Byfords

Lovely and friendly staff who were also very helpful. Food was presented nicely and tasteful and not too overpriced. Room was very spacious and comfortable and served it's purpose loved the homemade shortbread that was in our room on arrival

Booked several rooms at Byfords over 6 months ago for a special celebration with friends this month. Due to the refurbishment works, two of the rooms had to be changed which wasn't a problem. The rooms were clean and tidy and beautifully furnished with soft towels, comfortable bedding, small fridges, tea/coffee making facilities, TV's and floor standing fans (the rooms were hot and stuffy so these were needed plus the radiator in one of the rooms would not turn off which made it very uncomfortable. We did report this but nothing could be done). There was a non-working lamp in one room and a light bulb missing in the bathroom. These are small details but for the price we paid for the rooms I would have expected these sort of things to be checked. We were unable to use the car park as this is currently used for contractors vans and skips. The workmen tried to be as unobtrusive as possible but they started arriving at 7am which disturbed some of us. However we did have a Byfords voucher which enabled us to park free in the nearby Budgens car park. We ate in the restaurant in the evening. The menu is not very inspiring so we all opted for the signature curry which was poor, watery, lacking flavour and depth. Breakfast was good however. All the staff were friendly and tried their best to be helpful. Overall I could not rate Byfords as a premium venue.

Booked a three night midweek break here recently. The room and bathroom are very big and spacious. The shower is temperamental both in temperature and flow. The bed, although big, is a bit soft and lumpy and definitely showing its age. It is quite amusing that in 2024 the hotel consider leaving bits of worn out old tat in the rooms and corridors "posh" The two tatty old leather chairs in the room are for show only as they are so narrow and worn out, sitting on them is an impossibility. The TV is still on an angle after 3 years :) Now to the breakfast Day 1 - Service very slow, both of us ordered the English Breakfast(with some simple changes) took about 20 minutes to arrive (after waiting 10 minutes to order) wrong items on plates but didn't want to wait another 20 minutes so accepted it and sorted out ourselves. Was offered more coffee at this point. accepted but coffee never arrived. Nobody checked in with us after our breakfast was delivered. Left after 20 minutes with no coffee. Day 2 - Took around 10 minutes to take our order again. Coffee was delivered within 5 minutes. After 30 minutes still no breakfast. Waitress noted this and said she would check on our food and offered us more coffee. We never saw her again or the coffee. After another 10 minutes we were told by a different waitress that our food hadn't even started to be cooked because of a "technical error" 10 minutes went by and we were told that our food was "being plated" another 10 minutes passed (longest "being plated" in history!) Our food then arrived which was basically eggs on toast. Both my scrambled, and my partners poached eggs, were cold! We still hadn't received the coffee we were offered. We left after the manager made every excuse in the book. If you are going to charge upwards of £200 per night then you need robust enough systems and checks in place to provide a basic level of breakfast service. Day 3 - Didn't bother with breakfast. Went to the excellent Owl Tearooms in Holt where we had a superb hot breakfast on the table in less than 12 minutes. Hugely disappointing stay, they refunded the cost of the breakfasts, but that's not really the point, is it?