We travel a lot and stay in a variety of hotels. But we finally found the worst hotel in the world in, of all places, Accrington, England. This hotel is owned and managed by one Stuart McGlynn, someone who makes Basil Fawlty look like the most jovial mine host.
Just so you know where it is, and what to avoid
Norwood Guest House Norwood Hotel 349 Whalley Road Accrington Lancs, BB5 5DF stuart@norwoodguesthouse.co.uk
This place promotes itself on booking.com as a "hotel" but is in fact just a crappy guest house. The rooms are cramped and overpriced.
DO NOT STAY HERE. AVOID THIS HOTEL.
We booked in good faith through booking.com and paid well in advance. We rang up earlier in the day before we arrived just to make sure our booking was OK only to be subjected to a tirade of complaints because of our suggested arrival time despite immediately offering to come later, but he didn't listen, just ranted and then slammed the phone down.
If we hadn't paid in advance, we'd have obviously just booked somewhere else. But we stuck it out. A 100 quid is a lot of money. More fool us.
During our stay, we got treated to a non-stop monologue about how much money he is worth, how he runs other businesses including a hotel in Preston (beware!), lives half his time in Spain and takes cruises on luxury liners. And of course, endless moaning about how inconsiderate guests just ruin it for him.
Eventually he refused to honour our booking for the second night - because we had the audacity to mention that the towels weren't replaced. This was followed up by threats to call the police and personal abuse. "Er,..sorry, this about towels...aren't you over-reacting?"
We left in fear of our personal safety. This man is a psycho.
What people say on TripAdvisor.com
NEVER AGAIN
i had the misfortune of staying at this"guest house and with the first encounter with the owner? i knew i had made a mistake,he said i was only the third person to have their booking lost and rather accusingly made it seem my fault, it turned out his wife had already processed it and he did not notice and debited twice, realised his mistake and credited it back, no apology! and because it is proccessed on booking the bill is ready on arrival, with no opportunity to pay without credit card charges and good luck trying to get a refund of this guy. I was told there was a family bereavement and would have to have an early breakfast, which did not suit me, to enable him to attend the solicitors but under the circumstances i agreed , any sympathy i felt was soon lost as i had another lecture on how lucky i was that he had not closed the "guest" house as he had also had a business which employed 80 people, by then i felt an intruder not a paying guest. iI also had instruction on the working of the remote controls,like being back in the classroom and not with your favourite teacher. A small spot of interest! if i was dining locally, mention his name and i would get good service as he is a prominent member of the local business community, if i had to metion someones name to get good service i would leave, this guy has a superiority complex. He annouced at breakfast that the internet was free as a special concession and it nomally would be £5.00, look at the facilities, it`s free anyway! I think a lot of reviews have hit the spot, you have only to look at the replies to see what sort of person runs this place, i can`t wait to see how rude i was to the owner or staff(never talked to them) or that i caused some sort of trouble or that i am not worthy of staying in such an establishment and how it has a silver medal,(the house, not the owner) The owners replies always seem to blame the customer, never to acknowledge that he might just be the problem. My advice find somewhere as good but not with a control freak running it, even Basil Fawlty had a charming side, this person has not..
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The Rudest most Arrogant Man Ever
I had the misfortune to stay here for one night although i booked for three,advised the owner that i would be arriving between 7-8pm eventually found it after calling for more directions as its hard to find as the sign is hidden in the bushes and hard to see when its dark. Checked in, paid cash for three nights showed to a small badly decorated tacky room that wouldnt look out of place on Shameless, (i was to tired to ask for another after a 16 hour day) I then asked where the best place or nearset was to eat and advised that all local pubs /resturants dont do food after 7( it doesnt say that on Laterooms ) so would have to go without or drive 8 miles back into Blackburn,and a takeaway was not allowed in the premises . The TV in the room made crackling noises and a bad picture when it eventually received one on the cheap freeveiw box and finding which one of the numerous remotes did work i gave up threres even a rather sad one for the lights givento me by the excited HOST with a new toy. I gave up on food and tried to sleep but the heating system is noisy so not a good night. The en-suite shower room/cupboard again old and tacky is a joke the shower puts out around one cup of water per hour and i would have been better standing in the rain to get clean. After such a great night i decided not to stay any longer so went down to breakfast and advised the owner that i would be checking out who went ballistic and became some what abusive even telling me that he had cooked me breakfast and i should be gratefull ( am i missing something here ? isnt that what a B and B does ? ) he told me he doesnt do refunds but then slammed money on my breakfast table and said he would charge me more than we had agreed because he could ? i didnt argue as i had saved money not having anything thing to eat on the previous night so in a strange kind of way i was better off ? I didnt get offered any tea or coffee i was just ignored until i got up and left except for the nasty little quips he made everytime he walked past my table and remarks to embaress me in front of other guests. So please if you are thinking of staying here dont its over rated and unpleasant and the owner loves himself which is a shame because all the other people ive meant since working in this part of the country are fantastic.
