Durrant House Hotel

Worst hotel visited on a trip to Devon & Cornwall

After a tour of Devon and Cornwall, it appeared from the information given that this hotel might be the best of several hotels I’d stayed in. Although I’ve given all the others positive reviews, I cannot do so in this case.

The hotel is certainly in a convenient location, near to the bridge over the estuary, but the picture of a beach on the hotel webpage might mislead – in all the time I was in the hotel I saw no sight of such an estuary beach – I guess those in upper rooms facing in the right direction might get a distant view of the river and Instow on the other side. At least Appledore is only a couple of miles away.

The staff were aloof – I didn’t even get a “good morning” at breakfast, and the acoustics in reception are dreadful, so I struggled to hear what was being said - not helped by the presence of several tour groups that appear to be a major focus for this hotel.

The hotel has the latest in “don’t trust the guest to manage their own power consumption” tactics, with the door entry chip card needing to be inserted the correct way around to get any power in the room – even for the sockets, so the usual dodge of using a credit card in its place doesn’t work if you just want to leave a laptop charging whilst out of the room.

The worst thing is the shower. It has a fairly standard size cubicle, but this is dominated by a huge fixed shower head about 6ft 6in above the shower tray. You can’t angle it away from you, and there in no room in the cubicle to move away from it – so if you are tall there isn’t much clearance and it’s a challenge to use without resorting as I did to standing on the bathroom floor and approaching it from there.

When I was trying to point this out after checking out the receptionist appeared interested in what I was saying up until the hotel phone rang - which she answered, and then could not quickly get back to our conversation.

Looking at their website it’s clear they focus on the luxuries – whereas I’m more interested in the basics. Their cancellation policy was the most onerous of all of the hotels / guest houses I visited on this trip too.

Unique Quality: Free parking - a boon after you've suffered so much motorist fleecing in Devon and Cornwall.