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Aberystwyth hotels owned by Emyr Davies, fined for fraudulent ratings and derided on the web, not as bad as feared
If you sniffed very hard in the corner, the carpet smelt slightly of wet dog. There was a large dent behind the door. The sheets were a bit crinkled, the bathtub was vaguely scuffed, and the lightbulbs could have done with a dust. But contrary to its abject reputation, room 15 at Aberystwyth's Four Seasons hotel was otherwise disappointingly inhabitable.
The Guardian had been warned to expect far worse. Barely 24 hours before this newspaper's fateful visit, magistrates fined the hotel's owner £13,600 for giving himself a fake three-star rating, and for falsely claiming that the Four Seasons had recently been refurbished.
Defending himself, 40-year-old Emyr Davies argued that as English was not his first language, he had innocently misunderstood the meaning of the word "refurbishment" – an argument slightly undermined by his otherwise immaculate lexicon, and by the litany of other complaints lodged against his three Aberystwyth hotels: the Four Seasons, the Tŷ Belgrave, and the Queensbridge.
According to TripAdvisor, the trio are three of the worst guesthouses in Aberystwyth. According to prosecutors, they have besmirched the good name of the town's tourism industry. Among other gripes, double-booked guests claimed to have been unsympathetically shunted from hotel to hotel, with one ending up in Davies's wife's bedroom, which was still lined with her shoes.
Others complained of mould on the walls, of filthy bathrooms, water gushing from pipes, and waiters who could not tell a fork from a spoon – all of which prompted several national newspapers to dub the burly Davies a latter-day Basil Fawlty. These articles were strangely hard to come by in the Four Seasons on Friday, but they could be found – ringed with green highlighter and schadenfreude – in the neighbouring establishments that snake along Aberystwyth's terraced, multicoloured sea-front.
Of the Four Seasons' 60 reviews on TripAdvisor, 26 rated the hotel as "terrible" – the lowest grade possible. "If your only other option was to sleep on the street," wrote one former guest, "then perhaps risk it." Another lamented: "the most uncomfortable bed I can remember (trying) to sleep in." "I will definately [sic] be recommending this hotel to my worst enemies," promised a third. "Stupidly," a fourth guest added, "I ignored the bad reviews below!"
The Guardian arrived incognito, hoping to come to a similar conclusion. But however dire the 16-room Four Seasons may have been in the past, it failed to live up to its sordid billing. To be honest, the reception did look fairly new, even if the upstairs was tired. Rowan trees dot the pretty pavement outside, and the hotel's facade is one of the few on its street not to be flecked with seagull droppings. This newspaper was expecting plenty to complain about after the bad press, but in truth the shower was warm, there was a varied range of complimentary biscuits – not just ginger thins, but custard creams too – while the teabags nestled next to no less than six cartons of UHT milk.
In the morning, breakfast was the same as it would have been at the Holiday Inn. For one triumphant moment, it seemed the room lacked an alarm clock, but lamentably it had merely fallen behind the bedside-table. A previous guest at the Queensbridge claimed they had to lug their television unassisted from the attic – but room 15's TV was not only already present but frustratingly functional. And unlike one furious TripAdvisor contributor, who had to secure their lockless door with a tilted chair, room 15 also came with a well-oiled bolt. True, the restaurant closed early at eight, and the bar was shut by 10. But it was hard to knock an early closure when trade was hardly roaring. Nearby hotels did the same.
Other guests seemed equally satisfied. One man checked in for 14 nights, while a Romanian visitor, using the hotel's Wi-Fi network to Skype a friend late at night, told the Guardian that he liked the place so much that this was his second trip. "If you want beer," he shrugged, "go to the Spar."
The guestbook was almost exclusively studded by the words "lovely" and "excellent". At the Tŷ Belgrave the next morning, those checking out were – to a guest – unable to find fault. The rooms were very nice, very clean, very friendly, they said – and at £75 for a double, reasonable value.
But if the Four Seasons had one serious fault, it would be the price. One night's stay was £60 –£20 more than it was worth, and 10 higher than the £50 quoted on the phone. Shirley Davies, Emyr's cheery wife and receptionist (and a rare recipient of praise on TripAdvisor), claimed that no reduced rate had ever been mentioned, underlining the number "60" in biro on her pad several times as if to prove her point. But really, the hotel promised one price and then charged another, and – biro or not – that was the long and short of it.
The three hotels' websites also continued to mislead on Friday. The Four Seasons and the Queensbridge still purported to be, respectively, three- and two-star ventures, despite the local tourist board having long revoked their ratings, while the Tŷ Belgrave optimistically called itself a four-star boutique hotel. A stroll up the Belgrave's cheap staircases showed it was about as boutique as John Terry is couth. The Queensbridge is little more than a bleak bed and breakfast.
Still, Davies's lawyer said on Wednesday that the hotels had upped their game since proceedings started, and that seemed a fair assessment. "Better than we had been led to believe," was The Guardian's inscription in the Four Seasons' guestbook.