The service is excellent. Very close to the sea and a nice comfortable stay. The food was good too

We stayed for three nights. Bedroom was very clean and spacious with two comfortable armchairs. The Ensuite was compact with no real room for personal items. The staff are very friendly and the service was the best element of this hotel. Food - breakfasts were excellent, we tried four different menu options. Dinners were very good overall, but having prebooked a dinner, B&B package, starters are really limited to two as the Grand fishcake appears every meal. Chef obviously likes peashoots as a garnish. Only negative was two below expectations sweets on the last night. Do check your final bill..........we found two very small erroneous items.

Dated slightly but still Grand.
We last stayed about 15 years ago and we’re a bit apprehensive as to our return having heard mixed reports but we were not disappointed. Friendly staff, nice rooms and overall a very good stay.
It does look a little tatty in places but not enough to detract from our stay. We will be back

Excellent service cream tea and sandwiches and champagne. Lovely afternoon tea voucher

Five stars for a 5 star hotel

Had a fab dinner in Garden Restaurant, truly is a great place to indulge and treat yourself and your loved ones

The rooms were beautiful, ambience great. It was not pet friendly at all. The food supplied was not suitable for my dog, freshly roasted chicken and vegetables were fridge cold, the pet bed was unusable, had a hole and no filling. There is no where you could take your dog other take her for walks outside. My dog was only 6 kg and not allowed anywhere other than the rooms. My dog has been itching a lot in the rooms. I discovered fleas on her soon after. On the plus side they provided the tiniest fridge in the room to keep her homemade food . Do take your dog food with you.
Food in general was good, Breakfast was excellent too. Room service was good too. Staff were polite and good.

What an amazing afternoon at The Grand. My wife and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary and the hotel staff made our experience so wonderful. Highly recommend the Spa and Afternoon Tea if you're looking for a special treat or just a relaxing experience. Thank you so much!

The last time I visited this hotel I was only a tiny baby but had heard such wonderful things about The Grand I had to visit when in Eastbourne, so 40 years later I was back visiting for dinner and what an experience it was.

From walking through the front of the hotel to leaving after a beautiful three course meal the evening was joyous. The food was served elegantly and cooked to perfection, the staff attentive but professional, the ambience like we had gone back in time to the most flamboyant and opulent years in history.

The hotel clearly pride themselves on the whole experience and not just the meal with the beautiful music, silver service, even the lighting and layout of the restaurant and it shows.

I would love to return here and hope to do so again, not leaving it 40 years this time!

Myself, my husband and our 3 children aged, 11, 6, and almost 2, stayed at The Grand Hotel during the summer holidays and it was out of this world!

The staff were all so amazing, from carrying our bags, to bringing us warm milk at 430am for our son's bottle, to being so friendly and polite!
The room we stayed in was a master suite, it had everything we needed and more.
Room service was incredible too and our boys loved the experience of being able to push the trolley that their food arrived on.
Finally, because I really could go on forever, the swimming pools, we had no reason to leave this hotel due to the amazing staff, food and the fact there was a heated outdoor swimming pool that our two older children lived in whilst we were there!

All in all, a three day, two night stay at The Grand Hotel was mind blowing!

Thank you so much for welcoming us and making us feel literally, at home.

The staff are very friendly and welcoming, nothing too much trouble. However, we both felt the room could have done with a bit of updating/ refurb given the price and the star rating . Be warned the beds are very soft. The spa is very tired, and not very welcoming, but that can’t be said of the Spa staff who were excellent!

A poor start.Whilst waiting for our room to become available we retired to the lounge for a bite.Two half cups of weak coffee (more cafetière than Americano) at the astounding price of £5.45 each ( including a couple of biscuits but still !!!!) and a wafer thin roast beef sandwich that wouldn't have fed a mouse at a tenner later we wished we hadn't.(Tip: the Cafetiere iat £5.25 is enough for 2.)
But things got better.
The room was quite nice, good view of the sea,..Excellent bathroom with Molton Brown goodies.Nespresso machine with lots of biscuits. Mini fridge on request. Tiny 24 inch TV for the size of the room. Apparently rooms have different size TVs -our friends had a similar size room with a large screen TV that you could actually view from the bed.
Dinner in the Garden Restaurant was very good. Old school portions and plenty of choice. No complaints about our fish cake starter, rump of lamb main or our gooey chocolate cake with tonka bean ice cream.
Breakfast was a bit haphazard...long waits for toast, coffee etc. When they arrived the smoked haddock and omelettes were good. Service at breakfast did improve over the next two days however but I felt there were not enough staff to cope with a full sitting.
Again, as with the dinner menu there is an enormous choice.
The breakfast room/garden restaurant is a bit sombre for my taste and could do with a bit of jazzing up, so if you can try and bag a breakfast table on the inside terrace adjacent to the main dining room, do so.
Indoor and outdoor pools available and a refurbished gym/ fitness centre.
Service was very efficient. Our rooms were done by the time we came back from breakfast....not often you can say that about an hotel nowadays.
The highlight was the visit to other hotel restaurant , The Mirabelle. Cuisine nouvelle of a high standard and impeccable service. Our Pheasant and Lemon Sole with shrimps were excellent.
One rather strange hiccup was when the time came to settle up. The hotel now add 10% service charge to all food and drink served in the hotel, but even if you have bagged a deal like dinner, bed and breakfast and have paid upfront you will still find a service charge on the extras bill for the fixed rate meals. This not only is very confusing but a bit cheeky. Having agree a fixed rate for dinner the hotel should stick to that charge. It all seems a bit petty given that an establishment of this heft should be paying enough to their staff for them not to have to rely on tips and as they are already charging premium rates for food and drink should include any service charges in the prices.

