My wife has for years has wanted to visit Bath. At last we arranged a weekend away, Bath was great but sadly the Royal Hotel was an enormous disappointment.
We upgraded to a four poster room which may have been a mistake although the upgrade was at no extra charge.It was a warm weekend but not a heatwave. The room was hot and airless and there was no air-conditioning. In order to get any air into the room we were forced to open the windows. The first night we suffered in silence but the second night we requested, and got, a fan although still we had to sleep with the windows wide open. What we did not know that this hotel is a) less that 50 yards from the main railway station, b) immediately next door to a pub and c) 100yards away from a hostel for the homeless. What we were also unaware of is that Bath seems to be something of a magent for "Stag" and "Hen" parties. The least disturbing of these was the train noise which was almost non existent. What was disturbing was the noise of drunks at 3.00 sitting outside the station awaiting the early train having missed the last train home the previous evening and putting the world to rights at the tops of their voices. The walk up Manvers street into Bath was a gauntlet run past various members of the local wine society littered over the steps outside the hostel. Admittedly they di not barrack us as we passed by but my wife found them rather intimidating and insisted that we cross the street to avoid them.
Te restaurant was a disaster. To quote from the letter I wrote to the hotel following our visit; "The standard of food in the restaurant was well below that we had been led to believe would be the case from your brochure and web-site. We had booked for dinner both nights; however, after our Friday night experience we felt it would be more enjoyable to eat elsewhere on Saturday. On the Friday night the ‘amuse bouche’ that was offered to us consisted of a ‘bought in’ pastry case filled with a mixture of what I think was a mayonnaise and vegetable mixture that must have come straight from a tin. I ordered the local pan fried field mushrooms as a starter. They arrived leathery and covered in what appeared to be a melted slice of processed cheese. This was followed by the honey glazed breast of duck which was rather overcooked and very far from tender. You claim to have something of a reputation for your steaks. Perhaps we should have chosen from these however neither my wife nor myself a particular fans of steak so this was not really an option.
Breakfast from my point of view was rather less than appetising on both occasions. The first morning I had your full English breakfast which arrived luke warm having, quite clearly, been kept hot under lights rather than being cooked to order. Nor was I offered the choice of how I wished my accompanying egg to be cooked. It arrived looking rather small and greasy having been liberally doused with oil whilst frying. The following morning I ordered smoked salmon and scrambled egg. Here again the egg arrived quite clearly having been cooked some time previously, kept warm under lights and surrounding by a liberal amount of liquid. I know you do not claim to be a Michelin starred restaurant but the food we were served fell well below what I feel could be considered a satisfactory standard in any hostelry."
In short, I could not possibly recommend this hotel to anyone. We were charged £180 per night for our weekend stay. This was exorbitant.
I am currently awaiting a response to my letter of complaint.
On a positive note however we ate on the Saturday night in Martini Restaurant in George Street. here we had excellent Italian food, hot and well cooked and with first class service despite it being very busy. it was not expensive and my wife and I felt it represented excelletnvalue for money




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Value
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