I'm 18 and have been going to Ostend every single year with my mum and dad, and have stayed at this hotel every time!
I cannot fault the room we were given at all; large spacious room with a balcony with a great view!
The staff are very nice and cheerful and are always willing to have a joke with you, they're also very helpful. The hotel may be slightly outdated but it's very clean and welcoming. You only get what you pay for!
However, we normally go with coach parties and a few people were complaining about the size of the rooms and if I weren't with my family I'd have been put in one too in which case, I would not be too happy.

dont go in room 410 dont go with gold crest hollidays as they rip you off they know this hotel is a health problem but tend to ignore this shame on them top marks for our drivers lee and neil who did their very best to help us any coach company who want first class driverslook no further than lee and neil what a twosome a great double act ;we will never go with gold crest again

We booked this break with National who also have issues. We had previously stayed here and couldn't really remember anything major wrong with it apart from being dated. This time however, we were given our room key, I unpacked only to be told we had been allocated the wrong room, the room we had was a large room on 1st floor with large bathroom, the room we were moved to was a tiny room on 5th floor. I then realised why we had been moved, the couple given the 1st floor room were in early 60's and of a large build, we are in our 40's and small build. There's no way this couple would have fitted in the beds or the bathroom. The bathroom was tiny, you had to back onto the toilet from the room and then shut the door which meant that your knees and face were practically touching the door. The shower was so small the only way you could turn round was to hold onto the handle on the wall, this would be a death trap for elderly or less mobile people. We were only there for 3 nights so it was ok for us, however I wouldn't have liked to stay in the room for any longer.
Yes the hotel is dated but the bedding and towels were clean as was the room itself. There is nothing wrong with the quality of the food though for the price you pay - I don't know what some people expect, it's perfectly adequate, Soup, meat + 2 veg and pudding plus a glass of wine, and it's piping hot and nicely cooked. It sounds like the first 2 floors are the better rooms and anything above gets smaller. The hotel is situated in the heart of the resort so it's in the middle of everything. We had more serious issues with the shambolic way National holidays operated, we had to offload at Cambridge services onto all different busses, (5 busses and passengers + lugage trying to find out which bus we should transfer to as the drivers didn't seem sure either). It was even worse on the return journey, we were left in the driving rain and cold for 45mins waiting for one of the busses to come from Cologne which we had to transfer to. It was a shambolic nightmare, with some people neirly coming to blows with the drivers.

Have just returned from a long weekend at the above hotel, 9th - 12th December 2011. After a long journey (first pick-up in Liverpool) we arrived late afternoon and were allocated room 411 and my sister and brother in law room 410 next door. The first thing we had to do was open the windows to let out the smell of sewage, we contacted a member of staff, and our our drivers and advised them that as I was asthmatic I could not stay in the room with that smell, and if necessary we would have to be moved to another hotel if there were no other rooms available. We were asked to give them a chance to rectify the problem - we agreed, and watched them pour copious amounts of solution down the toilet out of a five gallon drum. We went back later to check out their handiwork, as we stepped out of the lift I began choking and coughing with the fumes, my brother in law and husband's eyes were streaming as they had gone up first and opened the door, (Benidorm, as we named this arrogant person) had put so much bleach down the toilet the chlorine gas given up just sailed down the corridor. Our driver Lee (can't praise him enough) argued and just stated there was no way we would be staying in those rooms and contacted Gold Crest who we had travelled with, to inform them. We were moved to other rooms again at the back of the hotel, and asked not to inform other guests as they too would be requesting moves. Most of the rooms are small, the shower was a joke the plastic curtain would not stay closed you bent to get the soap etc and smacked your head on the bar, the step out was so high it was dangerous getting out. My sister and brother in law, were moved to room 514, right opposite the lift. Their room was so small the door could not open inwards, and opened onto the lift and vise versa. They thought they were posh with their two handbasins, but the shower was over the bath, facing outwards and not into the bath, the shower rail and curtain fell on top of her and the floor was flooded. There are two large pipes running through the rooms above and below which are hot constantly, the window opens up into the middle of the building with only a fire escape visable, and no fresh air. They complained of the heat in the room causing them bad headaches and stuffed up feeling as there was no relief from the relentless heat. There was an elderly lady in the same room below who complained of exactly the same thing. The noise from the lift constantly being used and people coming and going was also a great disturbance when trying to rest. There are two lifts, the smaller one nearly took the clothes off my back as we were moving up, there are no safety features to it. Low hanging ceiling lights in the bar area caused many people to bang their heads with resulting electrics coming away from the ceiling no apparent repairs were ever carried out. Another group who travelled with National, showed us photographs of sockets approximately 8ins square hanging off the wall with all the electrics showing.
Redeeming feature, the continental breakfast provided was o.k. The location for the town and coast was good. We have stayed in low star hotels before on many occasions, but this was totally the worst ever. The best rooms appear to be on the front, so maybe people who write good reviews on this hotel have never had to endure what alot of other people have, so please listen to all reviews as you could be put at the back and suffer the same fate. CHLORINE GAS COULD HAVE PROVED FATAL.