We stay here many times a year,and the reasons are...great location...huge public rooms(to watch the world go by)...wonderful smiling efficient staff...a very attractive dining room...above average hotel food.Yes I will agree that The Grand looks a little tired in places,but hey what do you expect with a building of this size and age.We have just spent 9 days at The Grand,and thoroughly enjoyed it.I had smoked salmon/scrambled eggs every day for breakfast,as well as fresh fruit,cheeses and excellent chunky rolls.The most memorable dinner consisted of...Thai infused pumpkin soup,Cod (oh so fresh and cooked to perfection)with a herb crust,and followed by a rhubarb and gooseberry crumble.
On a personal note I have just retired after working for the last 47 years full time,so I presume that I am now one of "the Oldies" that so many of the reviewers of The Grand refer to in their reviews!!However I have all my own teeth,a fine head of hair,am fairly slim,wear up to date clothes and have "old fashioned" good manners!!
If you have never stayed in a hotel of this size in an English seaside town,then go and try it.We did just that 6 years ago ,and have been returning ever since.

Dont get me wrong, my wife and son enjoyed their stay....as previous contibutors have stated, the majority of staff were most helpful, the breakfast is one of the best we have tasted for a very long time and the hotel is conveniently located. However, we all thought that the hotel is in need of being dragged into the 21st Century...little things like not having a children's menu at dinner was a irritation and when we asked for a simple plate of fish and chips for our 12 year old son, he received his fish accompanied by a baked banana....not being offered bread until we had sat at our table for at least 15 minutes....the bathroom whilst perfectly adequate and functioning correctly looked as though it had come from a 1970/80's catalogue (the bathroom had clearly been recently refurbished)....on booking we were asked to notify the hotel of our son's age so you can imagine his surprise when he received a gift of a bucket and spade and crayons.

Overall, the hotel reflects what one imagines a "Grand Hotel" to be.....the BBC did a recent documentary on Claridges.....might I suggest the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne for the second series

We booked via Offpeakluxury and were able to get the room with free upgrade, breakfast and evening meal for a competitive price which is not easy for the only 5 star hotel in this region on the coast. Upon arrival our car was parked for us and our luggage taken at reception we were offered our free upgrade to a side sea view room. I was after a room with a sea view and close to the stairs and after discussions with the management was offered Room 126. This was a very beautiful room with sea views and a balcony., the room was near to the stairs so very handy. We found the room very comfortable and decorated in a fashion fitting this lovely hotel. Of course, it is old fashioned with drapes and velvets but it is all very fitting. The breakfast is in the Garden Room which is huge and well staffed, we were seated and asked immediately if we would like tea, coffee and toast, white or brown. This arrived swiftly. There was a table with all different cereals, jams, and bottles of organic carrot juice. The next table with food was situated further away., this had several fresh juices, a large display of fresh fruit, then a varity of prunes, apricots, dried fruits, yoghurts etc. Also some cheeses, croissants, several cake croissants and some soft cheeses. On top of all this you could order any cooked food from the menu. The breakfast menu choice was extensive. Also quite a good vegetarian range. At dinner we again were shown to the same table which was a nice touch and were told this table would be kept for us. As a vegetarian i was pleased to see a menu for vegetarians but was disappointed to learn this did not change and had not changed for sometime. My husband had cod and chips one evening but had to ask for peas he thought it was not a lot of value for the price. I had pasta which was nice and was asked if i would like chef to prepare something for me for the following evening, i asked for a vegetarian curry. To my surprise this was put on the menu the next day. I am afraid it was not to my liking as it was all fruit almost which i have never had and in my opinion bore no resemblence to curry. I was told it was a popular dish and they would not make it spicy which i expected. The waiting staff were very helpful and went out of their way to please. I didnt use the spa facilities. We were shown around the pool which was in the basement and i felt it was too dungeon like. The outdoor pool is heated but was not open at the time but i was informed by a member of staff that it is absolutely lovely, so i am hoping to use this next time. The hotel has some truly striking features, with wonderful architecture. Also the flowers were of note, with some very very lovely displays in all the large rooms on the ground floor, no expense was spared. One arrangement was full of cymbidium orchids with shamrocks, alstromeria, lisianthus, and more. We would certainly return to The Grand but would say it is a very expensive place to stay.

