Catch Your Hare

A cautionary tale about the Savoy Hotel, Blackpool.

We’d booked at the Savoy Hotel for my father’s 65th birthday. The Savoy is a pretty, old-fashioned hotel, on the Blackpool promenade.

My father phoned the day before to check the booking. He was told that we’d been moved to the Norbreck Castle.

Now, if you read reviews for the Norbreck Castle, they’re appalling. And, indeed, when my brother arrived there, it was an unpleasant hotel: it’s a bad, dingy imitation of a castle. Our rooms smelled of smoke.

So I went to the Savoy and spoke to the manager, Frances. He was businesslike and respectful. He explained that a coach party had booked, so we’d been moved.

From his point of view, he’d provided equivalent accommodation. From our point of view, of course, we’d been moved from non-smoking rooms, in a nice hotel, to smoking rooms, in an unpleasant hotel, further from the town centre.

After 90 minutes, we reached no solution, and left.

(An interesting tangent. When I left, my father asked whether they’d “looked sorry”. They hadn’t: the manager had been stony-faced throughout. It’s one of those situations where a touch of empathy might have resolved the whole thing.)

Now, in fact, there’s a happy ending. We dropped by the Metropole, a third Blackpool hotel in the Britannia chain, and asked if they had three non-smoking doubles. They did.

We asked to transfer our booking there and, to do them credit, they did so, quickly and pleasantly. We liked the Metropole and enjoyed our stay there.

Nevertheless, I’d be wary of booking at the Savoy Hotel again, or indeed any Britannia Hotel in Blackpool. How would I know I’d stay in the hotel I’d booked? If a coach party turned up, would my booking be transferred to a nastier hotel?