The Hatfield enjoys a special location looking out to the North Sea and Lowestoft’s unusual seagull hotels and providing a cheery welcome. Unfortunately first impressions were soon to be revised when we found ourselves in first floor bedroom 117 with windows closed, afternoon sun and radiator on full blast and a view obscured by opaque glazing to the lower half of our windows. Windows having been left widely open, we returned to our room later in the evening to a clearer understanding of our further fate, the kitchen ventilation system in the bin yard immediately below us noisily blowing greasy fumes directly into our room. We sought to move and were willingly offered an alternative in the Hotel’s Lodge across the road. The dank smell that greeted our entry did not bode well but our bedroom proved spacious and inviting. That is until we put facilities to use to discover a bath that creaked, a shower head that was uncontrollable, beds that were anything but comfortable and long curtains that were bedraggled and dirty. Nor was our disappointment to end there, our evening meal that began with fine starters continued with mains that for one was ridiculously piled high and for the other badly overcooked. We were unable to finish but offered alternatives by sympathetic staff. For all that was wrong, the public areas of the hotel provide a pleasing environment, staff were generally friendly and our breakfast was a delight, freshly cooked directly from the kitchen to the highest standard. It’s a hotel that would do well to match its other areas to the same standard.