“Great room great price”

Clean, luxurious decor, felt very safe as a solo female traveler

“Great room”

Beautiful accommodation and great location. Modern well equipped room.

“Great place to stay for a few nights - bed comfy and shower great ! Small for a longer stay but no criticism at all.”

Great place to stay - try to get a parking space at Buzz Bingo as soon as so close and cost effective

“Comfort at a distance”

Brighton during festival season is always a slightly desperate game of financial musical chairs. Prices soar, availability disappears, and many hotels seem personally offended by the idea that anyone might wish to stay for only a Saturday night. Which is how we ended up booking the Brighton Inn, la… more

Brighton during festival season is always a slightly desperate game of financial musical chairs. Prices soar, availability disappears, and many hotels seem personally offended by the idea that anyone might wish to stay for only a Saturday night. Which is how we ended up booking the Brighton Inn, largely because it was reasonably priced, in Kemptown, and within easy walking distance of the venue where I was appearing that evening. From the outside, and indeed online, it all seemed promising enough. Efficient, modern, contactless. Codes sent for the front door, codes sent for the room, no keys to lose, no reception queues. In fact, no reception at all. One began to suspect that if the building caught fire, a text message might arrive saying, “Hope you’re enjoying your stay.” The room itself was clean, comfortable enough, and had a pleasingly large bed. There was also proper ground coffee and a cafetière, which briefly suggested somebody involved in the set-up might actually enjoy human happiness. But then came the discovery that the room was internal, with no real window, only a skylight. Less “boutique Brighton bolthole,” more “well appointed storage unit.” And then the lighting. Or rather, the absence of sensible lighting. No bedside lamps whatsoever, which meant no reading in bed, unless one wished to sit beneath the main overhead light, which had all the soft ambience of being questioned at a regional police station. Morning brought no improvement. Wake up, hit the same harsh ceiling light, squint at your companion, and wonder what terrible crime you’ve both confessed to overnight. Breakfast arrived the following morning in boxes left outside the room. Pleasant pastries, neatly arranged, all perfectly nice. But the true collapse in Anglo hospitality came moments later. No tea bags. Fresh coffee apparently available in abundance, but no tea. In Britain. During a hotel stay. And because there is nobody physically present in the building, no front desk, no breakfast room, no mildly exhausted person called Sandra to appeal to, the only option was to send a text message into the void and hope for beverage-based salvation. What the Brighton Inn ultimately offers is efficiency without warmth. You can arrive, sleep, eat and leave without encountering another human being once. For some people, that may sound ideal. For us, it left the place feeling oddly anonymous and faintly joyless, like staying overnight inside an app. Convenient for the festival, yes. Cheap by Brighton standards, certainly. But welcoming? Not especially. And despite the pastries, the cafetière and the good location, it’s probably not somewhere we’d return to

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