Review by Craig Walsh on 10th December, 2006

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We planned a last-minute, one night trip to York, and the Marmadukes website makes the hotel look very attractive. I booked with the hotel directly, and explained I was disabled so couldn't climb many steps. Our one night reservation was confirmed. When we were shown to our room (on the ground floor, so very convenient) I was surprised at how the large four-poster bed overwhelmed the room. It was so large that it even stuck up and into the chandelier. Perhaps not my style, but not a big deal. The room had one other tiny couch (settee) with a seat that was about 18 inches or so off the ground, and a very upright Victorian chair. Again, the hotel's website talks about Victorian antique furniture, and that's fine --- but I just didn't imagine it would all be so uncomfortable. Surely even the Victorians knew how to design and manufacture a comfortable chair. The young lady who showed us to our room said that the mini-bar could be quite noisy, and we should just unplug it. The mini-bar was crammed into a space behind the main door to the room, so that you couldn't open the door to the room more than about 50 or 60 degrees. We couldn't watch TV from the bed. The screen was very small: more like a computer screen than a television. And if you were in bed, you had to watch the TV through the bars of the bed itself. But I couldn't sit in the uncomfortable Victorian chair. There was a bedside lamp on only one side of the bed (my wife's). And it was pretty useless: a non-retractable curtain was in the way, so the light from the lamp was blocked by the curtain. In the middle of the night the mini-bar woke us both up. I unplugged it, but couldn't get back to sleep. I spent a couple of hours sitting in the equivalent of the hotel's "lobby," and read the paper from cover to cover. This room was, in our opinion, design over function. It was uncomfortable, rigid, noisy and generally disagreeable. I sent a detailed, dispassionate e-mail to the owner of the hotel, David Hattersley, with photographs to illustrate the problems we experienced. First message sent on November 27, no reply. I sent a copy on November 29 without the photos, still no reply. I sent a letter to their registered office address, via recorded delivery, and that elicited this response from the owner: "I can tell you exactly why Christopher said “he didn’t like your attitude” – because you swore on at least two occasions and told him to get out of your room three times, when he was trying to talk to you. You were wholly unreasonable and behaved inappropriately. "I most certainly would not expect anyone to be subject to this kind of behaviour. "The bottom line is this Mr Walsh - "We don’t want, need or like people like you. You demonstrated aggression when calm, sensible talking would have resolved many things. "And a bit of straight talking and no bullshit (you often like to quote me) – "Don’t expect me to lick your arse when you have walked out of my Hotel having treated my family and staff like shit. It’s just as well I wasn’t on the premises at the time. I can guarantee you’d have been out in double quick time and your feet wouldn’t have even touched the ground." I am a retired 57 year old corporate executive. I broke my back in May 2006, and walk with a cane. I did not swear at Christopher, or anyone else. Christopher, the young duty manager, blamed everything on us! It was very frustrating, and he displayed the same arrogant attitude shown by the hotel's owner. Yes, I realised we were getting nowhere with Christopher, so I asked him to please leave our room so we could finish packing. He wanted to continue to tell us how everything was our fault, so I did ask him to leave on several occasions. Notice that Hattersley does not address any of my specific complaints? It's easy, peasy to say that "I don't like the way you complained," thereby avoiding any responsibility to address the individual complaints. We had a terrible experience at Marmadukes, and the reply from the owner is really incredible. This was, in our opinion, a lousy hotel that should be avoided.

Date visited: Nov 20 2006