Cockermouth hotel

No meal deal here but very good breakfast. Take-aways can be delivered but no thanks to eating in room. No-one around to check in so missed usual welcome. Room clean but would have been nice to open window for a bit of fresh air. Excellent place to eat 4 mins drive is 'The Old Post House which was really lovely and welcoming with delicious food. Did try restaurants in Cockermouth but nowhere to park. Overall good, quiet place to stay.

After seeing some of the recent reviews, I wanted to share some feedback for a one a night stay. If stopping for one night in the Lake District, this Premier Inn is a perfect spot for Keswick and the Lake District Wildlife Park. Checking-in was very smooth, there were plenty of self check-ins, and also receptionists, and our room was spotless. The restaurant was closed for the evening meal, however in Cockermouth centre 5 minutes away there are plenty of pubs to choose from; we went to the Bitter End for a lovely Sunday dinner. The restaurant was open for breakfast, and it seemed like there was only one lady working, though she was very nice and helpful. The food was warm and there were plenty of options. I can’t comment for a longer stay, but for the price paid for one night I feel like there is nothing negative, as long as you are happy to potentially have to eat an evening meal elsewhere.

Tried to check in with the self check in, progressed to a point where the check in said “connection failed, seek assistance” after a couple of buzzes a staff member came down, said I needed to try self check in again, so we did it again and the same thing happened. She then tried to check me in manually, but that system wasn’t working. Eventually she sorted it and asked if I wanted food this evening, I was offered 5.30 or 7pm. When I went down at seven, the same lady was now behind the bar, tills were not working until a rather angry little chap came out of the back and got it working I paid for my meal deal, ordered food and sat and waited for 40 minutes for some spring rolls. Another 25 minutes later a burnt burger emerged. At least it was cooked though as in an apology another member of staff said there was no chef and that the manager was cooking. The next morning I came down for breakfast, my room number was taken and I was told “you haven’t paid love, I can do it on the till”. I showed her my receipt from last night. All self service here, although the coffee machine is broken. When I arrived back at the hotel in the evening, the same poor girl from check in was explaining to people that there was no food or drink tonight, they hoped to do drink later but that relied on a manager coming in. We were offered takeaway menus and told that you could eat your takeaway in the restaurant if you wanted. This place is terrible, but this is happening at loads of prems I have stayed at recently. This one though is particularly bad. The positive though is that the room was very clean. What doesn’t seem fair is that the bar, check in and room cleaning are done by the same person. Fair play though, if I’d have had the day she had, I wouldn’t have come in. Amusingly when I was up in the room the TV advert with Old Lenny saying “you know what you get with a premier inn” came on. The trouble is, what you get nowadays is still a great room surrounded by a vortex of utter chaos. The food offering is key to these places as they’re never near anywhere else, what is offered at the moment is a farce. Cockermouth in particular is terrible. Shame as it’s a newer looking property with what looked like it used to be a fair sized Brewers Fayre

I write to make a formal complaint concerning the wholly unacceptable experience my family and I had during our recent stay at Premier Inn Cockermouth on Saturday 26th September, booking reference BGZ6651963. In my view, the failures in service, the mishandling of our dining arrangements and the resulting disruption represent a serious failure to provide the standard of service reasonably expected under our booking. Of particular concern was the handling of our pre-booked dinner. At 1:34 pm on 23 September, I spoke with a member of staff and arranged a table for 7:00 pm for the three families included in our booking. When we arrived at the restaurant at 7:00 pm on Saturday 26th Sept, the manager, Carl Miller, told us that no booking existed and stated that the booking had not been passed to the restaurant. After we raised the matter with another member of staff, Charlotte, we were then told there was a booking for nine people at 7:30 pm, but that staffing levels meant only that sitting could be accommodated. This was plainly not the arrangement agreed with us and on which we had reasonably relied. Premier Inn's failure to honour that arrangement left us with no practical alternative but to obtain food elsewhere and eat it in the hotel restaurant, after Charlotte provided takeaway menus for businesses in the town centre. Given the hotel's distance from the town centre, this caused substantial and entirely avoidable inconvenience. We had expressly made the restaurant booking in advance to prevent precisely this situation. The consequences for our family were particularly serious because two of the children travelling with us are disabled and have diabetes and renal complications. The unexpected disruption to their planned meal caused significant stress and anxiety and made an already challenging situation substantially harder to manage. The absence of an appropriate solution or meaningful consideration from the hotel compounded that distress. This stay was intended to provide a period of respite following numerous recent hospital admissions and appointments; instead, Premier Inn's handling of the situation caused further unnecessary stress and disruption. I am equally concerned about the conduct and overall standard of management that evening. On numerous occasions, the manager entered the bar area from the kitchen by forcefully kicking the door open. This repeatedly startled members of our party and appeared aggressive and wholly inappropriate for a customer-facing environment. Being told, in effect, that the hotel simply could not accommodate us despite the arrangement previously made was not an adequate or acceptable response. There was no apology from the manager, no meaningful attempt to rectify the situation and no goodwill gesture. We also witnessed customers waiting considerable periods to be served drinks, food being returned after it had been served, and numerous customers being turned away from the restaurant because the hotel was unable to provide meals. The chef repeatedly entered and left the bar area wearing large headphones. When last orders were announced to our table at approximately 9:45 pm, there was still no acknowledgement of what had happened and no apology from the manager. Taken together, these matters demonstrate a serious failure in the management and delivery of the restaurant and bar service that evening. The problems had a wider impact on our stay, causing significant disruption, restlessness and inadequate sleep. We booked Premier Inn expecting a comfortable, dependable and convenient stay; instead, our experience was the opposite and pleased to vacate the following morning. I work away regularly and have used Premier Inn hotels In all my time working in the field, I have never encountered service of this standard at another hotel. No compensation to be offered due to this awful.. Beware of this hotel!!!

'Accessible' bathroom very badly designed - it looked like it used to be a shower room and they put in a bath without moving the grab rails. Food provision very poor since Beefeater closed. Cold food and long wait.