The Grand Hotel Eastbourne

Star ratings are based on Klook's overview of the property's information (such as services and facilities included, etc.), and are for reference only

Tired unmaintained hotel. Shower didn’t work, bed very uncomfortable. Drinks and food very expensive. Breakfast was not 5 star either!

Good hotel in a great location. Staff are helpful and polite.

Another wonderful stay at this hotel. Beautiful historic hotel with excellent facilities, delicious food and impeccable service. Right across the road from the boardwalk into town and the pebble beach with clean water.

They say the rooms have air con but it’s a floor fan moving hot air around . No fridge in room. At £350.00 -a night. Window child locked , maintenance supposed to open them ,never arrived. Check in rigidly at 3pm for everyone so a large queue formed at 3 pm Clearly some rooms were ready before that but staff made no effort to help give keys out earlier.

Lovely hotel, some areas a bit dated. Room was so so hot! You would have thought a 5* hotel would have air con. However a really lovely stay

Breakfast excellent. Waited over 20 minutes for waiter to take our orders for evening meal in Garden Room. Never came! Left hotel and ate elsewhere.

Stayed at the Grand many times. This time we felt things weren’t to the usual standard. Close to our room the area was being decorated. There were signs apologising but we did wonder, given that the hotel didn’t appear to be ‘to capacity’ why we couldn’t be in an area not being decorated. We were also never far from the noise of pigeons in our room which wasn’t great. At breakfast, we are usually asked if we want anything over and above the buffet. This time, no one did that or indeed offered us toast. This was odd because again, at no point was there a sense that the hotel was full. When we went to the bar area for a drink there was a delay before anyone asked us what we’d like. At the same time staff were huddled at the bar chatting. All in all, we felt the service wasn’t all it used to be. We hope that next time we stay, service will be the usual level of excellence.

Always a pleasure to stay here. Lovely staff.

Positives: We had a lovely stay overall. The hotel itself is beautiful, and the rooms were very well presented. We stayed in two different rooms after extending our trip, and both were equally nice. The pool areas were great and well-kept, although a few more loungers would have been helpful during busier times. The location is excellent, with a wonderful beach directly opposite the hotel, which made it especially enjoyable. The reception and concierge staff were superb. Room for improvement: The continental breakfast could be better. Service in the breakfast and lunch areas could be improved. While staff were friendly and accommodating once engaged, we often experienced long waits to be seated at breakfast despite visible queues and available staff. Similarly, on the outdoor terrace, service was slow or absent at times—we waited over 15 minutes without being attended to and eventually had to order at the bar. The games room was also quite basic and could be enhanced to better match the overall quality of the hotel however offered some fun options for the kids.

We had stayed before and everything about the hotel remained good except, this time, the food and drink service, while always friendly and polite, was glacially slow. I had to keep reminding staff of orders because I didn't know if things were coming or not, whether in the restaurant or a bar area. Even a beer could take 20 minutes, and on one breakfast I had to ask four times over nearly half an hour before coffee and milk for cereal was brought to the table. The same happened the next day, I had to remind them to bring coffee and a menu so that we could order. Not very 'grand'. When I mentioned it on check-out the receptionist said I could with-hold the service charges if I liked, but I didn't want to penalise staff for what were clearly systemic shortcomings. She didn't apologise, just said they were very busy. In that case, get more staff or give time-slots for meals. We thought we had found a hotel we could return to many times and recommend, but probably won't now.