This hotel deserves the praise it receives in these reviews. It was wonderful and the staff were marvelous.
We were strapped for time. We were combining our own anniversary trip with some dear friends wedding. It isn't easy to travel 4,500 miles for a wedding, so we had to combine a couple of trips to justify it. The interesting thing is that we had most of 2 days with nothing really planned. We were doing a few days of touristy stuff in London, going on a Norwegian fjords cruise out of Southampton, and going to a wedding in Essex. But we had 2 days (one night) after the cruise before we needed to be at the wedding resort. WHAT TO DO??
We tossed around several ideas, but my wife had always wanted to visit Bath. I put her on the task of finding a place to stay. She found Dukes and we loved what we read. we booked it.
Dukes was kind enough to notify us that they had no lift (elevator) and our room was on the 2nd floor (US-style that means the 3rd floor because they don't count the ground floor. We go 1-2-3 and they go G-1-2.), but this didn't concern us. Stairs aren't a factor for us... until they were.
On the final port day of our cruise I, a grown man in fine health, took a fairly big fall on a mountain hike. Nothing was broken, but I lost a toenail on each foot and tweaked my knee pretty badly. We arrived in Bath and I was fine walking, but pushing off on steps was incredibly painful for both my toes and my knee.
When we arrived, Nicki was kind enough to allow us to switch from the room with 4 flights of stairs to a ground floor HC-accessible room. That kindness was greatly appreciated. I still had 1 flight of stairs down and then up again to access breakfast, but I just did them very slowly and I wasn't carrying bags. She was also a great tour guide. She filled us in on all the things to see and do. She even gave us suggestions on how to get around with my knee/toes acting up. It was super helpful and she was a credit to Dukes.
The room was clean and nicely done up. The room had a garden view and a huge bathroom (HC). The room was a little warm in the night (small heat wave on the day we arrived) but I'd imagine that most of the year it would be fine. If there was air conditioning, we didn't find it. We kept the windows open all night (no screens) and despite fearing this would just result in massive amounts of bug bites, it didn't. It was definitely warm, though.
The breakfast was AMAZING, yes in caps. AMAZING. There were plenty of options, both hot and cold to choose from. You order hot items from a menu and pick up the cold items on your own from a table. The servers were kind and attentive. The omelet was one of the best I've ever had. It was the highlight of our stay here.
We'd like to try and do another UK trip where we see the English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish countryside. We'd love to stay here again and hope to do so. Our visit wasn't long enough. read more