The Richmoor Hotel

The Richmoor Hotel sits on Weymouth's Esplanade, directly opposite the beach and a short walk from the pier and the harbour, which makes it one of the more practical seafront bases in town for anyone who wants sand and sea a minute from the front door.

Dogs are explicitly welcome and so are service animals. The pet charge is £10 per dog, per night, which stacks up on a longer stay and is worth adding to the headline room rate before comparing the hotel with alternatives; parking in the hotel's yard is charged separately at a similar nightly rate, and guests travelling with dogs have flagged the combination as the main sting in the bill. Dogs need to be well behaved and cannot be left unattended in the room, so this is not a hotel for a day out without the dog.

Where it does better than most seafront hotels of its size is the public rooms. Dogs are allowed in two sections of the restaurant and bar, though not up on the seating, so you can eat and drink downstairs with your dog rather than retreating to the bedroom. Staff come in for consistent praise: helpful over parking, relaxed about dogs, and willing to sort problems out.

The building is the weak point. Rooms are clean enough in most reports but visibly dated, and the communal areas are dark and tired. Housekeeping is the recurring complaint, with guests finding floors not properly vacuumed and dog hair left from previous stays, empty toiletry dispensers and shower problems; a minority have found rooms poor enough to cut a stay short. Music from the bar below carries into some rooms, and standard rooms can be small, so the sea-view rooms are the ones worth paying for.

The Richmoor suits dog owners who want a well-placed, inexpensive Weymouth seafront stay with the beach across the road and a bar they can sit in with their dog, and who will trade a dated interior and a nightly pet charge for the location. It earns a 4.1/5 paw rating.