Last Friday, 8 of our members set off from London to Eastbourne for our September FAM trip to The Grand. The Grand is the only 5 star luxury hotel to be found on the British coastline and it is a beautiful looking property that stands prominently on the coastline and makes you think of old world glamour.
Our trip started with a glass of champagne or two and some amazing canapes, served in the Great Hall (which is where the hotel serves its famous afternoon tea, usually with strings in the background) whilst we waited for all of our members to arrive. After getting to know each other and catching up a bit, we moved on to our site visit which is the important part (well that and the champagne).
The Grand has 17 fully equipped meeting rooms which work for all types of events from small meetings to large conferences to receptions for up to 350 people. I particularly like the Compton room which is part of the Devonshire Suite which can take up to 120 cabaret. This room has it’s own private bar and purposely build stage. It would be perfect for a gala dinner! You can read all about the hotel’s meeting spaces and capacities here.
After our site visit, we met with Chillisauce whom had a little surprise for us. We were to be competing in two teams in “the Qube” (you can read more about it here) in a race to complete some nail biting activities. It was so fun and we had a go at two of the activities before we moved into the private dining room which can host up to 14 for a private dinner with a balcony overlooking The Great Hall. The room is gorgeous and we had a wonderful dinner in there. The food was amazing, we had Pancetta wrapped aged beef fillet with truffle leek risotto and for pudding, Belgian chocolate and orange assiette along with about 10 glasses of wine. We were very well looked after, the food was stunning, and had some hilarious conversations over dinner that are still making me laugh. As I always say, our group isn’t just all events, we have all become quite good friends and it is so good to catch-up with everyone and get to know new people.
This is the second time I have now been to The Grand in the last few months and I really love it. You feel really relaxed when you are here and taking a walk along the beach the next day always seems to make me feel amazing.
We think this hotel would be perfect for small conferences, people wanting to get away from London and would be amazing for a corporate cycling trip. The hotel has a fab outdoor heated pool and bar area as well which would be the perfect place to host your pre-dinner drinks before moving into either the private dining room of one of the other beautiful rooms.
Thanks ever so much to the team at The Grand for looking after us and to Chillisauce for letting us experience such a fun team building activity.
