Welbeck Hotel & Apartments IOM

The Welbeck occupies a run of Mona Drive at numbers 13 to 17, one row back from the Douglas seafront. It has clearly been doing this a long time, and it keeps apartments with their own kitchens alongside the bedrooms.

The frontage is Victorian, pale render with teal-blue ironwork along the balconies and the name on a board above the entrance. Reception inside is a curve of polished wood panelling with a vase of flowers on the counter.

Panelling, white cloths and the fireplace

Most of the ground floor is given over to rooms you can sit down in. The dining room is bright and set with white cloths, and the bar next door has bottle shelving, wood panelling and lighting turned low for the evening. There is a lounge with armchairs drawn up to a fireplace, and a steam room on the premises.

Bay windows and burgundy headboards

Bedrooms keep a traditional look: patterned walls, wooden or upholstered headboards, a wardrobe, a writing desk and a television. Several have a deep bay window with a seating alcove built into it, and the larger rooms fit a sofa in beside the bed. The apartments add a kitchen of their own with an oven and a dishwasher. Bathrooms are private, most with a glass shower enclosure and a heated towel rail. From the upper floors the rooftops drop away and the bay opens out behind them.

Mona Drive and the seafront

Mona Drive sits just behind the promenade, so Douglas Beach is a short walk from the door and the length of the seafront goes with it. The shops, the harbour and the rest of Douglas fall inside the same easy radius.

Who checks in

It suits people who want a hotel to behave like one: breakfast downstairs, a bar to come back to, somebody at a desk when you arrive. Families get the most out of the bigger rooms, and the apartments make more sense than a bedroom for a full week.