The Arden Hotel

Comfy bed, great bathroom, room very comfortable and well appointed, staff friendly and helpful. Great location, lovely garden and outside spaces.

Missed the parking first time perhaps a foreword when booking

The location of the property is excellent if visiting the RSC Theatre found just across the road. There are lovely riverside walks and plenty of restaurants and shops nearby. There is a lovely terrace for outside dining in fine weather. On checking in, staff were very helpful and actually showed us to our room. The decor and facilities in the room (superior room) were very good with complimentary bottled water and fresh milk in the fridge. Bathroom was spacious and very clean with lovely fluffy towels and bathrobes. Luxury toiletries were provided along with shower cap, nail file, cotton wool and sewing kit. Hospitality tray had a good selection of teas, drinking chocolate and ground coffee for the cafetière provided. There were also biscuits and apples. The bed was extremely comfortable and a turndown service in the evening, when hospitality tray was refreshed. The guest only lounge had direct access to the Riverside terrace (not quite riverside as you have to cross the road to be able to see the river), and the restaurant, No44, is a pleasant area, also with access to the terrace.

We found the restaurant to be reasonably busy at lunchtime. At 12.45, we ordered a couple of dishes from the tapas menu, one of which wasn’t available so we had to choose an alternative dish. Service was quite slow even though we had made it known we had a taxi booked for 13.30 and were assured there would be no problem. Both of the dishes we ordered were cold dishes, but these took 25 minutes to come out giving us only 15-20 mins to eat. In the evening, we had a table booked for 19.45. On arrival at the restaurant, there were only a handful of people eating and and the place was lacking atmosphere. On viewing the menu, although there were some nice sharing dishes, we found the actual a la carte menu to be very limited and also quite expensive (£10 for a prawn cocktail starter). We decided to go elsewhere and tried to get the attention of the staff to let them know, but they were busy chatting amongst themselves. Breakfast the next morning was slightly disappointing. There was a good selection of items on the Continental buffet which we really enjoyed but hot food is cooked to order. We both ordered a full English breakfast, one with poached and one with scrambled eggs. Poached eggs were hard and the scrambled eggs were grey and dry - far from appetising. As breakfast is charged at £20 a head if not on the inclusive tariff, we were surprised that something as basic as egg cookery was less than perfect. These are only minor issues and have not really been reflected in my overall scoring. We had a lovely stay and will definitely return.

Really friendly staff and fantastic location.

Nice atmosphere, food was good, excellent location. We had a car so having a car park was necessary.

All the staff were very pleasant and helpful except for one who was rather sullen and unhelpful. Some of the woodwork in the rooms needs replacing or repainted so looked a little tired.

Location was excellent, they provided good off-street parking, the décor was up to date and the food was excellent quality (especially the dinner).