Anglesey Hotel

Impressive building. Nice place, clean. Good service.

The hotel is really nice. We had to stay here, while painting our hotel. We are satisfied.

We stayed one night in March at the Angelesy on a Saturday night. It was clean and comfortable. The cooked breakfast was excellent. Service was good. One disadvantage is that parking is on the street. The hotel has a restaurant but we did not use it.

Ray Bezani, Manager of The Anglesey Hotel made our overnight stay a truly «Faulty Towers» experience. We arrived to an unmanned reception with children running around and screaming between the dining room and reception area.
We quickly noticed there was a Wedding reception taking place adjacent to reception and a note on the side of the hatch advised to go through to the bar if no-​one was available. We went through to the bar and a member of kitchen staff volunteered to take us back to reception to check us in. A bizarre introduction to our stay, however we were pleased the chap (who was dressed in kitchen whites — maybe helping out on reception as other staff were involved with the wedding party?) was on hand to check us in and direct us up three flights of stairs to our room.
A nice enough room, however when I sat down and sunk into the double bed, I noticed the mattress was very soft. I’m used to a firmer mattress, and as I was staying overnight for the Great South Run the next morning, a good night’s sleep was essential!
I went back downstairs to enquire if there were any other rooms available with a firmer mattress. Unfortunately the nice chap who checked us in had now busied himself elsewhere and again no-​one was available on reception to help. I went down to the bar, but the lady serving didn’t catch my eye for a while and when she did, unfortunately couldn’t offer any answers to room availability. She then left for the kitchen to find her colleague Sheryl who went back to reception to see if other rooms were available. At this point Ray Bezani came through and asked «What’s the problem?», I mentioned again to him that the mattress in our room was soft and he proceeded to tell how all the mattresses were the same in every room and how they were hand sprung and certainly not soft. I’m not sure how he expected me to respond to this. The mattress in the room we had been allocated was soft and «hand sprung» or not, I was not going to suffer a bad back and bad night’s sleep (which I have before) from sleeping on a un-​supportive mattress.
Ray’s attitude at best was grumpy, unhelpful, cold and unfriendly, at worst — rude, abrupt and quite aggressive. He quickly tried to put me off moving rooms by saying they were fully booked. I was frustrated by his lack of customer service or care in approach and pro-​actively suggested a possible solution in looking at another room where guests hadn’t checked-​in to see if the mattress was a little firmer and if so, maybe swap rooms. Reluctantly he agreed, but in doing so demanded I bring the keys back down the three floors to Sheryl on reception again.
While the conversation took place between myself and Ray, Sheryl looked apprehensive and uncomfortable — maybe use to her Manager’s «grumpy» attitude and lack of friendly customer relations with guests perhaps?
Hasten to say the second room had a much firmer mattress, we decided to move and apart from the room being excessively hot overnight (we opened the window half-​way through the night to get some air flowing round the room even though the radiator appeared to be turned-​off), we had a fairly good night’s sleep.
Breakfast was buffet style cereals, fruit and juices with a buffet cooked breakfast on hot plates. My partner commented the cooked breakfast was «fine» with the sausages standing out as probably the best bit, but the bacon was below par.
Now, in terms of décor, this hotel is average, however if you read the brochure in your room you would think it was furnished in quality regency fittings. It’s not and it’s unfortunate that this expectation is also heralded on the hotel’s website too. This hotel is definitely overpriced and for £79.50 for a very below average experience, I have no doubt a B&B would have been much friendlier, welcoming and grateful of our custom. The Manager of this establishment unfortunately was not. When we came to check-​out the next day he glanced up and suddenly remembered my request for a room change. It seemed to throw him and they was a severe lack of pleasantries with a begrudging thank you when we paid £80 (50p makes no difference here!) for a rather disappointing and below standard experience. Gosport, I’m sure should demand more of their local hotels and hotel Managers if they wish to attract more tourism and money to the area.