My mother and I stayed here for a couple of days to visit the local area and the Great Yorkshire Show. I had been toying with the Cairns or two other hotels in Harrogate, the thing that swung it was the onsite parking and plenty of it. On arrival it was utter chaos, they were preparing for a conference/exhibition and there were vans and lorrys everywhere. We eventually found a parking space and went to check in. Check in was easy and staff were very pleasant. The rooms were, i must admit, a little disappointing. Very clean and everything you needed but both a little tired and dated. Fortunately my mothers' room had a walk in shower, but i had the shower over the bath that didnt quite work properly and didnt quite reach and to top it off, the clinging shower curtain! My toilet didnt flush either without a rigorous pumping action. The breakfast was plentiful and there was a good choice. But i have to say, why oh why serve a cup of tea from those awful catering flasks, it always seems to doing something nasty to the tea and considering we were in Harrogate, (home of Betty's tea room) the morning tea should be served from a proper tea pot, a fundamental cheap and nasty error. Fortunately a lot of hotels have moved on from these flasks and have gone back to the good old tea pot....My mother and I stayed here for a couple of days to visit the local area and the Great Yorkshire Show. I had been toying with the Cairns or two other hotels in Harrogate, the thing that swung it was the onsite parking and plenty of it. On arrival it was utter chaos, they were preparing for a conference/exhibition and there were vans and lorrys everywhere. We eventually found a parking space and went to check in. Check in was easy and staff were very pleasant. The rooms were, i must admit, a little disappointing. Very clean and everything you needed but both a little tired and dated. Fortunately my mothers' room had a walk in shower, but i had the shower over the bath that didnt quite work properly and didnt quite reach and to top it off, the clinging shower curtain! My toilet didnt flush either without a rigorous pumping action.

The breakfast was plentiful and there was a good choice. But i have to say, why oh why serve a cup of tea from those awful catering flasks, it always seems to doing something nasty to the tea and considering we were in Harrogate, (home of Betty's tea room) the morning tea should be served from a proper tea pot, a fundamental cheap and nasty error. Fortunately a lot of hotels have moved on from these flasks and have gone back to the good old tea pot. It appeared that the Cairns demographic was the older traveller who traditionally enjoy a good cup of tea so it may be an idea to consider moving on too?

Overall I would say that considering the Cairns (a 3 star hotel) and a couple of the others (both 4 stars) were around the same price, I would probably book elsewhere, but in the Cairn's defence, fundamentally there wasnt anything wrong other than a few niggles and the overall sadness of the building. All the staff that we came into contact with were extremely pleasant and courteous.More