Well, where do I start. Having read the reviews (after booking - silly me), I thought I would keep an open mind about the hotel. I found it to be clean, the rooms were ok for 3 star accomodation although the "Maltese" toilet system (description as per hotel maintenance man) was clinging on for dear life.
It's true about the breakfasts - no variety whatsoever. No fruit or yogurt available, just warm soggy fatty bacon, beans, hard boiled eggs everyday. Evening meals fared little better. I felt sorry for the restaurant staff (two nice young lads who clearly were so demoralised but tried to put a brave face on it).
The piece de resistance though was having our room broken into with a knife, plus 2 other rooms on the same floor on the same night. Lots of stuff taken (the safe is another story - 2 attempts to obtain information on how to use it plus a call to the manager). We immediately went down to reception to report the break in and were met with two other groups who had just encountered the same thing. The reception staff were unsympathetic and I had to request that they call the police. The Security Guard was also sat behind the reception desk, apparently oblivious to what had gone on (what was his purpose I have to ask?). The two other groups who had been burgled were on the same floor as us (6th floor). I asked both the Guard and the receptionist if this had ever happened before and they said no. My partner then decided to check for himself. He walked past doors on the 6th, 5th and 4th floors, checking the door frames. It was clear on a large number of rooms that they had been broken into as you could see where the soft wood door frames had been chipped at/hacked beside the lock. It was so apparent that we were lied to and at no time were we offered another room, or, at any time after the incident did any of the staff come to check our room/us to see if we were ok. We found the whole experience upsetting and are extremely angry that we were treated so off-handedly. When I spoke with one of the staff who looks after the pool the following day, I told him what had happened and asked if this had ever happened before. He said it had happened 3 days before, they had a CCTV image of the thief but they didn’t know who he was. This therefore confirmed what myself and my partner knew to be the case, that the hotel was a magnet for thieves and it had happened before, plus we had been lied to.
It begs the question as to how the thief was so easily able to steal these items, without any signs of disturbance. The key has a fob on it which you need to have to use the electricity in the room. Unless he had an SAS style torch, it would have been difficult for him to have found as many items so easily without making a mess, as things were distributed about the room, some in a drawer, the pop up speaker at the bottom of a make up bag.
So, to sum up, if you like non-existent service, rubbish food and don't mind being burgled, please go here. On the plus side, the weather was nice.
- St Georges Park Complex
- St Georges Park Complex Hotel