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Warning! Avoid, Avoid, Avoid! This man is not to be trusted!!
Warning - if you actually want somewhere to stay, do not book here!! This man took my payment and then didn't answer the door, leaving me stranded without any accommodation. When I arrived within 10 mins of my estimated arrival time (6.10pm), the place was in darkness with no lights on, the curtains shut and the blinds down - there were 2 lonely cars in the car park. After being unable to get through the door as he didn't seem to want to answer it, I ended up finding alternative accommodation else where and having to pay for one night's accommodation twice over. Having stayed in the area on business for the last 10 months I felt heartened by the images of this place on his website and the stars he is obviously so proud of, however I ended up in one of the chain hotels I was hoping to avoid - at least they let me in!!! When I spoke to the man the day after to try to get a refund, he called me a liar, said he had been there all day and that I probably didn't even know where the hotel was. I offered to come and talk to him as I was only 10 mins away, however he then decided he wasn't there, despite just answering the land line telephone. He shouted at me and was completely unwilling to even discuss it. This man is not interested in the welfare of his guests, merely taking your hard earned money. Unfortunately there are several other people who have had the misfortune of this gentleman - I wish I had read all the reviews thoroughly before deciding this would be a good place to stay. Do not stay here - there are lots of places in the area that actually provide the service they offer where you won't be left out in the cold!
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DO NOT STAY HERE
Booked in (paid in full) online and spoke to the owner on the phone a couple of days before, I have worked in the Burnley area for a month or so and always arrive on the sunday night at 11pm(ish). He agreed to leave the key for me under a 'pottery cat' as this was obviously quite late to check in. On turning up at 11pm on the Sunday, I searched around and found the 'pottery cat', no sign of a key under it though. I tried under a few other pots but no sign of a key so I rang the doorbell briefly, the owner answered straight away and immediately launched into a tirade of abuse for turning up at that time. After 5 minutes, I managed to get a word in and told him that I'd spoken to him on the phone on the Friday (thinking he'd suddenly remember and apologise) but he then astounded me further by denying all knowledge of the call. He then stepped out onto the doorstep, put a finger in my face and asked "do I want to stay there or not?", obviously I said no at this point and just asked for my money back, this resulted in the owner turning round and slamming the door in my face. I was then left in Accrington after a 4 hour drive with nowhere to stay at 11pm on a Sunday night. After finding somewhere for the night (at further expense to me), I called the owner the next morning to enquire about a refund and to put the whole matter behind me. When I told him who I was, the owner (Stuart I believe his name is) then slammed the phone down. After a couple of emails from Stuart (one of them offering me one nights money back but I declined this offer) I now have a dispute open with laterooms.com and my credit card company in order to claim the money back. Before you even think of staying here, I would have a read through the many other negative comments on here (and laterooms.com) with regards the Norwood and draw your own conclusion of the customer service you will receive.
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Good Breakfast IF you can actually get it. Horrible Owner.
don't even know where to begin...staying here was such a horrible experience that more than a year later, I still haven't gotten over it. Like other reviewers said, if you arrive even a few minutes early, you get an earful from the owner (Stuart I believe). Room and bathroom were clean, nothing special. The owner was missing most of the time so we called AND left him notes hoping that we would receive what we wanted. Unfortunately, this would not be the case. His absentee-ism translated into breakfast only 1 of the 4 days we were there. This is not a cheap place and part of the allure was having breakfast included. The last nail in the coffin was no early check-out, even though we let him know when booking that we had an early flight. He YELLED at us when we called his mobile at 7:30am as we had to leave to catch our flight and we needed to return the key (the "reception" room was locked so we couldn't even place it there) and settle the bill. He ran out half-naked and proceeded to tell us how his wife is cursing us for calling at such an "ungodly hour" and berated us for being disrespectful of his wife's sleep and made up a lie about how people were calling to complain about us making noise (it was in fact us calling him to wake him up as I could HEAR his cell phone going off and unanswered when we called). If you run a B&B, shouldn't you be up by that hour?!? Needless to say, we couldn't have left fast enough. The owner made us feel extremely uncomfortable and awkward and the worst part is how much money it costs to stay here.
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There are lots more comments like this, together with the most pathetic rejoinders from Stuart about "hotel policies", all of which reduce to "I'm the boss. What I say goes. So get lost you inconvenient guest." Don't stay at the Norwood Hotel, Accrington.
Try the Maple Lodge instead. Phillip and Sandra are the most delightful and friendly hosts. The rooms are better, too.