Colleen
⭐ One Star for Hospitality, Five Stars for Existential Comedy and
Scary Movie set
If you have wondered what it’s like to vacation inside a David Lynch fever dream — look no further than the Albany Hotel in Hove.
Let’s start with the setting: it shares a wall with a boarded-up, abandoned building that looks like it’s about to star in its own “true crime” documentary.
Now, finding your room is part escape room, part Olympic trial. When the kind and genuinely lovely staff told us our room was “just up the stairs and to the right,” what they meant was: ascend three flights of creaking stairs, pass at least one or two portals to parallel dimensions, take a sharp right, go down a half-flight of inexplicable stairs, follow another hallway, make a suspicious right turn, and open a door that you’re only 65% sure isn’t cursed. Also: there were at least two lifts — clearly long deceased — both quietly mocking us with their dusty OUT OF ORDER signs like two metallic tombstones of convenience.
The stairs themselves were their own adventure — not only because of the sheer number of them, but because they came with surprise doors. Randomly-placed, vaguely ominous doors you must pass through mid-staircase like you’re completing a side quest in a haunted video game. And the carpet! Let’s talk about the carpet. Imagine “The Shining,” now imagine worse. Faded, worn, and deeply confused
Scary Movie set
If you have wondered what it’s like to vacation inside a David Lynch fever dream — look no further than the Albany Hotel in Hove.
Let’s start with the setting: it shares a wall with a boarded-up, abandoned building that looks like it’s about to star in its own “true crime” documentary.
Now, finding your room is part escape room, part Olympic trial. When the kind and genuinely lovely staff told us our room was “just up the stairs and to the right,” what they meant was: ascend three flights of creaking stairs, pass at least one or two portals to parallel dimensions, take a sharp right, go down a half-flight of inexplicable stairs, follow another hallway, make a suspicious right turn, and open a door that you’re only 65% sure isn’t cursed. Also: there were at least two lifts — clearly long deceased — both quietly mocking us with their dusty OUT OF ORDER signs like two metallic tombstones of convenience.
The stairs themselves were their own adventure — not only because of the sheer number of them, but because they came with surprise doors. Randomly-placed, vaguely ominous doors you must pass through mid-staircase like you’re completing a side quest in a haunted video game. And the carpet! Let’s talk about the carpet. Imagine “The Shining,” now imagine worse. Faded, worn, and deeply confused
