"We stayed at the Malone for 2 nights B &B, costing just over £400 for a double room/ 2 guests.
Tbh we were very disappointed.
To be fair to the hotel, I’ll start with the positives, before the negatives.
Positives:
The hotel was nicely decorated and clean. We stayed in one of the rooms in the building opposite the main hotel, which seems to have been recently refurbished.
It was reasonably nice, spacious and clean. (Although, could do with some mould/ mildew spray at the bottom of shower enclosure, yukk).
The staff were lovely, all were very pleasant and courteous.
The location was on a pleasant street. Some shouting outside in the early hours of the morning but otherwise quiet.
Just to note - If you are visiting the centre of Belfast it is a good 45 minute walk. Taxis are expensive, there is a bus, although we didn’t use it. Also, to note that Ubers seem to be ridiculously expensive in Belfast - quoted over £50 from airport to hotel. There is a bus service from airport into Belfast. We got a taxi at airport which was £18 for approx 10 min journey.
Negatives:
It was the culmination of several things that left us feeling extremely disappointed, and of the view that the hotel really wasn’t good value for money
1. We arrived at 8pm, the bedroom was cold, radiator not working. Bathroom radiator was working.
After contacting reception we were told heating in the annex came on at 8pm ( and went off at 10pm).
There was no thermostat in the room.
There were no maintenance people available over the weekend.
The staff initially supplied a tiny oil heater and then later ( after requesting) a second slightly larger one.
After several calls over the evening, the night porter eventually adjusted the boiler in the annex and came to the room to try to get the radiator working - the bedroom radiator came on partially. We assume it needed bleeding.
Trying to sort this out made this a very late night, after a very early start, so very frustrating.
2. The safe in the room did not work
3. There was no plain tea in the room, though there were, at least, several herbal teas. The tea/coffee maker was pretty rubbish - didn’t boil water properly.
4. Breakfast on the Sunday morning was very disappointing. We went to breakfast at 9.30am ( a staff member told me that breakfast was available until 11am)
The bacon had apparently run out at 9am. All the trays were fairly empty.
Personally, I went for the vegetarian option, so had the last of the scrambled eggs and mushrooms.
Unfortunately, these were cold.
The bread that was left was limited and was stale.
I did tell a member of staff about all of these things. They brought some extra sliced bread ( just standard processed white & brown ( cold as presumably straight out of the fridge).
Not so much a negative as a comment - if you like nuts, seeds, cheeses, 0% Greek yogurts, etc, then these things aren’t on offer. The overall range is fine ( albeit quantity seems to be very limited), variety is not as good as other hotels in this price range ( in my experience)
I should say that on the Saturday someone on reception said we could swap rooms ( after reporting broken safe) but by this point we were due to go out, and were also due to go out in the evening. It was just too inconvenient to start swapping by then, we didn’t have the time.
We explained all of this to the member of staff on reception staff, on our departure. They apologised, but the fact remains that the room and food were well below the standard we had expected and paid for.
Overall, the hotel’s strength is the friendliness of staff - BUT, in our view, it is absolutely NOT good value for money."
