stayed the night for a night out in liverpool before departing the next day for the game in manchester, via the wirral. as we were going out, we were able to order food in the restaurant with the option of taking it back to the room. the girl said she'd phone us in the room when it was ready, very convenient, and the service was pleasant aswell which is most important.

would stay there again, a hotel is a hotel, some people shouldnt expect the staff to perform a west end show when they arrive

I arrived, as part of a larger family group, at the Campanile Hotel on 12th April 07. Despite having booked our stay in October of last year, I was disappointed to realize that of our 4 rooms, only 2 of us had rooms on the same floor. My disappointment soon faded however, when I realized I had much bigger things to worry about... bigger and heavier actually, and in the form of my suitcase. Being female and staying somewhere for a period of 5 days, I probably had a lot more shoes and clothes with me than necessary but then I'm a woman and entitled to do so - you can imagine my horror when I realized that I would have to lug my suitcase up 4 flights of stairs to reach the top floor. I couldn't believe that a place of this size didn't have an elevator!!

After completing my staircase weightlifting and taking 10 minutes to get my breath back, I was dismayed to realize that I was in a room which was only marginally off being claustrophobic. I didn’t have a single drawer in which to place clothes and as the wardrobe, with no door, had a maximum of approx 5 hangers, I was limited in the amount of clothing I was able to remove from my case. Needless to say, the case remained fairly heavy throughout the stay as I had to keep my clothes in it. The clothes were then accompanied by and locked away with other items which I did not want to have stolen - I thought this was only sensible after reading any of the numerous warning posters about theft from the rooms or cars, and the hotel’s lack of responsibility for such stolen items. Needless to say, I didn’t go to sleep at night feeling snug, safe and secure! One item that the room did seem to cater well for was the abundant supply of “Escort” business cards, which were waiting to greet me when I first opened the bedroom door.

Overall I suppose I should consider myself quite lucky as, apart from the weight training and the hotel’s attempt to overcharge me by £40, I didn’t have to suffer a room that reeked of urine, as did the room several doors away that my parents were subjected to. With reference to the overcharging, we came up against a deputy manager who appeared to be going for a “Jobsworth” award in the Hitler/Dictator category. This man was extremely rude and aggressive and generally didn’t seem to have much of a clue about anything. He made every attempt to intimidate my mother and sister when they approached him regarding the overcharge. Although they had an email which stated it was from Campanile Liverpool and clearly outlined the agreed costs, he tried to insist, in a not very professional manner, that the hotel did not have responsibility for agents that book their rooms. Even though these “agents” have authorized access to their booking system and are allocated rooms to sell by the hotel, he stated that it was our problem and that he was not prepared to help us. After my mum threatened to go to the media or seek legal advice he threatened that he would sue us. It would have been laughable if people hadn’t been so upset by his whole arrogant manner and attitude. He did eventually backtrack, after being threatened with legal action, and refunded the overcharged money but did so in a most ungracious manner and while he still lectured my mum and sister as though they were 12 years old.

I can honestly say that I hope as many people as possible read this review in time to stop them booking into this hotel and suffering even a portion of what we did.

Having booked 4 rooms at this hotel, we arrived in high spirits for the Grand National weekend. The rooms were expensive enough that we expected them to be of a certain standard so were very disappointed with what we actually got for our money. Firstly 3 members of our party, one female and the others senior citizens, were on the top floor of the motel-like building which didn't have an elevator, resulting in them having to drag their suitcases up 4 flights of stairs, before trekking down what seemed like a never ending corridor. One member of our party complained of a constant bad smell in their room which might have been explained by the fact that it’s possible for people to keep pets in their rooms with them.

After clambering over the numerous cards for different “Escort Services” we discovered that the rooms were worse than basic and didn’t even have drawers that could be used for clothes; no mini-fridge; no iron; no useable electrical sockets, with the exception of the one in the small hallway outside the bathroom and inside the bedroom door. This meant if you paid a refundable £10 to get a cheap iron and leprechaun sized ironing board from reception, you had no choice but to kneel on the floor between the bathroom and bedroom door in order to iron your clothes. I was delighted to see Cold Drinks machines placed at the end of the corridor until I realized that none of them actually worked and it was impossible to purchase any type of drink.

A feeling of security was not a natural occurrence whilst staying at the Campanile as you were constantly warned by posters dotted around the building that not only was the hotel not responsible for items stolen from the car park, but also from the ROOMS???

