Name: The Grove Ferry Inn
Address: Grove Road Upstreet,Grove Road, Canterbury, Canterbury, Canterbury, CT3 4BP, United Kingdom
Rating: 8

Smoke-free property

Garden

Terrace

All Spaces Non-Smoking (public and private)

General

Non-smoking rooms

Room service

Hairdryer

Flat-screen TV

Toiletries

Rooms

Wheelchair Accessible

Accessibility

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Coffee/tea for guests

Breakfast

Restaurant

Snack bar

Kettle

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet access

Internet

Barbecue grill(s)

Picnic area

Barbeque

Recreation

Parking

Water sport facilities

Pool and beach

Conference Hall

Business

Playroom

Kids

Location

At the guest house

Room amenities

Grove Ferry Picnic Site

Manston Airport

London Southend Airport

Rochester Airport

The Grove Ferry Inn

Canterbury

Wow! What a find! Last minute 2 night break. We got the last room! Great atmosphere! Super room! Excellent food (talk about go the extra Mile!) super hosts! Thank you, thank you, thank you. We will visit again for sure.

Excellent! Definitely coming back!

Let’s start with the positives. This place has so much potential! Countryside river location , near to Canterbury. 

 The rooms are spacious and the bed was very comfortable. At night the area was incredibly peaceful although loud music from pub woke us earlier than desired  in morning.( Around 7am)
 
The toiletries provided In room  were lovely and a nice touch but needed wiping down but the shower was powerful and hot.

The breakfast was good, but again the dining area and pub/ bar  areas are just in need  of a deep clean, as unacceptable dirty napkins left on windowsill  by our table and tables didn’t look clean. 

 There is certainly room for improvement, this is Mainly on the cleaning side . The bed was clean but unfortunately everything else was not. Thick dust around the edges of room, under dressing table, by plug sockets etc which must have been there for a long time to build up like that . Cobwebs in bathrooms that didn’t just appear over night. The rooms need a good clean of all surfaces  and a thorough hoover and mop/ steam clean throughout. 
 
Sadly the towels were unusable, they looked clean but when they touched your wet skin after the lovely shower they smelt overpowering  like damp/wet dog so we had to re-shower and drip dry.  No bath mat provided either which meant standing on the dirty floor.

If a few improvements were made with the standards of cleaning I would definitely then recommend this place to others. 

I really hope you take these things on board because you have so much working in your favour.

Room for improvement

This "hotel" is in a lovely location spoiled by rude and poor management. We have previously eaten here but when we stayed overnight for a special occasion and were disappointed  by dirty tables in the garden and limited service provided by teenagers without guidance  by the management team just sat and drank with their friends. The manager was aggressive to guests in a crowded dining area who had waited almost an hour for breakfast and complained that their toast was not toast 
Recent change of name on Tripadvisor doesn't fool anybody it  is still the Grove Ferry Inn -  look at those reviews too

Lovely location spoiled by poor management

Me and my fiancé booked to stay a night here after visiting wingham wildlife park, when we arrived we were greeted well, and shown to our room, our room was very clean and tidy and looked lovely, we dropped our bags in and went to the bar for a pint and was surprised to see a live band performing in the garden, so we sat out there and enjoyed listening to the music while we had a few drinks!

We then went up to the room to get changed for dinner, as soon as we were seated at our table the man was on us taking drinks orders, and once he had brought drinks over was asking if we were ready to order….all a bit rushed for our liking! We eventually ordered our main courses, and they were very quick to arrive! The food was ok, not as good as the reviews I have heard before coming here. 

The room was nice looking but needs minor work done, toilet seat broken, toilet flusher broken, toilet door lock broken and although a fan was supplied it wasn’t suffice so we had a bad nights sleep and then from 7.30am all we could hear was the staff moving furniture around below our room…check out was 10am so please let guests sleep….no need to be making so much noise from 7.30am!!! 

Overall this place has so much potential sadly lacking staff….nice location and the staff they do have are working hard but the man who served us didn’t need to tell us that he had been “running around like a blue arsed fly” when coming to take our order!!

Room rate was £119 for a night well overpriced, would we visit again, probably not!

First Time Here…

Rude management drinking while stressed staff were incompetently running (literally) around. Dirty toilets, littered dirty garden. Flat lager, 45 minute wait for scrambled egg breakfast on flaccid bread, no cereal no fruit. The faded interior and quality of the room reflected the lack of motivation of management and incompetence of staff.

Appalling

Visited the Grove Ferry Inn after a short stay in Canterbury. Will say that the food was amazing but also the customer service was excellent.

The staff were friendly and so helpful. 

Will definitely come here again!

Worth a visit!

