Every hotel should have one....

I have suddenly realised that one of the strengths of the daVinci are the staff themselves and, in particular, the manager whose contribution to the hotel is rarely acknowledged.





Frank (aka Farakh to his family) has held the role of manager since the opening of the hotel and is responsible for the day to day running of the establishment. He looks after the booking system, updates our availability, manages the hotel finances and was responsible for designing the hotel website.

In the morning he is up early serving the guest breakfasts and is so particular about quality that he rarely lets anyone else cook. Interestingly enough, the only complaints that we have ever had about breakfasts were on the days when Frank was not in charge....I suppose I should be grateful that he takes so few holidays!

As if this is not enough evidence of his varied talents, Frank is the person responsible for the designs in our rooms at the top of the hotel.


Every hotel should have a Frank and I am pleased that we have and they have not!!!

Beachy Head Lighthouse

Trinity House intends to switch off the Beachy Head lighthouse because modern navigation equipment has made lighthouses less important for negotiating the coast.

The lighthouse is the second lighthouse in the area and was brought into service in 1902 when the original Belle Toute lighthouse was decommissioned because of cliff erosion.

The Beachy Head lighthouse was staffed by three lighthouse keepers until 1983 when it became fully automated. The iconic red-and-white striped tower is 43 metres high and situated 165 metres from the base of the cliffs.

The new lighthouse was built under the direction of Sir Thomas Matthews, the Trinity House Engineer-in-Chief and took two years to complete. The lighthouse was constructed from 3,660 tons of Cornish granite.

The original Belle Toute lighthouse still remains although not in its original position. In 1999 due to continuing erosion threatening the future of the building the lighthouse was lifted up on runners and dragged 17 metres inland to safer ground.

Another year at an end and I have decided to draw up my own honours list dedicated to all of those people who have managed to make my life a misery during the course of 2009.


In no particular order............

The skip company who thought it acceptable to take additional money from the hotel credit card long after we had settled our bill.

The building company who installed new showers on the top floor of the hotel and put half of them in the wrong way around.

Our contracted lift company for telling us about the faults with our lift but fail to do anything about them.

British Gas for failing to send us a bill then trying to recoup the money by threatening to take us to court.

‘JustTravelling1’ who asked us to ensure that art work was suitable for viewing by young children and had no pictures with 'naughty bits'.

‘PJS999’ who managed to write a negative review about us on TripAdvisor in spite of the fact they never stayed at the hotel.

The neighbour who lets their dog crap all over the beautiful square outside the hotel because they can’t be bothered to clean up.

The local council for introducing parking restrictions and not even giving us a day off on Bank Holidays ...what a rip off!

The Planning Committee for hassling me mercilessly about the hotel sign and then approving it unconditionally.

The Performing Rights Society who are now trying to extort money from us because we have television sets in all of our bedrooms.

...and finally.

A big thank you to all our guests who made 2009 such a memorable year and our very best wishes for 2010 when we look forward to seeing you again.

Paul and everyone at the da Vinci Hotel

SOS - Save our Sign 2

Surprise, surprise....our sign is approved unconditionally at the council meeting on the 20 November 2009. The Conservation Officer raises no concerns and the Conservation Area Advisory Group raised no objections to the application.

The delegation report recommends approval and concludes “The sign is considered to be appropriate in scale, form and position for this listed building, and given its commercial nature, it could be described as restrained”

Restrained......!!!!

SOS - Save Our Sign

The saga of our hotel sign continues and it has now been over a year since the council decided to object to our hotel signage....this is regardless of the fact that the sign is exactly the same size as the original and in exactly the same place as the one that advertised our predecessor.

The Planning Enforcement Officer suggested that council would prefer 18 individual letters to be drilled into our front wall so that passers by might catch a glimpse of the sills (and the drainpipe) which lies underneath.

The Conservation Officer preferred two small signs in order to identify the hotel as two buildings – so ‘da Vinci’ on one side and ‘eastbourne’ on the other....I dismissed his suggestion as aesthetically unacceptable.

Then the new Conservation Officer suggested we remove the word ‘eastbourne’ since it was obvious that it was Eastbourne....I am surprised to learn that we are now being discouraged from using the town’s name in our signage.

We received a curt letter from the Planning Support Services requesting further information including detailed scale drawings, three copies of an Ordnance Survey plan, a Design and Access statement and a Waste Management Plan – you could not make this up.

So I have decided enough is enough and resubmitted plans based on the exact same sign that we already have in place. It seems that the worse that can happen is that the whole lot is rejected and by the time I have exhausted a few appeals, I shall have enough money to buy a new sign.

Reception desk

We were a bit surprised to find that our lack of a reception desk was something that our guests might miss. I have spent many an hour queuing at desks and find the wait frustrating and unnecessary.

Our preference is to welcome our guests by inviting them to sit them down in the lounge. Then we can register them in the comfort of our own chairs and serve them tea/coffee as needed. We also save money by not having staff standing all day behind a desk doing very little.

Departure is just as easy since we print all our bills out beforehand .... so no hanging around while we locate your bill then print it off. Seems obvious to us but maybe we’ll check to see what our guests want.


PS Just worked out that the cost of employing a receptionist would add approximately £5.00 per room per night to the bill

Slow train to Eastbourne

Isn’t it about time that Eastbourne had a better rail service?

While visitors to Brighton are favoured with additional trains and additional capacity, we are provided with a branch line service with trains so full that they remind me of the underground during rush hour.

And while they are treated to a non-stop journey, we are calling at just about everywhere including Berwick, Balcombe and Wivelsfield where the platforms are not even long enough to accommodate the train.

For travellers, the train journey to Eastbourne is fraught enough as we worry over whether we are sitting in the right part of the train lest I end up in Bognor Regis, Littlehampton or Seaford.

Southern claims to listen to its customers and aims to “create a different kind of train company: one that delivers by thinking like the passengers it serves”.

Well think again I say.