Abbey Hotel - Brighton, United Kingdom 

Very, very basic. Although the hotel advertises as an aparthotel with kitchen facilities, they do not provide tin openers, bottle openers, wine glasses, tea towels etc etc. The hotel was generally clean, but very tired decor and stained carpets. Heating was an electric heater and hot water from geysers that did not work very well. Definitely a hotel from another age.

Despite staying at many hotels and not being one for airs and graces (I often stay at NYC's Westside Y for heaven's sake!), nothing quite prepares a person for the nightmare that is the Abbey Hotel. Decorated in Early English Disaster, the reception with it's wall to wall glass partition, is the first indication that all is not as it seems. Your door key is handed to you via a small opening beneath along with a security keycard (another indication) required to enter the grim main bulk of the hotel. At this point, one is left pondering that this is a venue that expects or has already witnessed dubious goings-on. Shabbiness is the word that comes to mind as one makes ones way to the cell-sorry, room of their choice. Is it the fraying carpet, the spartan walls or the numbers on the doors hand-etched with a silver marker that finally causes a person to want to turn tail and leave? Probably all three. After checking out the down-at-heel shower and toilet facilities (the shower door was some bizarre louvre door type thing) and disovering that my allocated room was about as enticing as an invitation to go backpacking in Fallujah, i decided to make the most of the one fabulous resource the hotel offered - free wireless internet access!! Within seconds I had booked into the wonderful Legends Hotel (the last room) and was on my way. Most reprehensible is the fact that some orgainisation has seen fit to give a 3star rating to this hotel of horror. One can only quake at the prospect of what kind of establishment merits just the one! It should also be noted that my email of concern sent almost immediately received no response. However, that should not surprise as the whole enterprise has indifference written all over it.