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.

We absolutely loved our stay at this beautiful hotel,from speaking to a receptionist before we arrived,she explained all meals were recommended to be booked,she sorted all that out for us,to our arrival,friendly efficient receptionists,great check in etc! We were half board and had 1 night in the Mirabelle restaurant with the taster menu,and 2 nights in the Garden restaurant,could not fault 1 meal,breakfasts were hot,fresh and quality ingredients,all the staff were fantastic,helpful,smart,friendly and efficient,Tom was great in the Garden restaurant ! 1 morning i put the Do not disturb sign up instead of make up my room totally my fault,it was about 1pm and i found the cleaner who was extremly friendly and i explained it was my fault and within a minute she was cleaning our room,fantastic service! The only slight dissapointment was i requested a suite on a high ish floor with a balcony and i got the opposite 1 on the ground floor with a garden terrace,it was explained that it was subject to availability,just the terrace wasn't very private as it was in the Public terrace and you could more or less touch another customer you were that close,would have liked a fridge in the room too,but in no way did this distract from our fantastic stay and if we come back to Eastbourne there is no way we would contemplate stopping anywhere else!

A sense of grandeur from when you cross the threshold. Attentive service from friendly, professional team.
Lovely cocktails in the bar.
Cara will take care ofbyou in the restaurant.
The afternoon tea is a perfect wayvto spend an afternoon there.

I have always wanted to stay at The Grand, I new this was going to be a different experience to the more modern feel of a London 5-star hotel and this certainly did transform me back to a Victorian era. If you were not expecting a ‘traditional’ hotel then you would be disappointed, but, for a change, it was nice to experience something different.

We didn’t book a car park space (I did not realise that you could), I believe these are priced at £25 per day, however we were able to drop off our bags and we were provided with a parking coupon for the local roads.

As we were checking in, the porter took our bags to the suite, check in was efficient, we had already booked a table for dinner on both nights but we had not booked breakfast (you do need a restaurant reservation for breakfast), again, I didn’t realise this and they only had very early or very late slots available, fortunately our suite had room to dine so we opted for a room service breakfast each day. We were staying in a Seaview Suite, this had traditional furniture, it was clean and well presented with a tv in the bedroom and lounge area. We didn’t have a balcony but did have great views of the pool and sea. Wifi in the room was very good.

After unpacking we went down to the outside pool, we were lucky to get 2 sun beds and enjoyed the afternoon by the pool, they do offer a drinks service (would have been nice if the staff were a little more pro-active, rather than having to find someone each time you needed a drink). The pool water is a great temperature and they have plenty of towels.

We had dinner in the Garden Restaurant on the first night, this offered a large menu with plenty of choice, the wine list was also impressive with some good reasonably priced bottles. The food was great and service excellent too.

Breakfast the next morning was a disaster, we filled out the menu choices the night before (the menu was collected by housekeeper during the turndown service), but unfortunately this didn’t arrive, I knew the hotel was full so waiting a while before chasing, when I called down to room service, they didn’t have any record of our order, we then had to start the order process and wait for the breakfast (we should have booked the late restaurant slot, it would have been quicker!). The breakfast was good, the bacon and sausages were good quality, poached eggs were a little over-done.

Another relaxing day by the pool and then diner in the Mirabelle Restaurant, we opted for the 7-course tasking menu (without the wine paring), again a good wine list, service was fantastic and the food was exceptional.

Unfortunately, the breakfast experience was again not great, I had booked a 10AM slot in the restaurant but felt this was going to be too late for us (as we were checking out that morning), so again we filled out the breakfast menu but this time dropped it off to reception, in the morning I called down to cancel the 10AM restaurant reservation. I ordered the breakfast for 8.30AM, and at 8.45AM, thought I had better check, when I called down I was told that I had cancelled the breakfast! – NO, I cancelled the 10AM reservation in the restaurant but not the room service breakfast! – At least they did have our menu card and didn’t have to wait too long.

I asked for the bill to be emailed over to me so that I could check this before checking out, on reviewing the bill I noticed an erroneous charge of c£65, I asked the reception to look at this as it didn’t correspond with any of the drinks/food charges that I made, they came back to me with ‘’it was for lager and cocktails’’, this was definitely not ours and advised them accordingly. Unfortunately, the charge had not been removed when I did check out at reception, this was rather annoying as I had already made them aware of the issue. I do feel that erroneous charges appear on guest bills too often (always check your bill!) and I am waiting for the hotel to explain what had happened? – They didn’t have the signed receipt available for me to look at.

So, a couple of niggles but on the whole we did enjoy ourselves, the hotel is dated but this has a certain charm, the staff are fantastic, I felt the food and drink prices were on the reasonable side for a five start hotel and we did enjoy the outside pool. I do hope to be able to return.

Some tips…..

- Book a parking space (if this is important to you).
- If you order a room service breakfast, call down and check they have the order.
- Book your restaurant reservations for dinner and breakfast (before you arrive).
- Check your bill for errors.

Lovely old hotel , it is grand as described in the name ,but if you book the cheaper rooms you will get a very small room at the rear (very hot in summer) with s very cramped basic old fashioned bathroom.
Hotel great for a special occasion (our 25th)
But room not worth £140 /night.

Feel like I'm somewhere really special when I am here. Beautiful surroundings and the staff are kind, friendly and helpful. I would love to be able to afford to stay for a week

Very slow service

Staff are very helpful , friendly and polite, we have always had a nice stay at the Grand.
It can be a bit pricey, but would recommend a stay
The spa is wonderful and the treatment we had was very good

Had a lovely couple of days early in July at The Grand....cheering on & pampering hubby after he had cycled the South Downs Way.
As always; staff were welcoming & helpful, our room was well equipped, the refreshments & food was delicious. We felt rested & could almost forget the world outside. Thank you

Amazing hotel the best in Eastbourne

Beautiful room and the breakfast was amazing

Will definitely be coming back
Very clean and will be recommending this hotel to many friends and family
Doorman staff were really Friendly down helped us out a lot