The Riverside Hotel

We were five to stay there for three nights in one double ensuite room, one double room and one single room. Bear in mind that not all room have ensuite, so be careful when you book if you don’t want to share.
The pub is nice, it’s been completely renovated, the food is good and the staff are nice. It’s well located, not far from the city center and right in front of the train station, and has parking spaces. But that is about the only positive comments I can make about the hotel.
The rooms were clean, the common bathroom and toilet a little less. But the ensuite bathroom looked pretty shabby and the toilet’s flush didn’t always work. We asked for it to get fixed the first night we were there and were told it would be done the next day. When we left, the plumber still hadn’t come.
As for the single room, it was riverside and the window was directly on the fire escape. There was a staircase leading from the open parking lot to the fire escape, which meant that anyone could go up and enter the room were the window open, or plainly break into the room given the poor quality of the window’s lock. Furthermore, a hot water pipe went through that room towards the common bathroom next-​door. It heated the room up to an unbearably high temperature. And due to the fire escape, leaving the window open during the day while we were away to cool the place down was not an option, neither was keeping it open at night. The heat was so unbearable that I slept in my parents’ room the last night. I therefore strongly recommend to specify that you don’t want a room by the fire escape when you make your reservation. Another slight inconvenient is that rooms being located right above the pub, you can hear the music until the pub closes up.
Also, when we arrived, we were told that breakfast was open from 7 am, without any further precisions. We left on a Saturday morning. When we showed up downstairs at 7, the pub (where breakfast and reception are) was closed and there was no one in sight. We waited until 8; still no one. Three of us having a ferry to catch, the others waited some while longer to pay and give in the keys. I’m not sure how we would have solved this problem if all of us had had to leave early.
To conclude, it is a nice place to go have a beer and eat. But it’s not so great to sleep. I only gave the place ²⁄₅ for the pub and nice personnel. Otherwise, it would have been a ¹⁄₅.

The Riverside Hotel is actually called The Station Hotel (though their website address still has the old name in it) and is located right across the street from Ipswich railway station.
While the exterior looks nice and oldfashioned in a good way, don’t let that fool you — this is not really a hotel.
The Station Hotel offers a couple of «en suite» rooms with a bathroom and a whole wing with double junior-​bed rooms with a sink and a «lovely» view of the busstop in front of the railway station. There’s a common bathroom and a common WC in the hallway and while the toilet is fine, the tub in the bathroom looks like it hasn’t been touched since it was installed (and I’m guessing it was installet AT LEAST 20 years ago).
We stayed in room 6 which was a tiny room with two junior beds (if you’re over 1.8m tall there’s a chance you won’t fit the bed length-​wise, btw) on wheels which kept moving around all the time. We had a sink in the room, fitted with typical British taps — one for cold water and one for warm (scolding hot, I’d say). We also had a closet and a small flat screen TV mounted on the wall in front of the beds.
My boyfriend’s sister stayed in the hotel’s (most likely) only single room with a view on the river but was unable to stay in her room more than one night because the warm water pipe going through it to the bathroom made the room’s temperature go up to mid 30’s (‘C) in the night. His parents stayed in an en suite room with two single beds and a bathroom.
The accomodation-​part itself gets a weak 2-​star rating for me — I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stay here but…
The pub and the staff of the Station Hotel get a strong 4-​star rating from me. The staff were amazing — very, very helpful, nice, patient and down-​right kind. Whether it was the guy working the morning shift (who served me coffee before 9am even though they didn’t open the pub and restaurant-​part until 10 am on Saturday) or the super-​sweet guy and waitress working the evening shift, we were treated the same way I’d expect to be treated at a 5-​star hotel in New York.
The food was very good as well — whether it was breakfast (where you got a ton of options including «build your own breakfast» with a variety of foods to choose from) or dinner. The fish&chips were very good but the fish could’ve done with slightly less batter, and the meat pie was down-​right the best thing my boyfriend and I ate during the entire trip.
Another honorary mention goes to the hotel’s location — right by the town’s railway station and a short walk (less than 10 minutes) to the city center with it’s boardwalk and shopping mall.
Overall, it was a nice stay and I’m positive I’ll remember it fondly.