we went to Eastbourne to have afternoon tea we had stayed at this hotel on numerous occasions but had yet to sample this.it was a very laid back afternoon we were offered tea or coffee and they fetched up the tiered sandwich and cake rack.it was all very delicious.we had a window seat and the staff were very attentive.there was also a very big wedding going on at the same time but this didnt affect our visit.perfect afternoon.

4 of us had afternoon tea at the Grand today. I was a bit apprehensive as some reviews in the past had not been 100%.
I am pleased to say this was a very good experience. We were not residents and only went there for the afternoon tea.
From the moment we arrived and were greeted by the doorman....things went like clockwork.
The young lady who greeted us and confirmed our booking...took us through to a reserved seating area. The waitress was brilliantly attentive...the tea was superb...the sandwiches and scones and cakes were first class.
The staff were all well presented and very polite...the way they moved and acted looked like the result of training and attention to detail. ....a classic old school afternoon tea with wonderful charm and ambience set in a wonderful classic hotel.

Made me proud to be British.
Go on treat yourself :) A lovely experience.

My Nan would have liked this place. Some hotels are business friendly, some are child friendly and some are even pet friendly. The "Grand" is so geriatric centric that I reckon the "d" was added as an afterthought. My room, which was very generously proportioned, was furnished in the style of an old people's home with crushed velour lounge suite and heavy patterned floral curtains.
I was visiting with extended family for a short get together. But the first question which occurred to me is why would anyone go to Eastbourne at all? Not for the great British weather and not for the stony beach. And certainly not for the pier, Ok slightly out of season but really only comprising slot machines and a chip shop, frequented by delinquents and staffed by escapees. Not the fault of the hotel but I am still wondering about the answer to my question.
Anyway on to the food. Afternoon tea was taken in one of the lounges and very genteel it was too; tea pots, real tea and fine china. My Nan really would have loved that. Then later dinner was served in the dining rooms, which are certainly quite grand and have some style. I ordered fillet steak and a fine piece of meat it was too. A shame that it came covered in a sauce which I swear was made with an entire jar of Chinese 5 spice. Service Ok, in keeping with many UK hotels the staff seem to largely consist of Polish workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed in the Warsaw branch of Primark, or equivalent. Efficient enough but if personality was a bottle of tonic water then maybe the top has been left off for too long.
After dinner there was a small band playing in the ballroom and some of the residents cast off their zimmer frames and attempted a waltz or foxtrot shuffle. Quite jolly really, maybe this is the norm in a place such as this. I have probably just spent too much time at business hotels.
Breakfast was pretty good and served up in the same grand dining room, the only aspect which let it down was the continued presence of certain family members. But I can't hold that against The Grand.
To be fair the hotel is very comfortable, in a traditional way and I think that's the word which fairly describes it. Probably it was once grand, in around 1930, but that was then and this is now. It's grandness could be likened to a former beauty queen who has acquired some wrinkles and piled on some pounds. A former, but not current, beauty queen. But then I guess that "The Comfortable Hotel Eastbourne" wouldn't really have the same ring to it.

We spent a weekend here but were a little disappointed. The rooms including the bathrooms were OK but small and many of the floors were creaky. The restaurants were good but unexceptional given the prices. One of the doorman totally lacked customer focus being very grumpy because the relatively small car park, for a hotel of this size, was over full.

