Stayed at the Tudor Grange (B&B) as a couple for several nights in late March 2018. The property is in a superb location a short walk from the East Cliffs and the sandy beach of Bournemouth. The property sits in pleasant grounds and guests should not be affected by traffic noise. We opted to pay a little extra for a larger ‘Deluxe’ Triple Room with en-suite including a hot buffet breakfast. Their website indicated all rooms to be ‘finished to a high standard’ and the family run business has, since 2006, been ‘running a continual improvement programme’. They state ‘all thirteen rooms have now been completely refurbished including all en-suites, with individual styling and charm’. We rang the doorbell at 2.50pm (check-in was at 3pm) but we were forced back to our car as the place was deserted. At about 2.57pm a member of staff arrived and we returned for check-in. While the welcome was friendly it was done with brevity and no explanation of room heater controls etc. After an hour or two of settling in we noticed some small irritations; dusty work surfaces and bedside cabinets, a castor wheel off the rather tired and threadbare sofa, a large red wine stain on the carpet, a sink plug that would not hold water for longer than 20 seconds. We also discovered that free wi-fi was only available if you have a Facebook account (although one manager let me use...Stayed at the Tudor Grange (B&B) as a couple for several nights in late March 2018.
The property is in a superb location a short walk from the East Cliffs and the sandy beach of Bournemouth. The property sits in pleasant grounds and guests should not be affected by traffic noise.

We opted to pay a little extra for a larger ‘Deluxe’ Triple Room with en-suite including a hot buffet breakfast. Their website indicated all rooms to be ‘finished to a high standard’ and the family run business has, since 2006, been ‘running a continual improvement programme’. They state ‘all thirteen rooms have now been completely refurbished including all en-suites, with individual styling and charm’.

We rang the doorbell at 2.50pm (check-in was at 3pm) but we were forced back to our car as the place was deserted. At about 2.57pm a member of staff arrived and we returned for check-in. While the welcome was friendly it was done with brevity and no explanation of room heater controls etc.

After an hour or two of settling in we noticed some small irritations; dusty work surfaces and bedside cabinets, a castor wheel off the rather tired and threadbare sofa, a large red wine stain on the carpet, a sink plug that would not hold water for longer than 20 seconds. We also discovered that free wi-fi was only available if you have a Facebook account (although one manager let me use the staff account).
The next morning we arrived for breakfast about 30 mins before the deadline. The solitary waitress took our order for tea. We soon noticed that much of the food such as fruit (all tinned), yogurt in a bowl, sliced bread, tureens of allegedly hot baked beans, tomatoes, scrambled and boiled eggs etc had been taken by other diners and were not being replenished until a guest actually requested it.
We waited for the items to be topped up in this so-called hot buffet then selected some. I felt a bit uncomfortable with the fact that when I lifted the lids on the bain marie no steam emerged from anything, suggesting the food was far from hot. Tasting it soon confirmed that this was indeed the case and from a food hygiene point of view alarm bells rang. We had suffered the consequences of luke warm buffets in the past and did not want a repeat. We therefore both decided to err on the side of caution and skip the full English until we had checked with management whether they were aware there might be a problem.

The opportunity to do this presented itself after breakfast.I mentioned my concerns, asking if he could perhaps probe the food to check it was at a safe temperature. He took small samples of each food to check, disappeared into the office then emerged quickly to report what I already suspected: the food was indeed far too cool, although he could not or would not share the temperature reading. I also showed him some bacon that was clearly pink and underdone and he agreed that it was undercooked, bordering on the raw side! He later came to our room to apologise, stating that the bain maries had been accidently turned to a lower setting by the cleaner. He assured us that this had never happened before and that she was ‘a new girl’. He said the problem had been sorted and all would be ok the next day.

Before starting breakfast the next morning I checked the hot food but, disappointingly, it still tasted warm and nowhere near the recommended 63°c. I kindly asked another duty manager if she could probe the food as I was still concerned about the holding temperature. She returned but without the probe as she couldn’t find it but assured me the food was fine to eat.

The next morning, our third out of four, things were no different so we decided to speak to that day’s manager, Fran, (the third to be on duty in as many days) to again politely discuss our concerns. This meeting turned into a rather protracted ‘discussion’ with Fran vehemently defending the establishment’s position and batting away our concerns with spurious justifications that were, at best laughable but mostly patronising and dismissive: her lack of respect for us as guests was evident in, for example, the suggestion that our room was dusty (and basically grubby) because after the cleaner left the dust accumulated before we arrived. She said ours (room 5) was ‘a very dusty room’.

We pointed out there was nothing ‘Deluxe’ (their description of Room 5 which we had in good faith paid a supplement for) about a grubby room, stained and dirty carpet, tatty furniture, poor room service, inadequate hot holding appliances and poorly replenished and undercooked breakfast items. Her answer to most complaints seemed to be: ‘we find that’s what our guests like’, culminating in: ’are you looking for some money back, is that it?’ It required my partner to patiently remind Fran that not once in the 20 minutes or so of our conversation had she made any attempt to apologise for anything and that an acknowledgement that the issues we raised were valid would be a pleasant and conciliatory gesture. After that the tone of things did improve slightly, although Fran’s idea that if we didn’t like it we could leave a day early and get our money back for the unused night, implied a very limited understanding of successful customer relations! In the event it wasn’t helpful as we were leaving the next day anyway.

Unfortunately, despite discussions with three managers and promises to improve, our fourth breakfast experience remained the same.

On departure, we handed our room key to Doug, and told him again that we were disappointed that despite all their reassurances the buffet breakfast was still not ‘hot’. When questioned about the failure to probe food he informed us that they do not have a mobile device and that they must get one. He gave us £20 in compensation in lieu of one breakfast.

It was a shame that certain representatives from management found it so difficult to respond politely and objectively to concerns raised by us. The lack of consistent explanations for things, like the reason for the bain marie being too cool or the whole matter of where the probe was (when, in fact, there wasn’t one, suggested an underlying dishonesty in management responses. (Recent complaints about the temperature of food have also been reported from other guests on sites like Trip Advisor)

It seemed as if we, as guests expressing concerns and raising issues, were a big inconvenience for management at Tudor Grange. This is a shame; the B&B is potentially a beautiful and interesting place to stay. However, we believe the things we had cause to complain about were entirely justified and deserved to be acknowledged with more openness and a genuine willingness to understand the guest experience. Comments such as ours could be positively seen as a resource and not a nuisance potentially improving the experience of future guests.More