There were quite a few things that didn't go too well with our stay at Park Plaza Cardiff as our expectation was set much higher based on our earlier experiences with the hotel chain - such as Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London - which is an absolute delight. But this one @ Cardiff is at the other end of the spectrum with guest experience (possibly 3 out of 10).
We (family of 3) booked junior suite towards end of October 2019 for 3 nights. Reading through some of the reviews, I was glad to get less-noisy 3rd floor. But the day we checked-in, it was a noisy lobby as it was occupied by a "very happy" wedding group - good for them, so we had to struggle to talk to the front desk (scream at top of our voice to get heard). This doesn't give a good experience to first time visitors. There were about 60 to 70 guests in the lobby during the time we checked in - I wonder why the hotel shares this lobby with the wedding group rather than allocating them a private hall (even for drinks for which they were in the lobby blocking front desk).
Anyway, the room itself was okay with not much views as the hotel is in city centre. Air conditioning worked quite well though.
Not to waste time, some of the things that let us down.
1. Room service and House keeping extensions didn't always answer. There were instances we had to call up Front Desk to register our house keeping and room service requests. But during our last day, even Front Desk wasn't picking up our calls.
2. Too much chlorine/Bromine in the jacuzzi which made me gasp for my breath and I suffered head ache for rest of the day.
3. I found a well grown spider (about one and a half inch height and width) in the shower room. Not sure how it got in, possibly the hotel needs to work more towards maintaining the rooms to avoid such nasty surprises.
4. Hotel is taking up some work towards end of the breakfast hall (towards one end is the kitchen and towards other end where the work is being carried out is a bar). And the staff working on this, don't mind keeping the doors open (thus making the seating area cold) and making all kinds of machine noise happily during breakfast time (we noticed this on all 3 days at around 8 AM). And they also don't mind playing music/sport with a loud volume. This is very irresponsible/unprofessional with no regard to the guests.
5. We found some of the face towels dirty. I have a feeling they weren't washed properly. They were smelling oily - like castor oil. This is a result of poor quality control in my opinion.
6. The spring double bed looked soggy and formed a "boat shape" with a slope. I got a very bad neck/back pain after the first night. It took a week to recover. A Premier Inn bed is much better and at a fraction of the room rate that this hotel charges.
Anyway, it is a shame to have been let down by this hotel after such an amazing experience at Westminster bridge. I would not recommend this hotel if you are after a peaceful holiday.