Beautiful

Nostalgic place to be

Just back from a wet and windy Eastbourne. Once again our stay at the Grand was so relaxing. The updated billing system appears to work much better than that of previous stays. A couple of minor niggles but soon put right by the excellent staff. The bathroom in 338 is a little overdue for some decorating touch ups just to keep it 5*
Lunch in the Mirabelle was probably the best that we have ever had there, well done Ben and his team.
Would we go back ? you bet !

Great hotel with history background. Heated outdoor swimming pool was a dream. Hotel staff was amazing. Very small room. They are pet friendly. Restaurant staff could be more friendly and details focused. Delicious breakfast in beautiful restaurant.

Just back from a week stay at the Grand. The title summarises our review well: the hotel has excellent service, grand lounges, two very good restaurants for dinner and great ​leisure facilities. However, it is probably only worth paying the extra for this hotel if you are going to use these features: the room and breakfast were OK but not 5*:

1. Room: We booked a deluxe inland view room. The room was a good size and had a nice view of the town, but was disappointing:

i) the furniture was tired and somewhat beaten up (even accounting for the fact that it is a traditional not contemporary hotel).
ii) the windows in the room were in the most shocking state of disrepair which you would not expect of a 3* hotel (never mind a 5*) - picture attached.
iii) the bathroom door would not close properly without slamming it - we reported it to reception who said it would be fixed but it never was.
iv) none of the rooms (at whatever price level) have a minibar - the hotel says this is because there is 24hr room service, but it is still inconvenient not to provide a minibar, and the hotel provided us a little chiller upon request.
v) Finally, we found the bed in the room to be really quite small. At home we have a king (6 foot), and we were expecting the same given it is a 5* hotel. The bed may have been 5 foot rather than a standard double (4foot 6), but we still found it small and we are both slim.

2. Breakfast. Served in the grand Garden restaurant. You need to book times before you get here which is a pain, but in our experience guests seem rarely to be turned away for not turning up at their allotted time. Breakfast was very nice, but as with the room was not upto a 5* standard:

i) A cooked breakfast is waiter-served. Choice of scrambled egg, smashed avocado, kippers, full and veggie English and pancakes. Your choice of toast is also served to you at your table together with tea and coffee. Very nice.

ii) Continental items are served (we assume because of Covid) by staff, and it is the lack of choice here which lets the breakfast down - see attached picture of buffet.

There is a fresh fruit salad and some fruit to choose from, but not the selection of fresh fruit eg. nectarines, peaches, apricots which you might expect in a 5* hotel. Similarly, there is a limited choice of mini croissants, one type of roll and two or three types of little pastries. Other hotels of this class offer numerous types of freshly baked baguettes and rolls. Finally, the cheese and yoghurt selection was also limited. See 2 pictures attached.

All in all, a very nice breakfast, but not 5*.

3. Leisure facilities. Excellent. Heated (really warm - gorgeous) and reasonable size outdoor pool. about 15-20 sun loungers which is usually enough but there is some competition when the weather is nice. Heated indoor pool and jacuzzi. No need to book a slot now for the outdoor pool but you do have to book a slot for the indoor pool - do this in advance as they seem to get all booked up. The only criticism of the indoor pool is area is that there are no loungers or even chairs beside it - so if the weather is rainy there is no place to chill out beside the indoor pool, and you have to just get changed, go for your swim in your allotted slot and then come out again. Nice gym.

4. Lounges - very grand. Afternoon tea is served here. Nice place to hang out in the evening and get a drink in the bar.

5. Dinner - Mirabelle restaurant is very intimate, excellent food and very good service. We had one night in the Mirabelle which we enjoyed and the rest in the Garden, which has a much wider menu (and bigger portions!) but similarly excellently presented food. Both are pricey but not excessively so given the high standards.

However, a note about half board. There is some confusion within the hotel about how this operates and we were told conflicting things. It seems that half board guests have a £45 credit for food only for each night, or can pick from items marked on the menu as included on the half board option. A note: even selecting these items you are still presented with a bill for service, which we thought slightly off, as the hotel is effectively saying you have paid for the food but not the service.....yes you can strike it off the bill but it is rather uncomfortable to do so.

Other points: concierge are very helpful; location is excellent right on the front but in a nice part of the front near the gardens and an easy walk both to the pier and beachy head.

We would come back, but mainly because we love the outdoor pool and service, rather than for the room and breakfast. If you just want a decent room and breakfast, the 3* Best Western Lansdowne next door seemed nice.

Comfortable room. Good staff Breakfast lovely. Very grand and olde world style opulence

Thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing visit to this Grand Old Lady in Eastbourne. The suite was spacious with a balcony on which to sit and appreciate the sunshine on the sea. The room was well cleaned, the bed comfy and staff friendly and attentive, outdoor pool pleasant and food superb; both dinner and breakfast were well cooked and plentiful with plenty of choice on the included menu. Whole hotel was clean with plenty of sanitiser available. We paid for a car parking space which we thought was worthwhile as it was quite busy and the staff supervising parking were efficient and helpful. Will definitely be back.

A stunning place with friendly and helpful staff 😊

Excellent service from all the staff highly recommended

(So this is not a review of the hotel as being local we didn't stay) just decided to try their afternoon tea in their lounge area.

It was wonderful. Very relaxed and smart room, superb staff and excellent well presented food, tea and champagne. Up there with the top London afternoon teas in our book.

Back at the Grand in Eastbourne. The level of service is spot on.

Fantastic staff were great afternoon tea was superb thank you to all at the grand hotel Eastbourne

The staff were very friendly and very accommodating. The breakfast was adequate. And it was clean.
However the room and furnishings looked very sad and tired shabby in parts. The chair arms could have done with a good clean. We were frightened to pull the curtains on incase they came down on use. The plaster in the hallway was coming away and the whole place could do with refurbishing.