ibis Styles Paignton

A clean and modern minimalistic (read basic) hotel. There were a few gripes:- the room offered an ironing board(!), but no glass by the sink to rinse your teeth. The shower head was hand-held - no overhead shower so impossible to enjoy or wash properly. Only 4 tea bags, so not generous! Beware of being sold a car-parking space for £15 when you arrive, as there is very few and if you leave for the evening, it's unlikely that you will get a space on your return, which leaves you to look for a public overnight car park. I complained, and to be fair, was refunded without a problem. They could offer a lot more without it costing them much.

Really disappointed. Regularly visit Paignton and usually stay in the Travelodge. Thought that staying at the relatively new Ibis Styles would be an upgrade.... How wrong could I be. Check in was really good. The member of staff that checked us in was friendly and genuine. From that point it all went downhill. The design of the shower room doesn't work. It has a channel drain across the shower that doesn't collect the water. It has a half width shower partition that doesn't reach the floor. The water that splashes off of your body, hits the screen and runs down beyond the channel and floods the bathroom floor. To prevent this you have to put down a towel which ends up completely soaked. We noticed that after having a shower, the drain smelt of urine for 2 hours afterwards. This happened on all three days. The second morning breakfast was farcical. We arrived about 8.50am and hit problems from the start. There were no mugs available for the coffee and we had to wait. Then no plates for toast, pastries etc for about 20 minutes then these items started running out. It then got worse. Food items were running out and not getting replenished quickly. A lady was told the eggs would be 3-4 minutes, so I dished up the rest of my cooked items and made a start. They finally arrived over 10+15 minutes later. I had finished. No plates were available for about 15 on the pastries/fruit station. Value for money (Inc parking) was far worse than the Travelodge. Quality was worse.

Breakfast was good, plenty of choice. Room had a modern look to it although the shower was badly designed, water leaks into the main bathroom area, constantly had a wet floor. But overall nice place.

The staff at this hotel are lovely. Very helpful and friendly.

The room was nice enough, but I wish we’d have opted for a standard double rather than premium with a ‘sea view’. The sea was obscured by the fairground, so we’d have been better off with a courtyard view, which I would have assumed would have also been less noisy. The bed was huge, which was lovely - but only three pillows were provided, with no spares, so wasn’t hugely comfortable. The bathroom was lovely, however the design of the shower meant most of the bathroom floor ended up wet. The breakfast was a real let down, and both myself and my partner regretted booking it and would have preferred to have gone elsewhere. We arrived downstairs at about 9:30 (aware from the posters displayed that the hotel recognised this as their busiest period) and were met with literally nothing at the buffet. There was no bread, beans, mushroom or egg. Just sausages. I’m a vegetarian, so this was of no use to me. Other guests were complaining that they had been waiting a substantial amount of time for additional/replacement items to be put out despite letting staff know that things had run out. After about 15 minutes extras started to arrived, but in dribs and drabs - so it wasn’t possible to get a ‘full’ plate of breakfast. Having worked in hospitality, if you advertise a period as your busiest time, then surely you should be well prepped to ensure replenishments are available.