Haven Hotel, Sandbanks – Great Views

Ellie & I went on a climbing trip last weekend with a friend of ours, Gilles. Well, I went with a friend of ours, and my wife tagged along. It was because of her, that I picked the Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, for her and me to stay at. (Our friend stayed at an Air B&B nearby.) The lady wished for some distractions and a bigger town. She was not eager on bunk beds in a hostel at our climbing location, the Isle of Portland, an hour’s drive away.

1920s BEACH RESORT GRANDEUR

To make up for the fact that I was going to do ‘my thing’ this weekend, I booked the only affordable four-star hotel available. It was built in 1926 and retains its rustic, heavy art deco grandeur both inside and outside. There are elements of the Victorian era designs and furniture of its two predecessor buildings and a few more modern designs thrown in here and there. The previous establishments on this location had been built in 1838 (‘North Haven Hotel’) and 1887 (‘Haven Hotel’), before being demolished and replaced each time. There is currently a planning application to have the hotel demolished one last time. This time it would be replaced by a modern apartment complex. The Council announced it will make a decision soon.

   

HISTORY WAS MADE HERE AT THE HAVEN HOTEL, SANDBANKS

Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian inventor and physicist lived at this hotel from 1898 to 1926. Thanks to his work, Sandbanks became the third place in the world to have a permanent wireless station. Pretty cool. Another famous guest is former British Prime Minister John Major. According to legend, he was spotted by Alastair Campbell, walking along the nearby beach. Major had his shirt tucked into his undies under his trousers. The top of the undies was clearly visible above the belt of his trousers. This incident led to the end of his administration and lifelong ridicule. If you believe it. (Or not, if you don’t.)

   

COMMUNICATION NOT ALWAYS EASY

There were a few hick-ups in the run-up to our stay. The communication is not as easy as it should be, because the company that owns the hotel, also owns other hotels. Your point of contact is not the hotel reception, but some call centre elsewhere, which is only manned during regular office hours. On a number of occasions I had missed calls from the call centre. However, there was no one picking up, when I returned the call. Equally, there was no automated message to ask to call back in the morning from 9am. This includes a missed call just before 6pm on the Friday night of our arrival day.

   

Luckily, I had already confirmed with the hotel way before the time that there was a 24/7 reception. This meant that we could arrive as late as we liked and would still be able to check in.

FRIENDLY STAFF AT THE HAVEN HOTEL, SANDBANKS

We arrived earlier than expected, due to extremely smooth traffic conditions, at around 9:30pm. From the moment we arrived, the hotel staff were very friendly, cheerful, and helpful.

   

SPA CLOSED ON MOTHERS’ DAY

We were told that despite Sunday being Mothers’ Day, the off-season service hours for the spa would be the same as always. In other words: it would be closed. They did make an exception for the in-house restaurant. The latter would normally be closed on Sundays, off-season, but would now be open. Having read various mixed reviews about the spa, my wife had already ruled out a visit there anyway.

Check-in took less than five minutes, and we were on our way to our room on the first floor. We had been upgraded to a room with balcony, what a lovely surprise. Please note that not all rooms have elevator access.

   

OUR STANDARD DOUBLE ROOM, UPGRADED TO ONE WITH BALCONY AT THE HAVEN HOTEL, SANDBANKS

The furniture, TV, and bathroom amenities were nothing much to look at. Fair bit of wear-and-tear, but clean and pleasant enough. It was a slight disappointment not to have a fridge. The water tap had no mixer, so you either had extremely hot or extremely cold water. Moreover, the toiletries were no-name and very small packages. The single tubes of shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner must have been around 15ml, each for two people. And it was almost impossible to wash the sticky soap off your hands. But no complaints.

   

THREE STARS SUITS US JUST FINE

We would be out and about most of the day anyway. Furthermore, we had our heavy, and not always perfectly clean, outdoor and climbing gear with us. The last thing we needed was a room filled with super-expensive, fragile decorative vases. Or sculptures and tiny lounge tables with glass tops. This room was a perfect match for our requirements.

GREAT VIEWS FROM OUR BALCONY

When we woke up the next morning, the first thing we did was check out the views from our balcony. While it pointed towards the roof-top of an adjacent building, you had a decent view of the sea, Studland Beach, and, most importantly, Old Harry Rocks over the other balconies to our right. A real treat.

OLD HARRY ROCKS

The chalk stack formation has been named after pirate Henry Paye, who became a commander in the Cinque Ports fleet, before he died in 1419. He had his ships hiding behind those cliffs, waiting to attack unsuspecting merchants who came too close to the shore. Old Harry is celebrated in the annual Harry Paye Charity Fun Day parade held in Poole every June. Five years ago, I took part in a rather adventurous jetski trip to Old Harry Rocks (sadly, the tour operator no longer offers this package).

