Hotel berhampiran St. Anne's Galleries, Lewes

We were due to stay here on the 12th August 2022 for 2 nights but just less than 48 hours before we had to rush our son into hospital due to appendicitis! I tried to cancel the room and get our money back but it was too late and I just thought in the scheme of things I was happy that we had taken my son into hospital just in time and he had his operation Saturday morning. I spent 4 days in hospital devastated for my son but also that he missed his holiday too. I thought I’d try and email the owner and appeal to them regarding how unfortunate we were that due to no fault of our own that we’d have to lose our money. Mark could not have been more accommodating. He responded to my messages/emails and helped me receive a refund through the booking agent. If you’re looking for a reliable, dependable and customer focused place to stay - then Ei8ht Brighton is a fantastic place to start.

We were relocated to this hotel from the nightmare of 'Amherst hotel'. The rooms were spacious and clean and staff were friendly. We saw a free drag show one evening in the bar downstairs. The only annoying thing was the room card keys kept not working which was so irritating. LGBT friendly.

Cleanliness 4/5 - Upon checking in we were advised that the rooms are not serviced every day. This is why I have not given a full rating for cleanliness. I was surprised by this and don’t remember it being advertised when booking. The room and the hotel were clean but I would have preferred daily service for top marks. Location 4/5. Nice seafront location and we had a beautiful view from our sea view room. It’s a little further from the centre than we would have liked (or realised when booking) but it was nice to stroll along the sea front. In summer this would be lovely but we visited in January so it was a bit cold to walk all that way. Easy enough to get a taxi though. Service 3/5 - A few things could have been improved service wise. The team in the breakfast room were lovely and welcoming and there was a lovely Scottish man who made conversation and enquiries about our visit. However, I found the reception team a bit cold and not very welcoming. When asked about recommendations for things to do in the area they couldn’t offer any. When I asked to book a taxi the phone was just passed to me and I had to go through the options/wait on hold etc rather than them arranging it for me. They didn’t enquire about our stay during checkout or welcome us to come back to visit again. During our stay there was a couple staying in the room above us who had a big argument at about 3:00am with a woman shouting and crying and it went on for around an hour. This obviously wasn’t the fault of the hotel but it was uncomfortable and a bit concerning at times. We reported it to the reception as we couldn’t sleep but there was no further mention of it or apology for the disturbance or for it being allowed to go on for so long when we checked out despite us having phoned through. Also, a minor point but on the first day at breakfast our order was taken but the breakfast was brought out when I had a bowl of cereal still in front of me. Would have been better for them to allow some time to eat from the buffet before bringing out hot food. There was also a surcharge on some items at breakfast even if you paid to have breakfast included. Was a bit confused by this as the ingredients on the surcharged items seemed quite basic and I don’t remember this being mentioned when booking. Amenities 3/5 - this is quite a standard hotel so I didn’t expect it to have lots of amenities. There are two improvements that would have made the stay much better. Our room basically only had one plug socket. There was another that the TV was plugged into but you had to move a set of drawers to get access to it. There wasn’t any plug/USB sockets by the bedside tables. For two people with phones, digital watches and laptops etc it was quite annoying. It would be much better to have a double plug socket each side of the bed to charge devices. The TV was a good size but it didn’t seem possible to cast to the TV. Most people like to be able to cast from their Netflix/Amazon accounts etc so having the ability to cast to it would have been great.

Great location. Warm and Clean. Free WiFi. Room itself was spacious. Bathroom was old and needs an update. A bit creaky as could hear other guests from their rooms. Overall a pleasant stay and great value for money.

Stayed there for 3 days in October as part of the Starfish course to help stammering. The hotel is very quirky on the inside but clean and well kept. The staff went out of their way to be helpful and accommodated me with my Gluten free diet. All the staff were really helpful and understanding with everyone with their stammer and helped us all practice our skills at dinner and breakfast. The food was great and nothing was too much trouble.