I booked this room as a treat for our anniversary. After looking at photos on the website I was confident that we would be satisfied with the room. My husband and I always choose a more luxurious room for our anniversary getaway and enjoy ordering room service and drinks, and relaxing in the room in the evening.
When I booked the room I was informed by Matthew that there would be Christmas celebrations at the hotel which we expected as we obviously have the same every year on our anniversary! We weren't concerned about the noise and were assured the music would stop promptly at midnight (which it did). We arrived two hours early, however our room was ready and we were able to check in immediately which was very useful as we intended to visit York's Christmas Markets through the day. Unfortunately when we arrived at our room we realised we could not spend the evening there; the room was very small, with the four poster taking up half of the space. I soon realised that the room I had been given did not appear on any of the photos presented when booking the Queen Four Poster room - had I have seen a photo of the room I could have been given I would not have taken the risk. The carpet seemed to have been laid in threadbare strips and there was not enough room for both my husband and I to comfortably move around. We persistently hit ourselves on the bed trying to get around it! The bathroom - which did appear in the room photos - was particularly grubby (which was not evident from the photos). The toilet had permanent stains in the bowl which had obviously built up over the years, and the bath was in a similar state. At this point, the reasonable thing to do would be to bring this up with the manager, however we had been notified upon checking in that the Christmas celebrations Matthew had previously notified us of, was actually a wedding. For that reason my husband and I decided not to cause a fuss on someone's wedding day, and made other arrangements for the evening. We would have been unable to eat in the room anyhow as room service was not available on the evening we stayed.
We had a lovely evening at The Plough Inn over the road from the hotel, and came back just in time for bed. Next morning we were given breakfast. There is a cold buffet with hot food being made on request. It is worth mentioning that if you would like more than one sausage/rasher of bacon you should mention it. I assumed we would get two sausages and bacon so didn't say anything - but the breakfast was lovely all the same, which plenty of selection.
The high point of this hotel is the staff; they are definitely one of the nicest hotel teams I have come across and are very welcoming. It's such a shame we didn't enjoy our stay - the rooms on the photographs look amazing so I'm assuming due to the wedding, and our late booking, we simply drew the short straw, although I do feel it's unfair for us to have paid the same room rate. For £215 per night I expect a lot more - comparatively we recently stayed in another hotel and paid £330 for two nights in a spacious four poster room which included a free standing bath, a cocktail making kit and breakfast. My recommendation would be to book as usual; the hotel is fantastically located, staff are wonderful and the other rooms look lovely - but just ensure you ask that you are not placed in room 44 'Madame Bollinger'. From the hotel's point of view I would consider making this a standard double room - the decor and state of the room is more fitting for a budget booking. less