Unfortunately for Ocean View, we are well travelled and had just spent an amazing couple of days at the similarly starred/priced Luccombe Hall. What a contrast. OV's reception of us when we arrived early was disastrous (unprecedented for both me and my wife). The hotel is extremely tired, albeit freshly painted and generally clean. The breakfast was fine, being average. The indoor pool is very good and there is a decent ping pong table and small table football (and indoor bowls which we didn't visit). The view from our sea view room was half of the side of other rooms and overlooked the roof of the pool.
The owner told us that "most hotels* do not allow food in rooms" and confiscated our pizza, giving it back to us the next day from the fridge. Repeat, our food was confiscated by the owner because hotels generally*, and OV in particular, don't allow food in rooms. *I wonder if room service ever existed anywhere, for example...
On the one hand places like OV shoukd be downgraded to 2 star, but this woukd likely ruin them. On the other, they do service a market of less discerning and older coach parties, and probably quite well, so presumably is important for Shanklin. However, for most well travelled people in the mid-market, this is far from a 3 star experience.