On the much awaited day of our departure, my father went to reception to pay his bill only to be overcharged by approximately £40 on the agreed price. I followed to make payment on my own bill and was greeted by the male deputy manager who tried to overcharge me in the same way. I explained that this was not the price that had been agreed when I made the booking and showed a printout of the email which was addressed as having come from “Campanile Liverpool”. Apparently my booking had been made with an internet agent who did have allocated rooms at the hotel to sell and did have access to their system in order to make the booking but he claimed they were not responsible for the prices quoted. I couldn’t believe what I was being told when I had the proof of the email, addressed from the hotel, in my hand and went on to suggest that surely this was something the hotel needed to take up with their authorized agent. The attitude and arrogance of the deputy manager culminated in him repeatedly telling me and my mum, who had also arrived at this point, that “if you buy something from Super drug, you can’t expect Boots to give you a refund”. He made this same comment approximately 8 times and if I hadn’t been so annoyed I think I would have laughed hysterically. After trying to sort the matter amicably, my mum said that she was disgusted and would be taking further action and even going to the media to inform them that the hotel were authorizing others to sell rooms for them fraudulently. The deputy manager at this point raised his hand in front of our faces and said that he had no intentions of speaking to or “dealing” with us any further. He became quite irate and verbally aggressive until my mum told him that she worked within the legal system and would be seeking legal advice. After this he went on to amend our charges to the correct rate but only did so while constantly reiterating the point about Boots and Superdrug and being generally VERY patronizing and obnoxious. I have never had the misfortune of dealing with someone like this previously and hope to never have to encounter it again.

Other party members also had problems with the hotel attempting to double charge them for meals received.

I would advise anyone NOT to visit this hotel/motel unless they have a masochistic nature.

Arrived in Liverpool for a family break for my Father's 60th Birthday. We had four rooms booked with the hotel from October last Year, the party consisted of 3 sets of couples and one single adult, we had enquired if we could have a room for 3 when we booked as the single adult was willing to share with a couple to save on paying double room prices for one. The hotel informed us that they did not have rooms to cater for three.

When we arrived we were disappointed to find that we were all allocated rooms on different floors, also the hotel had no lift so made it very difficult to get all the luggage up to the third floor for the people staying there. My own room was on the first floor and was at the end of a very very long corridor when I eventually found my room I was puzzled to find it consisted of a double bed and a single bed obviously this room catered for 3 people yet we had been told they had no rooms to suit 3. My mother and Father's rooms had a distinct smell of urine coming from it although the room looked like it had been cleaned we felt this smell was coming from the carpet, when we read the literature on the hotel we realised they also catered for people with animals so assumed that accidents probably happened on the carpet on a regular basis.

Apart from my own room all other 3 rooms had very limited space and as we were staying for 5 days it did not make for good living arrangments, also again only my room had shelving the rest had to make do with wardrobe space but no where to put things like underwear and nightwear.

I must also say that I was not impressed by the fact that Escorts were leaving their calling cards under our doors, all four rooms received cards on the Thursday night we arrived, now it could be said that these people just walked in off the street and waited until someone with a key opened the front door of the hotel for them to enter, but I wonder how they knew that the rooms were occupied by the same people for four nights as we never received these cards again during our stay making me wonder if some of the staff was in on this. I asked other guests who arrived on Fri and Sat if they received cards which they had so they were still trying to flog thier wares but obviously thought it a waste of time to put cards into rooms were the guests were still the same from Thursday evening' s door drop now I wonder how they could have know that?

I understand that people will think you pay for basic accomodation that is what you get but our party was charged rates that made us believe the hotel would have more to offer. As we were staying 4 nights we received different prices for each night as some included week-end rates and some -midweek the rooms were costed £81 for the Fri and Sat and £50 for the Thursday and Sunday night giving us a overall total of around £260 per room. We have stayed in some lovely hotels within Ireland and the United Kingdom that charge the same rates as the Campanile and have had breakfast included in these rates without having been insulted once more by asking us for £6.25 each for breakfast the next morning.

When we tried to check out of the hotel my father was charged £300 instead of the £262 my sister went to reception and asked what they were playing at as they had overcharged my father , she was informed by the deputy manager (bully boy in the making, although he had never came across my mother before)that that was the price and that all four rooms would be charged £300. My sister disputed this and sent up to my room for an e-mail from the hotel that I had printed and brought along stating our room rates, even with this he still tried to talk my sister down and refused to refund my fathers money and still insisted that we would all be charged the new made up rates. My mother entered reception at this stage and tried to talk some sense into the deputy manager but he became abusive and nasty towards her so my mother told him she would inform the papers of how the hotel was ripping us off even though we had an e-mail from them stating the room rates. The deputy manager lost it even more and started saying he would sue my mother if she made a statement to the papers ( i find this laughable that he thought he could sue us for him trying to steal our money) At this point my mother informed him that she worked in a solicitors office and knew her rights so for him to go ahead and try to sue her just at this he completely backtracked and eventually refunded thier money and changed the rates back to the orginal price for the other 3 rooms.

Just to finish things off nicely he tried then to charge my husband and myselft for two nights food and drink which he said we had charged to our room. We agreed that we had eaten there the first evening and charged it to our room but not another evening. He tried to insist we had and when my husband asked to see the statement for the second evening it was a replica of our first evenings statement. Again he quickly backtracked and reduced the bill.

I think we can conclude that we will never ever ever stay in this Hotel again and will never be tempted to try any of its sister hotels in other regions.