This is our second stay this year after arriving for two nights on a cold miserable January day it was a pleasure to see the welcoming site of our favourite hotel and the faces of staff we knew from past visits.
Since then we have come down again for a two night visit in our favourite suite but this time in much better weather, sitting eating breakfast in our room set in front of the large windows eating a great breakfast in the morning sunshine is great for the mind, and now they have really good Internet as well adds to the pleasure of this lovely hotel, standards are getting better thank you The Grand at Eastbourne, keep up the good work and keep smiling

Stayed here from Tuesday to Friday, in a beautiful room with sea view. Good food, very friendly, attentive and helpful staff. Felt like royalty. Enjoyed the afternoon tea.
This highly recommend this hotel.

The Grand Hotel looks stylish and elegant with plenty of space and high ceilings. You feel very welcome from your first step in the door. Excellent service, clean rooms and VERY delicious food!! We choose calamari for our starter then lobster in parmesan sauce and fillet steak for the main course. It was perfectly cooked and well presented - compliments to the Chef. The atmosphere in the Garden Restaurant was so relaxing with lovely live piano music. For breakfast there was a great choice of everything and again the staff were very attentive. We definitely would recommend this hotel to our friends.

When we were children we'd walk past the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne and sometimes dream the impossible dream of staying there. 50 years on, and we've just enjoyed a wonderful 4-day stay in a superb room overlooking the sea, and we are so pleased we finally did it. From the moment we pulled up at the main entrance we were looked after by wonderful, uniformed staff who rushed out in the heavy rain with large umbrellas to shepherd us inside, and then took care of our luggage and parked the car. Maybe our little hire car looked a bit out of it's league parked amongst the Rolls, Bentleys and Mercs in the car park, but nobody seemed to care.

Inside the hotel foyer, the scene will have changed little over the past century. Everything is on a Grand scale, but nicely balanced by friendly and efficient staff. We found the overall ambience to be elegant, old-worldly and discrete, but never crusty or pretentious. Guests are expected to respect dress standards in the restaurants and other public areas, but these standards are not onerous and seemed to us to support the graceful charm of the hotel. Board shorts or T-shirts just wouldn't work.

We chose a mid-priced room at about AUD$300 a night including breakfast. For this price you get a large and bright room with floor to ceiling windows and a nice sitting area overlooking the sea. It was very clean, sumptuous and comfortable, and was serviced twice each day. The bathroom was nicely done with good fittings in period style.

The two restaurants are both silver-service and very elegant. We found the food to be excellent and served by friendly and helpful staff. The wine list is exceptionally comprehensive and indexed by country of origin.

Overall we had a wonderful stay at the Grand and are really glad that we did it. Visiting Eastbourne after 50 years away was a real nostalgia trip for us and was made all the more special by this timeless hotel.

I took my mother here and we had a suite so that we could have separate bedrooms; the views of the sea are great, although the windows were very dirty. The service is amazing; we had a dog, who was made welcome and provided with a bed.

The bathroom has no walk in shower so not ideal for older people; rather antiquated bathroom fittings and furniture, but very traditional. the food was great.

My Husband and I stayed here for our 1st Anniversary and were not let down. It is a beautiful hotel in a gorgeous setting. The staff were really professional, helpful and friendly. We were upgraded to a suite and couldn't have asked for a nicer room. It was very elegant, spacious and clean. It had a lovely sea view which looked down across the coastline towards Eastbourne pier. It was lovely to walk around and see the period features throughout the hotel. We made full use of the hotel spa facilities. My Husband and I enjoyed a lovely evening in the bar sipping cocktails, and then room service to finish the night off. We found the bed to be very comfortable. Breakfast the next morning was in the Garden restaurant which was lovely as was the breakfast itself. The only thing we would say is the hotel is a little on the warm side which can get a bit much. The Grand Hotel is definitely a hotel we will be returning to.

Had a fabulous time with my husband. Staff were lovely, attentive, but not intrusive. Food in both restaurants was very good. Loved the balcony and sea view. Loved our room. Thank you for such an enjoyable stay!

We took advantage of the two nights for the price of one offer and greatly enjoyed our stay.

