What People are saying

RUN A 100 MILES - IN THE OTHER DIRECTION! MONEY GRABBING OWNERS WITH DON'T CARE ATTITUDE!

matnurseon 29/06/2017 18:38

We booked two rooms for 2 nights mainly because of this B & B's proximity to the NEC.
A MASSIVE MISTAKE! The owner is almost almost charming until you have paid (in advance and when you read this review you will understand why you pay up front).
The room I was in was like stepping back into a dirty era. There was certainly nothing historical about it unless you count dirt, mould and noise as being typically 'Shakespearean'.
We were really not expecting much but we had hoped for clean rooms and a good nights sleep. My room was on the ground floor, right next to the kitchen and facing the parking lot, dark, dingy and filthy dirty with an extremely horrible and narrow 'shower room' which didn't allow for any sort of manoeuvrable towel drying. For that there was only one solution, close the curtains behind the bed (it was right in front of the window which faces
out onto the parking area`so strictly no privacy) and dry in the bedroom. The male owner was blatantly rude on the first day we arrived. I simply asked for some help logging onto the internet as we had tried 3 times and it had failed. He was extremely flippant and condescending about it. I made a point of telling him that he was not at all polite and his comments were somewhat unnecessary!
On the first night he was doing some sort of loud maintenance in the room above mine and this went on until at least midnight. Just when I thought I could finally got to sleep, the light over the foot of the bed in my room went on, woke me up and I couldn't turn it off at the switch on the wall. I ended up climbing on the end of the bed to unscrew the light bulbs. I deduced that the owners 'fix it' skills had been the cause of yet another two hours broken sleep. I finally got to sleep at 3am. When I told the female owner in the morning at breakfast, no apology whatsoever was offered for both the noise until midnight, thus a very poor nights sleep or the light going on. In fact, the female owner/receptionist seemed to be fully aware of the problem but she brushed it off.
Breakfast lacked bacon and the croissants were pretty revolting. I also found a dark hair in my cooked scrambled egg breakfast so I didn't eat it and definitely decided to give it a miss on the following morning.
On the morning that we were leaving the female owner pounced on me as I opened the door to my room and was quietly getting my luggage together. She offered to help me with it but when I politely said I wasn't ready to move my things to the car she kept insisting which was just too 'in my face'. It felt like she was rushing me out of there to get it cleaner for the next unsuspecting guest. After saying twice that I didn't want any help I finally had to firmly ask her to leave me alone so that I could think straight. After all, It was only 8am, I hadn't even had a cup of coffee and we were not due to check out until much later. The consequence of this is that it was stressful and I forgot my remaining cloths hanging in the cupboard. I left a very expensive French silk shirt hanging up in a cupboard containing what looks like the owner personal belongings, along with a cotton shirt and a phone charger. When my colleague wrote to get the garments back, the first reply she got was "ok, shall I charge the cost to your credit card". Surely credit card details should not be kept after payment has been made and the guest has left? Is this not a dishonest practice?
I am sure that a professional B & B with just a grain of humanity and business sense would offer to send the items back free of charge considering my very disturbed nights sleep?
The female owner didn't send the silk shirt back or the other bits of clothing, she claims that they were 'given to charity' but strangely she kept the phone charger and offered to send that back.... This doesn't make sense to keep one thing and not the others particularly as my colleague wrote to her a few days after our stay to request the return of my things. I am perplexed to understand why she chose to give my things away, or did she?
In short, please read other reviews, as well as mine, which show that this is not a place to be trusted, it is over-priced and needs a serious overhaul of the building and its owners.
My previous reviews show that I give praise where praise is due but this place is not on that list!!

OK

Annette067on 06/06/2017 12:53

Stayed for one night and found the accommodation to be clean, comfortable and quite quirky with the Shakespeare themed rooms. Bit disappointed with breakfast as they don't do bacon and I love my bacon. Great location for NEC and good value for money.

Very pleasant stay.

VernonPL678on 26/04/2017 22:19

Slightly quirky in so much as this is a converted residence on a housing estate in the leafy suburb that is Marson Green. First appearances can be deceiving, but the room and breakfast were on a par with any similar price hotel, the over riding difference is the personal service, the owner was kind enough to give us a lift to the local train station. All in all good value .

B & B with extras

minerva14on 09/04/2017 18:06

Refusing to pay the high prices charged at hotels near the NEC I settled on Arden House. It's not a hotel. It's a private house on a housing estate. You feel like you're staying in a friend's spare room. But it was immaculately clean, fairly well appointed and comfortable. I was warmly welcomed. There were nice extras like free snacks in the mini bar and towelling robes in the wardrobe. Breakfast was fine except there was a butter type spread instead of butter which personally I think is a huge mistake for anyone offering a decent breakfast. It's just five minutes from the NEC so very convenient if you need to get there early and don't want to fight too much traffic. You need to drive to get to somewhere to get an evening meal.

Not nice treatment when having to cancel.

Harald Oon 22/03/2017 14:44

Due to making a mistake when making two bookings, the hotel charged us full price for all bookings (two couples). Sveral requests for sending us recepits for the payment, has so far resulted in no response. They made our trip much more expensive than expected.