's fairly new shopping centre. All in all a great trip, strongly recommended!!