Don’t mention the TripAdvisor reviews!
‘Basil Fawlty’ hotel boss in war of words with guests
IF you leave a scathing hotel review comparing the owner to Basil Fawlty, you shouldn’t be surprised if he replies in the style of John Cleese’s famously chippy character.
That’s what happened to a guest who wrote an unflattering account of the Grand Ash Hotel in Llandudno, north Wales, on TripAdvisor.
Beginning his 1,000-word rant with ‘Welcome to Hell’, the reviewer – identified only as Davey W500, from Warrington, Cheshire – said he wouldn’t wish the £75-anight hotel on his ‘worst enemy’. He claimed the owner, John Humberstone, 67, had ‘less warmth than Basil Fawlty himself’ and compared the hotel to the ‘Adam’s [sic] family residence’.
Davey complained there was ‘no Wifi, no wallpaper, no visible TV’ or a working shower. He compared the fusty, damp rooms to ‘New Orleans post-hurricane’ or prison cells and said that he wished that he and his travelling companions ‘had slept on the beach’ instead. Finally, he urged others not to stay at the two-star Grand Ash, signing off: ‘Please, if you have any dignity, do not book here. It should be closed down.’
But Mr Humberstone retorted that the guest had been ‘cocky’ and had a ‘very high opinion of yourself’.
‘To be honest I wished you had slept on the beach, that way I wouldn’t be wasting my time writing in response to this garbage,’ Mr Humberstone wrote on TripAdvisor.
‘You took on me and I am more than a match for you pal, you were looking for trouble from the moment you arrived with your cocky little comments at reception!
‘People like you really shouldn’t be let out on their own, you’ve clearly got issues with humanity … you’ve obviously got a lot of time on your hands, you must have to write this nonsense on Tripeadvisor [sic] and if we never saw you again it wouldn’t be any great loss.’
The hotel, which bills itself as a ‘perfect example’ of Victorian architecture and is ranked 59th out of 60 Llandudno hotels on the review site, is up for sale for £495,000.
While a handful of complimentary reviews can be found on TripAdvi-
‘The entire room was sloping’
sor, most agree the hotel is tired and leaves guests ‘disappointed’. Kath B, who reviewed it four days ago, said: ‘Our room had terrible water stains all over the walls, the windows were covered in grime obviously not been cleaned for months.’
Another visitor, from India, claimed he was given a room which doubled as the fire exit lobby.
‘The hotel is completely run down and has serious security issues,’ he wrote. ‘But the manager was not hostile as some of the other travellers had mentioned. The funniest part was the entire room was sloping from one side to the other and my wife was apprehensive that she may roll off the bed in her sleep.’
On the hotel’s website, Mr Humberstone hints at his no-nonsense approach to ‘moaning’ customers and his dislike of review websites.
‘I am determined not to give in to the blackmailing freebie hunters who shouldn’t be let within a 100ft of a keyboard,’ he says.
He adds that a sign he put up reading, ‘Everyone brings joy to this hotel, some when they arrive and some when they leave’ had ‘rankled one busybody who photographed it and anything else that stood still enough for her to point her iPhone at.
‘We then had the moaner who complained about tinned tomatoes – get a life!’ He also looks forward to guests ‘who have respect for our common sense rules and my sense of humour, both of which won’t change’.
In 2013 his previous hotel the Alexandra, also in Llandudno, featured on Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector. Host Alex Polizzi described Mr Humberstone as ‘chippy’ and criticised the look of the 14-room property as being ‘not a thing of great beauty’.
She helped revamp the hotel and even sent Mr Humberstone to charm school to help turn around his business.
Yesterday Mr Humberstone could not be reached for comment.