Langstone Cliff Hotel, Dawlish Warren – review

September meant the annual line dancing weekend in Dawlish, so I headed off with a friend for our weekend away. The event was held at the Langstone Cliff Hotel in Dawlish Warren, so here’s my review of the hotel.

I’ve been to South Devon a few times, but never Dawlish. It’s always nice to go somewhere new. Dawlish Warren isn’t a large place. It’s very much the seaside holiday destination, although the hotel was just a short walk away from the amusements and seaside holiday park along the road. Overlooking the sea, the hotel is set back from the main road so it is fairly quiet. But there are trains going past regularly which you notice if you’re the the sea side of the building.

The Langstone Cliff Hotel is independent and family run, and has most of what people want in a hotel. If you want a fancy looking hotel, then you won’t get that in the architecture of this hotel. Although it does have a nice terrace with some Victorian iron work around the top. The design of the exterior of the rooms from the terrace gives off holiday camp cabins to me, but they do have balcony and sea view options. So it depends what you’re after.

Inside, it’s more standard hotel style. There wasn’t anything to complain about, everything was really clean and tidy. All the staff at the bar, restaurant or reception were helpful, friendly and chatty.

Bedrooms at Langstone Cliff Hotel

My room was a double, serviceable and did the job. My friend reckoned our rooms had been decorated since she’d last stayed. I don’t think mine wasn’t fully complete. The curtains and cushions matched, but didn’t really go with the one wall of paper. The chairs didn’t go with either. But they were all in good condition and everything worked. 

The room was quite warm, but both top and main windows opened, so it wasn’t too bad.

The bed was nice and firm, and as it wasn’t a zipped up bed, there was no sagging/line in the middle.

The tea tray had options for tea and coffee, and the tray included packs of biscuits daily.

I liked that there were multiple plugs around the room. 4 just by the desk, and more by each side of the bed, and not just standard plug sockets, but there were USB slots too. More hotels need to have similar in this day and age.

There was the usual desk and chair, big lamp, table, comfy chair, wardrobe with drawers in and solid cabinet which I used to put my suitcase on and small bag in. So plenty of storage if you were staying a while.

The bathroom did let it down though. The floor in mind was very creaky and wonky under the lino, and it did make me wonder if I’d go through it! The bath was quite high sided to climb into for a shower, but maybe I’m just not used to doing so. The shower was just a bog standard electric one, but it did have a good range of temperatures which were easy to work out.

I was lucky that I’d taken shampoo and shower gel myself, because my room didn’t have anything in like that other than a small bar of soap. But others staying said they did have toiletries. So I think it just depended which room had what. I presume if you asked the cleaners or at reception, they’d provide some for you.

I slept ok, although had very late nights of dancing, and got up fairly early for breakfast. But that was probably my alertness post dancing rather than the bed.

I was pleased how quiet the rooms were on the side I was staying. My room was right by the joining corridor leading out towards reception direction, and at night I didn’t really hear anything, and didn’t hear people talking outside the room as they walked past either.

Meals at the hotel

We were booked in for 2 nights as part of a line dance event, so had dinner and breakfast in the restaurant.

Breakfast was buffet style. There were lots of cereal options and full English cooked breakfast. You could have your fried eggs cooked in front of you if you wanted them done specifically.

Porridge was also available and very nice (once I’d added a small sprinkling of sugar. There were little bowls of mixed fruit, plus prunes, but no berries which I’d have liked for my porridge.

I thought the scrambled eggs were ok, and the sausages were cooked well enough for me on the first morning and were nice. The Sunday I stuck with eggs on toast.

I was also pleased to see a proper toaster rather than the usual conveyor belt style ones. Although the bread still took ages to toast.

Hot drinks were brought to you. We had hot chocolate in a pot on morning two which was delicious, but probably could have been a bit hotter.

The evening meals also had plenty of options with around 5 choices for starters and dessert, and 6 for mains (including 2 vegetarian dishes each day). We ordered our starters, then after having those could go up to the buffet to choose our mains. Dessert was then ordered too.  I don’t know if that was standard because we were a large group. I think normal hotel guests get a slightly bigger choice on the menu.

On Friday evening I had chilli on potato wedges to start, which wasn’t too spicy. Then chose a spinach, potato and ricotta wellington with various veg and sauted new potatoes which was really nice. Dessert was eton mess which was also good.

On the Saturday evening, I fancied the duck with potato salad starter which was tasty, followed by chicken tikka masala, rice and poppadom. All delicious, although the tikka was definitely quite mild which was probably better for dancing afterwards!  For dessert I had white chocolate malteser cheesecake. It was ok, but a lot of people said the creme brulee was nicer.

All in all, we all thought the food was good. No-one said anything wrong about their meals, which was good for a big group. And we certainly didn’t go hungry with 3 courses each evening.

Facilities

The facilities at the hotel are decent. 

As well as the outdoor pool there’s also an indoor one, although friends did say at weekends (and presumably school holidays) it can get busy with families. There’s also a gym, snooker table, and therapy treatments available to book.

There’s a good sized car park that’s free if you put in your registration number in the ipad at reception. And the terrace overlooks a decent sized grass area, along with the outdoor pool and children’s play equipment.  There’s also a nice looking tennis court that’s available to play on, table tennis table, and a golf practice ‘field’.

It’s only a short walk to the coastal path, down to the beach and amusements, and to the train station if you want to head off elsewhere. An alternative is the bus stop not far across the road just outside the hotel.

We walked down to the coastal path alongside the railway and walked it to Dawlish. It’s about 1.5 miles and mostly flat. There is a cliff top option before dropping down, but that’s harder going.

Overall my stay at the Langstone Cliff Hotel was good. If you’re expecting luxury you won’t get it. But you’ll get good service, good food, and a decent, reliable stay with good facilities.