The Tower Hotel - Harwich, United Kingdom 

We just had a one night stay at The Towers whilst visiting a relative. Having stayed here numerous times before we booked on this basis (the last time being about 4 years ago). The hotel has been under new management for the last few years and they are slowly doing up the hotel. We stayed in the Fryatt Suite which was immaculate & very clean but incredibly small. To call it a Suite is a misrepresentation as it is a small room with an internal ensuite taken out of it. This meant an incredibly annoying fan in the bathroom that continued for ages and was very loud from the bedroom. The cost of our room for the night was ?80 but it did not include breakfast, which was ?5 for a continental one or ?7.50 for a cooked breakfast. For a 3* hotel in Dovercourt, this was overpriced. The breakfast was OK but nothing special. We had several drinks in the bar and also a meal in the restaurant. The restaurant meals are basically a standard bar meal menu - steaks, scampi, fish & chips etc. The prices are OK but the food was not brilliant. I had garlic mushrooms to start which was an incredibly small portion with no taste of garlic. I followed this with vegetable curry - I have absolutely no idea who thinks this was curry - the sauce was horrible (out of a tin??). Overall, the room was immaculate but small. The food was below average and the price - too high. Having visited Dovercourt & Harwich since I was a child I know it very well. It's probably fair to say it's stuck in time somewhat and that seems to have seeped through to the accommodation available in the town. Sorry but will be using the Premier Travel Inn next time.

We stayed at this hotel back in 2003 and found it to be rather tired and in need of refurbishment. To their credit this has happened. The public areas are rather grand and complement the 19th century building. The first impressions were good and check in was handled efficiently. We found our room to be comfortable and well furnished. The rooms are quite compact but are good value for a 3 star hotel. We also felt that the Full English Breakfast ( that also included cereals and toast ) was excellent value at £6.50 per person. However, we were part of a large wedding party and some of the guests had to wait an hour to be served their breakfast. This was caused by a breakdown in communication between management and staff. The hotel had been told that the wedding guests would be having breakfast together the day after the wedding. The staff on duty were completely unaware of this and unable to cope with serving 26 breakfasts. Fortunately we were among the lucky ones who got served quickly. Apart from this we enjoyed our stay at The Tower. It is a decent quality, good value 3 star hotel. I hear that there are plans to try to be reclassified as a 4 star hotel but I think that would be a mistake. It is better to be a decent 3 star than a poor 4 star. The bedrooms and amenities are not what I would associate with a 4 star hotel.