Where to Stay in Brighton?

Our Great Mini Break to Brighton.

It was my husband’s birthday, I won’t mention how old he was, but one treat was a mini break away with some lovely friends ... without the kids! I mean, as you know, we love spending quality time with the kids, but it’s also really nice to get away and have some fun without them too!

And what better place to run away to than Brighton! We go to Brighton once, or twice a year, sometimes with & sometimes without the kids! We normally see a show, have a few drinks, a mooch around the quirky shops, visit an art gallery or three and have a sleepover at one of the many great seafront hotels Brighton has to offer, but this time I thought we would find an apartment to stay in with our pals & what an amazing place we found!

Located on Madeira Drive, along the seafront, very nearly opposite the pier, this two, double bedroom, fourth floor apartment was absolutely perfect! It was spacious, it was beautifully decorated, it was very clean, had amazing views and it couldn’t have been better located!

I booked through Airbnb.com and immediately the owners were in communication. From the various messages we exchanged, they were so informative that I totally relaxed feeling reassured that we had booked somewhere very worthwhile.

Along came our winter break on a wet-weekend in January & check in was due to be from 4pm, but the owners sent me a message to say the apartment was ready and we could check in an hour early, which fitted in perfectly. We had stopped enroute to go Karting and so the apartment was ready for us by the time we arrived in Brighton. Perfect!

We found it quite easily, there is only one parking space that belongs to the apartment, our friend drove too and had to park 20 minutes walk away because the street parking nearby only allowed up to 11 hours of parking, that wasn’t great, but not too much of a problem really. Although the entire time we were there the parking space next to ours was never even used, so slightly annoying, although no-ones fault at all.

The key to the building was locked in a key box outside, the code had been sent to me a day before, the stairs leading up to the apartment was a bit grotty, it did leave us wondering what we might be letting ourselves in for, but we opened the apartment door and Wow, it was lovely!

The views across the sea from the living room were amazing, you could clearly see the whole of the pier, which looked lovely when it was all lit up at night time.

The living room was spacious, had a sofa, dining table & three chairs, a huge tv & was combined with the kitchen area, it was very modern and clean & came with an informative booklet about how everything worked & instructions on how to leave everything when it was time for checkout (which was 11am btw)

The main bedroom had a double bed, bed side cabinet, wardrobe, dressing table, was decorated beautifully and had an en-suite toilet. (Toilet & sink)

The smallest double room had a double bed under the window, it did fit in wall to wall, which I hear did make things difficult when one of our friends wanted to go to the toilet half way through the night, but didn’t want to clamber over his wife and wake her up … but I was told the bed was very comfortable and this room was also decorated beautifully and included a lovely wardrobe & gorgeous views of the sea.

The main bathroom had a huge walk in shower, toilet & sink & again it was very modern & clean.

Left for us in the kitchen area was use of a Nespresso coffee machine, four mini boxes of Kellogg’s cereal, one pint of milk, tea, coffee, sugar, toaster & many utensils etc. There was a dishwasher & one tablet. We were asked to take rubbish with us when we left and put the dishwasher on. Not a problem!

The only thing that was a slight worry to me, although not the fault of the owners, was shortly after we arrived, the fire alarm went off twice in the whole building. One of the neighbours silenced the alarm box on main entrance & no one else really seemed to be bothered by it, so seemed like it was a normal thing to happen. Whenever we passed this box it was buzzing & was lit on ‘ fault’, so not sure if that was actually working at all. I had visions of it going off during the night, but luckily this wasn’t the case. Obviously it is a hazard and does need to be looked at by professionals. Hopefully someone has since been on the case.

The other negative point was the lack of parking for a second car. I know staying in Brighton is not very cheap, for this time of year it costs approx £250 to stay at this beautiful apartment, which if we had stayed in a hotel, it would have been a similar amount, but then another £20 had to be paid for parking 20 minutes down the road.

The location was very convenient, close to everything. The pier, restaurants, the Laines, galleries, Sealife centre, everything. It poured down with rain most of the time we were there & it didn’t really matter. We still played in the arcade like kids, found some lovely bars, ate great food and had a fab time. Although we did have a bad experience in The MEATliquor. We waited for food for over an hour & at 10pm decided to walk out after being told it wouldn’t be longer than 10 minutes at 9:40pm! We were offered some free drinks though which we gratefully accepted! The most annoying thing about this though was we watched at least 20 meals go out for delivery, so the feeling was that they seemed more keen to get food delivered outside of the restaurant rather than feed their hungry, drink paying guests. There was another table next to us who were in the same situation, they too were getting a bit fed up of waiting, but we left before they did, so can’t comment on their total waiting time, or whether they stayed and was actually served their food!

We headed off, found a Wagamamas & had a lovely meal, so all good in the end, even though eating much later than we would have liked … at 11pm!

Anyhow, this review is not about the places we ate, but about the place we stayed at, so, if you are looking for a great little get away, as a couple or with friends, then we can definitely recommend this fabulous apartment. It is beautiful, clean, convenient and has great owners … What can be better than that??

If you would like to book this fabulous place to stay in Brighton, then please see the link here for more information.