The Golden Lion Hotel, St Ives, Cambridgeshire

Lovely hotel, in the centre of St Ives. Staff was very lovely and welcoming. As soon as I entered the room the fan was already on, it was lovely as that day was already very hot. Room clean and nice amenities. Very nice little buts for tea and the radio was a nice touch. The soaps were a nice and refreshing cucumber scent, very pleasant to shower or wash hands with. Breakfast was 10/10, not your typical buffers breakfast you get a menu and pick what you would like, so the meal was delicious and freshly cooked.

First and foremost, no accommodation areas have any air conditioning, despite it being present in the bar and restaurant areas. This meant that my entire stay was incredibly uncomfortable, and I'm certain that the room did not dip below 30 celcius for the entire stay. The room itself, for £110 a night was farcically small, barely room for a double bed, small desk, and wardrobe. While the bed was comfortable, I was constantly bemused by the TEN (if I remember correctly) pillows taking up masses of room; money spent pointlessly that could have been put towards air-conditioning... In-room facilities were basic, but the DAB radio/alarm was useful, doubly so as my alarm call was missed on all nights of my stay. The iron supplied wasn't a steam iron, and had a significant burnt patch on it that made use difficult. There was a kettle for tea/coffee, but given the temperature this was not used. The shower room was also small, though functional. That said, the shower refused to hold a constant temperature at any time of day, and would vary frequently from cold to hot while in use. The shelf in the shower was also loose, to the extent that a bottle fell out and landed quite painfully on my foot. On checkout, the reaction I got to the above was "oh, sorry to hear that". No offer of recompense, no discount to make up for the discomfort, no anything. Bad at the best of times, but I was checked out by the General Manager!! I'd sooner sleep in my car than use this place again.

Another great night at The Golden Lion. Staff, food and accommodation definitely recommended.

Disappointing breakfast . No eggs ! so settled for bacon sandwich Bathroom didn't have a razor point so unable to charge electric toothbrush. Asked reception if they had a plug adapter but they didn't

Nice hotel in nice town. Parking is not so easy - staff not particularly helpful and unaware of timings for parking

The room was noisy due to kitchen extract fan which also vibrated the floor The fan runs from 0600 to 2200 per day so no let up in the noise and very rude awakening in the morning

Excellent location, walkable to everything in St.Ives. Room was well appointed and had everything we needed. Had a great breakfast. We would stay here again without hesitation.

This is the first negative review I've ever had to give. We stayed at The Golden Lion Hotel St. Ives. (13-14 Feb) We stayed in Room 20 which was very small and had the constant, very loud noise of the kitchen extractor humming. On the first night it was still on at 10.45pm and we had to ask Reception to deal with it and then it was back on, waking us up at 7pm. Whilst we understand the extractor has to be in use, this has ruined our relaxing break. We could not have a lie in or return to our room to relax. We spoke to reception 4 times about this and it would appear it is a known issue but tbh they couldn't have cared less and although we were told this would be passed to a manager, it was not. No service recovery and very poor customer service. We contacted The Coaching Inn group but have received no response. We paid £159 for this weekend and we are very disappointed by this hotel. We have stayed before in 2022 coincidently in the same room, but had no issues then at all. On booking or arrival we should have been made aware about the noise. We would have gone elsewhere. Also on arrival the key was flung at me with no welcome. I was just asked it I had stayed before and then had to ask where the room was. The room also had layers of dust on the carpets and the shower area had mould. It is in stark contrast to our previous stay where the staff were welcoming, no noise, clean room and breakfast was included. We were sad to see how standards had dropped.

The shower ran cold, when we queried if we were not using the shower properly, we were told, it’s because we had a shower in the morning, when other people were having one. However, the second room we had booked had hot water in their shower. There is no noise insulation, I could hear the person in the room next door coughing. They woke us in the night going to the bathroom. The noise from downstairs is very loud in the room, even at breakfast.