The building is beautiful with some wonderfully grand public areas although the journey to our rooms was somewhat complex. The staff were friendly, helpful and efficient (although our rooms weren't made up until mid-afternoon or so, which wasn't ideal) and the food in the Garden Restaurant was delicious and it's great to find a proper vegetarian menu on offer in a place like this (though the practice of offering a standard selection of veg with all meals meant I was offered sauté potatoes with arancini which seemed a little carb heavy!), especially the starters and desserts.

My only real gripe was with the WiFi. Checking room rates online shows the rooms as having 'Free WiFi' but in reality this is a somewhat slow connection and prone to cutting out. A speedier service is promised for £5 for 24 hours. I didn't test this out as, although the network showed up in my list I couldn't actually connect to it and in any case, taking up this option for the two nights of our visit would have cost more than my monthly broadband bill at home. Luckily I had a 3G dongle with me (by way of comparison, this costs £5 for the whole month) so was able to use that instead but really WiFi is something that I would expect to be free in a hotel of this standard (and it's something that I generally look for as a basic requirement when choosing hotels); asking guests to pay for extra for it just looks a little mean.

Bathrobes are supplied but not slippers which seems an odd omission given that the hotel has a spa (where slippers seemed to be available though I wasn't offered any and didn't spot them except in use by others).

Finally, the basin in one of our bathrooms took a really, really long time to drain (like over half an hour). This was mentioned to a member of housekeeping staff who said she was aware of it and someone was due to take a look. If this was a known issue (and I recognise that it may be something housekeeping had only noticed when cleaning the room), it seems odd that we were allocated this room (the hotel was not full).

We paid nearly 50% extra for a larger room with a 'full sea view' for one of our rooms; though this was a very nice room the window was at an angle to the front of the hotel so to call it a full sea view was perhaps a bit of a stretch; the view was more towards the pier and the town than properly out to sea. Also the bathroom in this room was rather small; the other room had better shower facilities.

All in all, I probably would stay here again but this was an expensive couple of days away and I'm sad to have come away with any reservations about the hotel, however minor.

My husband and I stayed here for a night just after Easter. We were impressed with the friendliness of the staff on arrival and the phonecall to our room within half an hour of arival asking if everything we were happy with everything.
The room was spacious, clean and inviting; our ensuite bathroom had a whirlpool bath which made it feel even more luxurious.
As we were away for just one night we didn't use the pool and spa facilities but a member of spa staff took the time to show us around and explained that some treatment time was still available if we wanted something during our staff.
We ate in The Garden Restaurant that evening and were delighted with the menu choices, the relaxed atmosphere and the outstanding quality of the food, this was equaled by the room serivce we ordered on arrival to the hotel. After dinner there was a band in the hotel lounge and we enjoyed watching other residents take to the flooe but not brave enough to join in ourselves.
A great, peaceful nights' sleep was followed by an excellent breakfast.
It was great to feel like nothing was too much trouble to ask for during our stay and we would love to go back and take advantage of the spa.

My wife and I stayed here for a long weekend - friday to Monday, just before Easter weekend. On our arrival we were impressed by the friendliness and helpfulness of the doorman in parking our car. We were then upgraded to a junior suite which was a lovely start to our mini break. The suite overlooked the promenade and was very clean and the bed very comfortable. Breakfasts were very tasty with a choice of buffet or you could specifically order items. We had the kippers one morning, that were delicious. The meal in the garden restaurant was quite good on our first night. The lounges were warm and cosy but drinks at the bar, however, were rather expensive. On our second night we had dinner in the Mirabelle that was wonderful. Lunch in the Garden restaurant on the sunday was disappointing and not nearly as good as our first meal there. We enjoyed a pleasant half hour in the pool and hot tub early one evening. Apart from our second visit to the Garden restaurant, my only criticism was to do with the free wifi. Whilst I applaud the hotel for providing it free, streaming was not possible and access to downloads for e- newspapers etc was extremely slow. A 'superfast' wifi was available for £5 per 24 hours and I tried it once. It was marginally faster but streaming was still erratic. The staff were all really helpful in most cases and overall we were very satisfied with our stay at the Grand and will probably return there for a special occasion.

