Reasonably priced hotel rooms are in increasingly short supply in the UK post-COVID, caught in a bit of a doom loop, as increasing prices push demand down yet further. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a Valentine’s weekend hotel deal in Rye, a town we have been looking forward to visiting for a while, being on a part of the Coastal Path we have not yet walked.

Any decent hotel room for less than £200 a night including breakfast is becoming rare, and this just scraped in under that, for the “King” room.

Mrs Nigel and I are not great romantics. We have eschewed Valentine’s Day meals out for many years, settling for an M&S fish platter and a bottle of fizz, so actually going away was a bit of a shock to the system. Our meal on the 14th was carefully chosen to ensure that there was not a hint of a special “celebration” menu anywhere…

I entered the hotel backwards, coming in from the car park, which is somewhat inconveniently located 70 feet and several streets away from the hotel entrance (although clear instructions are given). I should have known that things would not go entirely to plan when I found the terrace view from the King Room was over the car park. In fact so close to the car park, we handed our cases over the balcony. Convenient, but perhaps not the “lookout” you might have expected in the most expensive room in the hotel.

The hallway on the way to reception charts the history of the hotel over the years, and one of the things you discover is that the hotel rooms were last refurbished in the early 1990s. And it shows.

What is frustrating is that some of the furniture has clearly been updated (the over-large lamps by the bed and the attractive seating), so some money has been spent. But on the wrong items. The curtains and pelmets need serious attention, and there is just far too much furniture in the room. These tweaks, and a couple of more modern pictures and a decent shower head, and it would be transformed. It’s worth noting that this is the sister hotel of The George, which is significantly posher, and significantly more expensive…

As you move up to the bar and breakfast room, the decor improves significantly, with a welcoming and comfortable space. The staff, in the main, are amazingly friendly, but there are a few bum notes.

The bar shuts at 10. Rye is not a late night place (unless you go to the Grapevine, the somewhat sniffy jazz bar round the corner), but a hotel should be willing to spend an extra £20 a night to keep the bar running until pub closing time. And what happens at that point seems to vary. One night, we agreed to turn all the lights off when we left, which allowed us to sit in comfort and finish our drinks, and allowed the incredibly affable barmaid to go home to bed. But on another night, a group of staff gathered round the bar (some from The George) and talked louder and louder until we left.

Wine is only served in two sizes: Too big or too small. For some reason the statutory 175ml or “medium” glass is not available. I thought that was illegal (and my somewhat obsessive side might have blurted that out), but whatever the legal basis, it is just bloody annoying.

Breakfast is another irritating affair. First, the Lookout insists on that most obnoxious of post-pandemic practices, that of booking one of a number of limited breakfast slots. You wonder if the people who design these systems have actually stayed in a hotel themselves. The whole point of coming away is that I don’t want any appointments or deadlines: I have enough of those during my work week to not want them at the weekend as well…

While the breakfast itself is actually pretty good, with a fair buffet selection, and tasty cooked breakfast (*if* you ask for your bacon crispy, that is), they are cursed by a coffee machine.

On paper, the coffee machine is amazing. It is like the love child of a Quooker and an iPad, allowing an almost infinite selection of strength of coffee and volumes of milk (if you must…)

But in practice, it seems to work for only a fraction of the time, with the beans or milk running out, or the waste tray filling up. I saw one person spend almost 15 minutes in line waiting to get some hot water for tea (the tea bags are right by the machine, which means you can only choose what you want when you are at the machine, gumming the works up even more). I would have run back to my room and just boiled my own kettle.

There definitely needs to be a bit more supervision of breakfast. Again, friendly and well-meaning staff let down by a poorly designed system.

It’s a real mixed bag of a place. On our first night (a Thursday, which was mildly discounted) the place was deserted. The weekend seemed pretty full, but then it was Valentine’s weekend, and every hotel in the country must have been bursting. If you stay here, you’re not really getting a bargain, but if you’re happy with the time-warp feel and a view of the car park, you could pick worse places. The bed was comfortable (although bring you own pillows from home), and the room was clean and serviceable.

Rye itself is lovely, with almost zero chains (apart from, curiously, Knoops, which will make my fellow Richmond dwellers feel at home), and a thriving restaurant scene. It almost matches the Isle of Wight for its ability to transport you straight back to the 1950s on arrival.

Eat at The Fig, The Union, or Webbe’s.

There are some fantastic walks nearby, into Hastings (although if you do that, get the train to Hastings first, as the first leg is challenging after lunch, and avoid the rainy season: the mud, OMG, the mud!), or along the coast to Dungeness and beyond. Make sure you check the times of the Firing Range at Lydd, and the tides at Camber Sands.

There is an amazing 1/3 scale steam train running from Dungeness to Hythe, which lets you take a train one way, and walk back, which is what we did. Not too many lunch stops though (mainly the Jolly Fisherman which serves pleasant pub grub, surprisingly well cooked, and has an excellent Elvis impersonator at 2pm on Saturday)

Dungeness is the only desert in the UK, so cold wind and acres of shingle are your main enemies. Worth it for Derek Jarman’s Garden, the stream train, and some mild irradiation from the nuclear power station.

Conclusion

Overall rating: 3.5/5

• Value for money: 3.5/5
• Service: 4.5/5
• Atmosphere: 2/5
• Breakfast: 4/5
• Would we go back: 3/5

The Lookout, Rye: https://thelookout.com/