Bournemouth East Cliff hotel

The restaurant here was one of the worst I have experienced. Given that it’s a Premier Inn, our expectations weren’t high to begin with. We just wanted a quick, easy bar meal after a long day. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we were warned that there might be a bit of a wait for food, because we hadn’t pre-booked. Which immediately seemed strange because the restaurant was only a quarter full. It quickly became obvious why. The kitchen is open plan so we could see inside. I don’t want to be nasty or personal, but the ‘chef’ looked like she’d never been in a kitchen before. She was fairly elderly and clearly not capable of running a kitchen by herself. She was on her own, and nothing was coming out of the kitchen. It took over an hour for our orders to come, and when they did the food was embarrassing. It looked like it had been cooked by a hungover student in the microwave. And, I repeat, I’ve stayed at Premier Inn’s before, I know it’s not the Ritz. I wasn’t expecting Michelin stars. But this was different level bad. Eventually the restaurant manager went into the kitchen and started cooking the meals herself, although this only seemed to marginally speed up service. There was very little in the way of apology from the staff, who seemed to act like this was just a normal part of service. When challenged about the hour wait for food, the waitress said “yeh sorry, we only have one oven in the kitchen”. Breakfast wasn’t much better and the orange juice tasted like it had gone off.

Hotel is in good location, short walk to the beach, town and only 25min from the stadium. The room was nice and clean but what happened to famous comfy pillows? Our pillows were flat and bumpy.

Spent ages outside the car park entrance to be let in. We then came to check in no member of staff to be found, reception was unmanned, I wandered around in the down stairs area and eventually found a member of staff, the self check in machines were broken. The man checking in the lady before us had only just started working there so wasn’t sure on much. And when it was my turn to check in he swapped with lady who had her coat on, she must have been finishing her shift. She wasn’t very informative I had to ask to where to pay my car park and also ask about breakfast and dinner times. Our room was spotless, bed was very comfy as were the pillows. It was a perfect location for us also. About a 10-15 minute walk to Bournemouth pier. Ubers are easy to get also. We arrived for breakfast the next day and there were only 3 members of staff one was checking people into B.fast another was clearing tables and also manning reception and the chef in the kitchen. When I went to go and get some butter I noticed a gentleman taking bread with his hands and not using the tongs provided the member of staff saw this and didn’t say anything to the man. Items needed replenishing & this wasn’t getting done, it was nowhere near end of the breakfast time and people were still arriving to eat when there wasn’t much food left out. The cleaner on floor 1 looked like she didn’t want to be there, she just looked at me when I walked past, no hello or even a smile. We enjoyed our time in Bournemouth but found this premier inn to have limited staff, they seemed to be taking on a lot of responsibility. Again when we checked out no members of staff in reception as she was manning the breakfast area and trying to do reception at the same time. And when we tried to get into the car park we were waiting a while for the automatic doors to be unlocked. I love a premier inn, but unfortunately I didn’t love this one.

We stayed for a weekend in Janury and the hotel was surprisingly busy. I'd definitely recommend to book your time for dinner as restaurant was full. We had a room on 10th floor with lovely view, it was clean and spacious.

Came to this hotel with my husband and children. So we could attend Bournemouths Christmas Market. We had a very pleasant stay. Hotel room was clean and beds comfortable. We had paid for breakfast but we had to leave early so we did not get to sample this, all though it all smelt lovely. I stupidly forgot my handbag. An staff went above and behond for me to retrieve it by helping me get it posted back to my home. Appreciate all the help. Would definitely come stay again. Thank you