QUICK SHOWER AT THE HAVEN HOTEL, SANDBANKS

The shower took a little while to produce hot water, but was working just fine. Once we were all dressed up for the day, the best bit of our stay began: breakfast.

LOVELY CROISSANTS, FRUIT SALAD, YOGURT, CHEESE, AND FISH

We didn’t like the scrambled eggs, which were not scrambled very nicely, but a bit dry, and we did not like the fried eggs, sausages, bacon, or most of the cold cuts, but not to worry. The fact that there were several different types of fish to choose from, made it all up to us. Smoked trout and mackerel. Plus there was some Rollmops, pickled herring fillets. The selection of cheeses was not enormous, but the Emmental definitely did it for us.

We also loved the pastries, especially the croissants, the fruits, fruit salad, fruit juices, the yogurt, the black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns, and pretty much everything else. For a four-star, we felt that it was a bit silly to have two run-of-the-mill coffee machines and (only) scrambled and fried eggs in buffet trays for everyone to help themselves.

SUB-PAR EGGS & COFFEE, NO TABLE SERVICE

They should have table service and offer proper egg dishes like Eggs Benedict, eggs on crushed avocado toasted rye, etc., and coffee from a proper espresso machine, in my humble opinion. Perhaps that’s what they do during the season.

VIEWS OF OLD HARRY ROCKS AND THE FERRY FROM OUR TABLE

What made the breakfast so memorable, were the views of the sea, Old Harry Rocks, and the ferry, which made its way back and forth between Studland and Sandbanks, while we were gobbling down our food. What a way to start a new day.

HEATED OUTDOOR SWIMMING POOL, ‘THE POINT’ RESTAURANT

With all the activities we had planned for the weekend, there was no time to check out the heated outdoor swimming pool (presumably not heated during off-season) or The Point restaurant (3.5 out of 5, ££££/fine dining, #140 out of 245 restaurants on Tripadvisor, not recommended by any restaurant guides, starters £9.50 to £14, mains £21 to £38, desserts £10 to £12). However, we did check out the endless, fine, white sand beach, to which the hotel has direct access. Two years ago, I did some flyboarding off that very beach, which was quite a thrill.

DECENT RATINGS ON MOST PLATFORMS AND REVIEWS

The hotel has a 3.5 out of 5 rating on Tripadvisor, where it is ranking #5 out of 14 Poole hotels, 7.7 out of 10 on Booking.com, 7.8 out of 10 on Expedia, 7 out of 10 by The Telegraph, 4 out of 5 on Google Reviews, and so on.

FOUR-STAR HOTELS IN THE UK

There is only one explanation, in my mind: customers in the UK know that a four-star hotel in the UK, outside of London, usually equates to an excellent two-star or regular three-star in most other countries.

In the UK, if you’ve got a swimming pool, your rooms exceed a certain minimum size, and you’ve got en suite bathrooms, you are basically a four-star. In most other countries, a four-star means that everything is feeling a bit more luxurious than a three-star, plenty of money has been spent on refurbishing the rooms on a regular basis with high-quality furniture, technology and amenities, the service is not just friendly, but excellent. You are not quite at the top, five stars, but you’re getting close.

   

MORE EXPENSIVE DURING THE SEASON AND IF BOOKED DIRECTLY

No way the Haven Hotel would ever get more than two or three stars in another country. We found a great deal via one of the booking websites at just under £150 per night, which seemed reasonable for a standard double during off-season in perhaps the most expensive beach resort in the country. If you book directly with the hotel you can expect to spend £200 during off-season, £300 and more during the season, which is more than we’d be willing to pay for what’s on offer.

HAVEN HOTEL, SANDBANKS: A DECENT’ISH THREE-STAR HOTEL

As a four-star, the hotel would have to be ranked as a fail, in our view. Looking at the hotel as a three-star, and taking into account that you can expect to pay significantly more than we did, especially if you should visit during the season and/or book directly, we would give it a 2.9 out of 5.

Looking for more hotel reviews? Check out our posts about Hotel Schloss Moenchstein, Salzburg, QT Bondi, Sydney, The Corner House, Canterbury, Cotswold House Hotel & Spa, Chipping Campden, The Sheep on Sheep Street, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Le Mareuil, Paris. Should you be more interested in restaurant reviews, then you might want to eyeball our articles about Lafleur, Frankfurt, Benoit, Paris, Galvin La Chapelle, London, Ekeberg Restaurant, Oslo, Her Name Is Han, NYC, Gruvelageret, Spitsbergen, or Il Horza, Valletta. If you’d like to get more ideas about what to do in the area, then we have another post for you about a weekend in the New Forest and Poole, three years ago.