We decidied to visit Eastbourne as my cousin was visiting from Liverpool and wanted a walk along the promenade. The weather was atrocious so we decided to take refuge in the Grand's lounge for a pot of Tea and toasted tea cake this was at 1pm. They did not mind that we weren't ordering lunch or something more substantial. We had excellent service and they were not rushing us out after we had our tea so we were able to relax and chat in the lounge until the weather improved and we resumed our walk.
We will be going back to sample the full afternoon tea as a treat, which we've been assured can be gluten free if booked in advance. The staff were very accomodating and polite and I'm tempted to book up for a weekend stay as there is a very relaxing atmosphere at the hotel despite it's 5 star status it's not too stuffy. There is a dress code for the formal dining areas of gentelmen wearing a Jacket or Tie which I found refreshing in these days of standards slipping at so many restaurants and hotels. The hotel is set in a very pleasant location on the seafront with a feeling of luxury with Chandaliers and oil paintings and a very impressive entrance hall.

We stayed at The Grand on a Friday night as a gift and it certainly was a unique experience. A throwback to a bygone era where manners and customer service are everything and nothing is too much trouble, from our luggage being taken from us before stepping foot in the lobby to offering a turn down service in the evening. Whilst the decor is certainly not modern it fits with the overall ambience and the rooms are much bigger than modern hotels of equivalent standard. We were delighted to be upgraded on arrival to a sea view room, which was a lovely touch as are the Molten Brown toiletries. A little bit of luxury in every sense!

I was treated to an evening meal here and it really was a treat. We had drinks in the bar/lounge area where we perished the menu and were not hurried to our table. There was clearly a large business function on at the time but it did not impact on the service we received which was attentive and unobtrusive throughout. Each course was well presented and delicious and the dining room was elegantly opulent. It really was a delightful experience.

I have stayed at the grand a number of times now and I cannot say any more better things about it other than it is the best hotel in Britain. The fact it is the only 5 star hotel on the coast makes it a very special place to stay. The food is fantastic, the staff are friendly, the rooms are lovely and the facilities are clean and welcoming. Sitting around the outside pool on a hot summers day is great with a nice sandwich for lunch. Please do not let anything slip, you have a wonderful product so maintain it. A* recommended

We stayed for a week in a suite and had a very nice time. The opinions of the hotel are quite far ranging and this may reflect that it isn't everyone's cup of tea. The hotel is old world and, contrary to some reports, in good condition. The average age of guests is around 60, but don't let this put you off. Yes, the spa could be better (though it is still good) and the afternoon tea service could be better organised - it is good, but if you want to see how it should be done go to the Peninsula in Hong Kong. Still good service though and very polite staff.

Overall we had a good time and would be happy to return.

I visited on Easter Sunday afternoon when I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and listened to Shelley van Loen & The Palm Court Strings. The decor is elegant and the service attentive. I did not order the afternoon tea but had instead the Grand Club Sandwhich and French Fries. It was superbly presented with a little cup of Minestrone Soup and Crisps and it was delicious. The music was outstanding and I had a memorable afternoon. I will definately return.

The Grand still delivers old world values with its large, high-ceilinged rooms and lounges and wonderfully polite and helpful staff. The two restaurants deliver good quality food from menus that provide plenty of choice and the buffet breakfast is plentiful. It's current clientele obviously appreciate what this hotel offers but younger visitors will probably be disappointed with some aspects of this 5 star hotel and expect better spa/pool facilities, bigger and better equipped bathrooms and double glazed bedroom windows.

My mother, sister, aunt and myself went for coffee and delicious bacon muffins on Monday morning. A crackling fire welcomed us into the grand hall and we collapsed on comfy sofas and chairs. Service was excellent and friendly from the valet parking to our waiters. This is a lovely place to pop in for coffee after a bracing walk on the seafront. It also does a fabulous afternoon tea if you fancy a treat for a special occasion.