Brighton, it’s a beautiful city full of love and atmosphere, but when it comes to finding somewhere to stay in Brighton that even has wheelchair access into the hotel it can be a bit of a nightmare - especially around pride! Luckily, not only are a few wheelchair accessible hotels on the seafront, but I'm also going to review another one for you all. This time, it's the turn of The Grand Brighton, another 4* hotel enriched with a lot of history.
The Grand at first looks doesn't look wheelchair accessible, but there is a lift to the left-hand side of the hotel as your looking towards it from the beach. The annoying thing with the lift, however, is that it doesn't seem to be operable 24 hours a day which means if you plan on being out late and require the use of the lift, this hotel may not be the best for you. The lift takes you into the back part of the hotel where all the meetings and events space is, you then have to go all the way through the hotel to get to the reception and the lifts. One of the most apparent things you'll notice on entering the hotel is the traditional decor and the nods to history. For instance, the ladies toilet is named 'Ladies Powderoom.' However, the traditional decor of the hotel does mean that it can feel a tad too dark in some places due to the lighting layout.
For this review, we stayed in the Deluxe room with sea view balcony. The room was extremely spacious with a king-sized bed, living area and little touches such as a Bluetooth enabled Bose speaker and Nespresso coffee machine. There was also Sky HD on the TV which was a nice little surprise. The balcony isn't accessible to wheelchair users, and this isn't an accessible room grade, but the balcony was large with seating area looking out over the sea. The bathroom was nicely laid out, with a sink and vanity area to the left, bath with over the bath shower to the right and the toilet at the end of the bathroom. Another nice point about the layout of this room is that between the main bedroom area, and the bathroom is almost like a walk-in wardrobe dressing area with wardrobe/storage to the left.
However, I found a couple of problems with the room. Firstly, there are no plug sockets by the bed and not enough in the room anyway. Some of the sockets turned out to not be plug sockets and were the older 3-pin design that had been left there, presumably as decor but they confused us never the less. Also, the tea/coffee and kettle were hidden away in the wardrobe area, and you had to bring them into the main room area yourself as there's no plug where they are kept.
Breakfast was included with our room rate and we had this in the main restaurant. There was plenty of options available including a whole section dedicated to those on vegan diets. The restaurant was nicely laid out and butter is already on the table so you don't have to go searching for it. However, any options you choose from the menu are chargeable even if you have breakfast included in your room, something to be aware of if having breakfast at the hotel. One of the things I did notice, was that in the time we were having breakfast, the options that had run out such as fried eggs and some of the pastries, weren't replaced with new batches which I found disappointing.
Overall, The Grand is a nice hotel and the rooms are beautiful, however, the hotel isn't without its flaws and whilst ok for a quick overnight if seeing an event in Brighton, the lack of plug sockets in the room would put me off of staying here for more than a day or two. On a final note, for those who do wish to stay here, there is a spa and fitness area in the hotel but no pool. I didn't check these areas out, so will be interesting to hear opinions on it from those who have.