We have just returned from this following our family get together for my daughter's 40th birthday.  I am writing to day how impressed we all were with our Grove Ferry experience.  From the moment we arrived we found the staff welcoming and accommodating.  Lovely seating area & the fire was lit on request! My daughter was given a complimentary flavoured gin for her birthday.  The birthday cake was given to the bar staff & candles & cake topper was placed & brought out to us together with plates & forks.  The rooms were clean, comfortable & spacious.  All the staff were professional & nothing was too much trouble for them.  We had dinner with no complaints from anyone! And the breakfast choice was varied & arrived prompt & hot.
We will definitely re-visit and have no hesitation in recommending this hotel.

Recommended Hotel

Having stayed here several times over the past few years we were really looking forward to a much needed break for our wedding anniversary as my wife and I are both key workers. Most times we have stayed in the past it has been taken over by new management but it has consistently been a perfect getaway, we have never had a single negative comment about the place. We have always stayed in the same room which has added sentimental value as we stayed in that room on our wedding night. We booked a night in our usual room a month in advance and specified an arrival time. We arrived on time and was taken upstairs by a pleasant hostess but when we got to the hallway we were informed that we would have to go back downstairs as it was still being cleaned. We went to have a drink in the bar which we were told would be added to our tab and half an hour later the room was ready - given the current pandemic we were not fussed about the wait. When we were taken upstairs the second time we were shown to the wrong room. At this point we showed our booking reservation and we had already mentioned the significance of our usual room in casual conversation on the stairs. We were informed that someone was already in the room we had booked and they had been there the previous night so the new room was our only option. We politely accepted there was nothing that could be done and checked if there was any price difference and told there was not. Upon entering the room we immediately noticed that the wallpaper was literally peeling off the whole wall. Already feeling disappointed, I decided to run a bath and make the most of the facilities. Unfortunately I filled the bath half way with just the “hot” tap and it was barely lukewarm so I pulled the plug and didn’t bother. By now we were feeling quite upset and considered going elsewhere for dinner but was struggling at short notice to book anywhere. If we had known our usual room wasn’t available we would have just come for dinner and not made an overnight booking at all so I went downstairs to talk to a manager. The hostess was apologetic and assured me she hadn’t added the drinks from earlier to our bill and called the manager over who not only offered weak excuses about the wallpaper, had no reaction to the lack of hot water, he unsympathetically refused to discount the room, actually apologise or explain why we were not contacted about the mix up and added insult to injury by offering to “compensate” us with steak and a pint for £15 which he stupidly explained was the special of the day on the menu so in no way was compensation as anybody could have ordered it at that price. He eventually offered to give us £30 discount on whatever meal we ordered. The bedroom radiator didn’t work but the bathroom one did and the bed (in comparison to our usual room) was cheap and creaky but the mattress was very comfortable. We are glad we did stay for dinner because the food was fantastic as usual but the real saving grace was our charismatic evening waitress Evie who was fabulous! The whole team of young staff were lovely, it’s just a shame their boss had such a terrible idea of customer service, lack of charm and no ability to provide basic levels of venue upkeep or communication and no understanding customer satisfaction. We will definitely not be staying again.

fantastic food, shame about accommodation and management

I’ve been here in the past for meals although never stayed and was expecting a nicer experience.
However for £99 for a room B&B as a single traveler I would have expected a well maintained, clean and nicely decorated room which was far from the my expectations
The room was big and spacious with a balcony whose doors wouldn’t close properly making the room cold and draughty, bare floorboards, run down furniture, fading paint work and dust on every ledge all lit with a 40watt light bulb and the bathroom (with no bath) had a very small shower growing mould. The only saving grace was a king size bed which was very comfortable with clean bed linen and towels.
I never stayed for breakfast as it was served too late for my needs but when asked if there was a refund as I had obviously paid for 2 people B&B  in a double room ,I was told sorry but breakfast is free and not included in the price.
I was committed to stay here as I was attending my Goddaughters 30th birthday party, but if I was a normal traveler I would have moved on elsewhere. 
Since the last time I was here about 3 years ago the whole place has become somewhat run down and is desperately in need of some tender loving care, and more staff, it could be a fantastic place. It was a very busy family venue obviously taking large amounts of money that some of which should be ploughed back in improvements.
In a nutshell unfortunately I feel I have been ripped off and would never stay here again unless things change drastically.

Disappointing expensive stay

We 'escaped the kids' and stayed here 2 nights ago. The room was lovely,large and comfy, with a balcony overlooking the river.
Our evening meal was very nice and reasonably priced. We ate Sat next to an open fire, in a quiet restaurant.
Our breakfasts were amazing. I seriously recommended the 'posh beans on toast'. Even if we had to pay for our breakfast separately, they were very reasonably priced.
The staff are so friendly and very accommodating.
We will definitely be returning here to eat, maybe bring the kids this time :-)

The Grove Ferry Inn

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