A quick review of our second stay in a Hampton By Hilton.

Our first was in Oxford last year, and it went very well, and we were well impressed with the hotel, the state of the room and breakfast the following day.

So much so we chose to stay in this one on the waterfront in Liverpool centre for our weekend away with our granddaughters Freya and Poppy when we visited the Dr Who Exhibition.

Some of our initial problems can’t be laid at their feet to be honest. Firstly roads closed in the city centre added a detour and made it a little more difficult to get to the hotel. I personally hate city driving but Liverpool isn’t that bad to navigate.

The car park entrance is tight. I pulled up, against a intercom post thinking I need to talk to the hotel reception, which I didn’t as it turned out, but ended up scraping my back wheel arch against the post due to the entry angle. Thought I had caught it in time but clearly not. There’s an expensive trip to the body shop on top of the £119 room rate for a family room including breakfast. That was the best rate we found for the bank holiday Sunday.

Then you have to descend a level for hotel visitors and we felt I was basically posting the car through a letterbox it was that tight on the down ramp. I wasn’t looking forward to getting back out.

The lift to the reception is a short walk from the car, and we were soon checking in. I had pre-booked the room, 117 with allegedly good views over Albert Dock. I was supposed to do this on the app, but it kept failing. A known problem apparently when I eventually called ahead and booked it over the phone.

We got to the room which wasn’t quite as big as the app plan had suggested, and quickly we realised the glass shower / wardrobe sliding door was broken, off its sliding rail, and just leaning precariously against the wall. We needed a little privacy so this wasn’t going to work and we had to go back to the reception and arrange a room change. The receptionist was very kind and moved us to, another room, albeit minus the view.

They had made a sofa bed up already in our original room, and said they would send someone up to remake it in the new room.

Unfortunately the staff seemed to be split between TWO hotels and it took rather a long time for someone to come and make up the sofa bed, and then in the end they just opened it up and left the bedding for us to sort out.

Not very satisfactory.

We had intended to eat in the restaurant like we had in Oxford, which had been a very nice meal, but it turned out they didn’t really have a restaurant, and instead it was a 15 min walk down to the nearby McDonalds. Not really what we had planned.

The next morning we had breakfast, it wasn’t very organised and the food wasn’t great and they weren’t keeping up with demand.

Given our initial experience of Hampton By Hilton, we found the experience sadly lacking, and it did bring into question whether they remain a good chain to give our business to.

Definitely one to be avoided, there will be better choices available in the city.