Hotel Du Vin, Tunbridge Wells

We were greeted with a perfunctory check in and took our own luggage to our room. No information was given at check in about the area, facilities, breakfast etc but we're fairly low maintenance so headed directly up to our room.

The room was small and a bit tired with minimal wardrobe space but it was quiet and had a great bathroom and lovely towels/bedding as you'd expect from HdV.

The location is great - right in the centre of town with a fab farmers market across the street and easy access to shopping areas/parks etc.

The breakfast was fantastic on both mornings and the bar staff are brilliant.

Our disapointment came when we headed up to bed to find the mattress completely broken - springs jutting out and clearly not in a state to sleep on. A staff member came up to see it and gave us some additional blankets to lay over the top with a promise to change the mattress the next day. This wasn't ideal but the hotel was full so we agreed to try the blankets. However, we didn't expect to have to turn the mattress ourselves and remake the bed..!

I don't know if they changed the mattress the next day, I'm sure they did but we didn't receive an apology or a note confirming it. We stayed for two nights and at check out asked for a discount and were offered £50.

Overall, this hotel has some really lovely features and could be a real gem but a decent bed and good service should come as standard at HdV and were clearly missing from our experience.

The hotel was clean, quiet and the staff were welcoming. However, the was far too much attention paid to theming and not enough to guest comfort. No shower cap provided, no mirror in the same room as an electrical plug (how to dry hair?) and lighting level far too low for make-up or to do paperwork. No vegetarian option for a hot breakfast (not everyone wants a continental brekkie - oops, sorry, must call it petit dejuner) and when I stayed there was only 1 member of staff to serve breakfast which was laid out 30 minutes late. What really irritated was the over-use of schoolboy french (almost as though a group of 5th formers had been asked to theme the hotel) and the compulsory contribution to charity added onto the bill - I insisted that this was removed but that took a long time, involved printing duplicate bills and was quite embarrassing.