The Duke Of Buckingham - Portsmouth

Carol P.

We booked for one night only and arrived at about 8pm. It would have been nice to have a warm welcome but the young lady on reception looked like she'd lost a pound and found a penny. Not even a little smile. The room, 12 on the third floor was clean and okay for a night or weekend but quite small. The bed was comfortable and the room quiet through the night. We had a good nights sleep. It's just rooms with a reception. If you want more, there are plenty of nearby places.

Alexandra M.

Not a great experience, even though me and my partner only stayed one night. Our bathroom became completely unusable as the toilet and shower became heavily blocked (at no fault of our own, especially as we barely used it after only being here for about 2 hours at this point), with hair and dirt (not ours) coming up from the latter’s plug. There is a communal bathroom on the same floor, but of course we paid to have a private bathroom and wouldn’t have booked otherwise. No one came to fix the bathroom either, so we were stuck with it. But the lady at the desk offered that we could use the bathroom in a room 2 floors above us, but the lights weren’t working. Not exactly what you want to be doing in the middle of the night if you need the loo.
The room itself was clean but basic, however there was noticeable damage on the headboard. Noises are also easily heard in neighbouring rooms.

Not worth the price we paid and would not recommend.

Adrian C.

We have stayed at the Duke of Buckingham now on two occasions. Once in the main hotel and recently in the Cottage annex around the back. Two different experiences.||Our first stay at the main hotel was great. Clean room. Nice comfortable bed. Tv, tea, coffee making facilities in the room. En suite with good shower. Street parking in area with a parking permit that puts you in the heart of Old Portsmouth. It’s a great location to explore and at a very reasonable price.||Then recently we stayed at The Cottage, annex. Still at the Duke of Buckingham but a separate building around the back. It’s a small property that’s been converted into 4 rooms with en suite bathrooms. Our room again was clean and tidy. Tv, tea and coffee facilities were great. The shower room was a little tired but perfectly acceptable for our short stay.||One thing we did experience this time. Noise. The floors and walls are paper thin and you hear everything in the cottage. And I mean everything!! We were woken early one morning by a couple in the room above practising their bedroom athletics! We laughed it off in good humour. The couple left early in the morning but strangely had no bags with them. Odd?||The same afternoon, we came back to the room after a day of sightseeing and were treated to another ‘sound show’ from above, this time a different couple and extremely noisy. We’re not prudes but this really was a little over the top, if you pardon the pun. There could have been youngsters in one of the other rooms, it was around 5pm in the afternoon so not late at all!||We had a table booked at a local restaurant which came to our rescue so we made a hasty escape. We eventually got back to our room at around 9:30Pm, hoping they’d got it all out of their system. Thankfully, they had, but just as we thought everyone was settling down for the evening, that said couple upstairs, left the building, dropping the keys off in the box outside our room, clearly checking out covertly. Who checks out at 10pm having checked in earlier the very same day? See what I mean with this?||We’re all adults and we are by no means prudish, but it did make us think the Cottage annex might not solely be being used by fellow tourist types like us! ||Of course it’s very difficult for a hotel to try and filter this sort of thing but we felt the experience warranted mentioning as it really was obvious what was going on. We wouldn’t recommend the Cottage annex to anyone with youngsters. We didn’t know we were booked into the cottage and wouldn’t want to stay there again on the back of this. It’s a shame because our first stay at the main hotel was great. ||The Duke of Buckingham is a good little hotel with friendly helpful staff, ideally situated at a very reasonable price in Old Portsmouth. It’s close to all the tourist attractions and has parking available outside. Just be advised about what we experienced if you happen to find yourself booked into the cottage at the back of the hotel!

june S.

This was the 2nd time staying here and unfortunately we got the same room number 17. To use the shower you need to kneel in the bath, the toilet was constantly making noises as though it was filling itself overnight, it was making the noise when we arrived, we did ask if we could change rooms but the very nice girl on reception said it would be another £20 (on checking their website the only room available was only £12 more than we had paid) we declined. Unfortunately we won't be staying here again

Martin W.

The main entrance to this accommodation is situated on the main road through to Old Portsmouth, a particularly pretty and interesting part of Portsmouth, with several pubs (serving food as well), the famous 'Hot Walls' (part of the old city defences), harbour and quaint houses. It is in a good location to access most of Portsmouth. Parking is a bit of an issue as it is mainly restricted to on-street parking, but they do offer a day permit for the area for £5. The lady in the reception area was very polite and helpful. Our room was a 'family room' and was situated in a little cottage just around the corner, off of the main road. The room was clean, tidy and comfortable. It was, however, a little small and probably not suitable for a family for a long stay. It had a double and a single bed, a small shower/bathroom, a telly on the wall, a small wardrobe and a side table (kettle, iron etc also provided). That pretty much took all the room, so there was not much floor space left! Our only other negative comment would be that the floorboards from the room above creaked quite badly and it was a bit noisy when those occupants moved around. I can imagine if there was a lot of movement from occupants above, it may be tricky to sleep if you are a light sleeper. The beds were comfy and it was a good (if somewhat small) shower. We only stayed for one night, and for this it was perfect. If you are thinking of somewhere to stay around Old Portsmouth for a short time visit, then I would recommend the Duke of Buckingham.

Melanie C.

The staff here are marvelous. Really helpful and obliging.|However the room was tiny, the shower so small that you had to be slim to use it and there were a number of things that needed replacing. I found myself going round fixing the chair, the tap etc.|Tea and coffee etc were plentiful and the shower gel was nice. |Whole room was spotless.|It didn't help that a really loud alarm went off at 2am but that isn't the hotel's fault.|However, due to the stuffy claustrophobic room, we struggled to sleep again so we decided to go home a day early|Nice, central location but I doubt I'd stay again. Sorry!|

steven2997

As I felt compelled to write in Google in aqn Uber upon leavins it was a great experience staying in this hotel. Wonderful and cheery people, Amazingly kept historic building and cozy room with all a traveler needs at an more-than-fair price. I will be returning to this hotel on my next trip to Portsmouth, UK. Recommended.

Brad P.

I stayed at the DoB hotel on 9th August 2024 - room 14 - and unfortunately experienced a few issues with my stay which I emailed the Duke of Buckingham about but never heard back.||Firstly, I had to race down to the hotel as the terms emailed to me said I needed to be there before 10pm otherwise I could not gain access to my room…fortunately I arrived on time but I noted that a notice at the reception desk said that your reception closes at 9:30pm…thank goodness I arrived in time but this mismatch of information between the email and desk message was concerning.||Secondly, I was unfortunately rudely woken by a fire alarm at 2:30am...after waiting around for some time the guests and I were informed that was a fault/false alarm. It took me ages to get back to sleep after that.||To make matters worse, I woke up early the next morning to have a shower and on turning it on, the shower head and the shaft it was attached to fell out of the holding bracket on the wall which I was eventually able to reattach after fiddling around with it - whilst undressed. It then took ages to heat up and the water shower was an awful sprinkling rather than a shower even after adjusting the shower head mode.