Sea Spray (Brighton)

I used to pity people who visit the same resort each year - stay at the same place, eat the same food - visit the same shops, do the same things. There's got to be more to life than that, surely?

The irony of growing old(er) however is that occasionally you find somewhere so good that it's worth returning to over an over; where it's not much the familiarity that makes it fun, it's knowing in advance that it'll be effortlessly awesome.

This year we branched out slightly - not only changing room but to an entirely different hotel (risqué I know!) Having abandoned hope of a room with roll top bath & wood burning stove we lowered our expectations and opted for a room with balcony overlooking the pier (note railing in the foreground of the pic above). Two nights (Fri/Sat) cost us about £350 inc breakfast (which in age old tradition we slept through on Sunday).

Sea Spray's a few streets away from Paskins; slightly closer to the centre of Brighton. Like Paskins it also does a cooked vegan breakfast (not that this is strictly needed in Brighton, where you'll inevitably be eating a massive lunch a couple of hours later). Parking's expensive and on street only, costing a further £20. We were lucky enough to get a space directly outside the 1st night but had a 5 minute walk on the 2nd.

According to TripAdvisor the rooms vary massively - the general advice being to avoid the basement! We we quite pleased with our 1st floor room - whilst I'm not convinced that they fully pulled off the "Renaissance" theme that they were aiming for it was large, light and airy. The king sized bed was impressively comfortable and I got the best sleep I've had in a hotel in ages:

That view was too expense to only show once:

Breakfast was alright but fairly uninspiring (Paskins' is better). The first "vegan breakfast" came with fried eggs - the 2nd attempt looked a lot like this:

Would we stay there again? Maybe. I'm not sure it's worth the extra over Paskins - however comfortable the bed. Next time we may branch out further and go somewhere without vegan food - there's always cake to be eaten in town.