Posts Tagged ‘hotels’

Here is our review of the Feversham Arms hotel in Hemsley.

I’m describing it as “pretty good”. The staff were friendly. The room was nice: we were given an upgrade to what I think was a junior suite as we had a separate lounge and bedroom. The shower was big enough to fit both of us in. The room was draughty, though, thanks mostly to the door to the balcony. We had to keep the curtains drawn across it to keep the room at a reasonable temperature.

The spa was okay. There were a bunch of different sauna and steam rooms. One sauna is pretty much the same as the rest to me, but Elina suggests it might be more fun if you are a hen party who enjoys going from room to room and saying things like “oh yes, this is soooo relaxing”. The hot tub wasn’t working and the heated pool couldn’t stay warm enough given the snow, but we did manage 10 minutes in there.

We didn’t bother going back to the spa in the morning as it wasn’t that exciting. The night’s sleep was a good one: nice and quiet. Breakfast was good-quality hotel standard. We also received a goodie bag to take away, containing a brochure of their other hotels and two bottles of water.

While in London, we stayed at the Judd Hotel. It was a mixed bag.

On the good side:

• It was nicely furnished
• The staff were friendly
• Good location, just round the corner from King’s Cross
• It included a cooked breakfast

On the bad side:

• It was freezing cold – the doors and windows did not fit properly which let the cold and the noise in
• The bathroom was so tiny I could barely fit in it
• The wifi might have been free, but it sucked. I couldn’t access my emails or connect to my VPN and trying to download anything was lost cause.

On the Saturday evening we stayed at the Belgrave Hotel in London. Or at least one of them. According to the internet there are two in London with that name, so for clarification it was the one on Belgrave Street.

It was okay for what it was. It had a big TV that I was able to watch the Grand Prix on on the Sunday morning (luckily it was on BBC, as they only had limited Sky Sports like most hotels seem to) and the shower was nice. The room was what you would expect from a London hotel though – pretty tiny. The wifi was unusably slow when I tried it also.

Everything is premier, even the phone number to call reception.

I recently stayed at the Arora Hotel in Manchester. Given I paid £220 for a room, I have to say I was very disappointed. Especially as that was room only, breakfast was an extra £28. Things I didn’t like about it:

• There was no manual in the room explaining things like breakfast times, how the room worked, how to use the internet, etc
• The room was very warm and the cooling system didn’t seem to do anything
• Despite this, the cooling system continued to make a noise all night
• The windows didn’t open very far
• The wifi didn’t work properly as far as I could tell. I was supposed to get 30 minutes free (there was a charge for using it longer) but when I connected to the wifi network, it wouldn’t let me select hotel guest and any other option required me to login
• There was no 3G signal, so I couldn’t hotspot on my phone
• The heated towel rail did not work
• The shower was very weak

The “Cloud 9” bed was okay, but nothing amazing. It did have some nice features – there was a bidet in the bathroom and the breakfast was good. Overall, I was quite disappointed though.

While in Helsinki we stayed at Hotel Haven.

I was expecting the rooms to be really small, as they are shown so on the virtual tours. However, it seems that is only for sea room views; our room was quite large.

Positive points:

• Good size room
• Very well furnished
• The wifi was included and didn’t come with any stupid login system – you just got the WPA2 code, connected as many devices as you liked and you’re on permanently
• TV in the bathroom
• Shower had a massaging shower head
• Breakfast was good
• Staff were helpful
• It was very quiet
• The beds were very comfortable and I got some brilliant night’s sleep
• The curtains did a great job of keeping the light out

Points for improvement:

• Our TV slash entertainment system didn’t work on the first night
• The bed was two single beds joined together
• The windows didn’t open

Overall, it was a really enjoyable stay and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back.

Photos:

Video review:

While I was at QED, I stayed at the hotel the conference is in – the Mercure. It is a good hotel for a conference, as it had the facilities right next to the bar, as I discovered when I was there last year for PHPNW. However, staying there, I was a little disappointed.

I will say that the staff were very friendly and accommodating – which really made the stay a lot better than it could have been, and they are a real asset to the hotel.

However, I’ve clearly been spoilt by too many stays at The Marriot. The room was small and if you wanted room service, there was a £3 tray charge. The room had internet listed as a feature, which I naively took to mean free internet. I’m told it wasn’t free, but I couldn’t even find out, because it wasn’t wireless and I hadn’t brought my little adapter, so I didn’t have a network port.

When we got there on the Friday night, we ate in the restaurant bar, which took ages to order and even when we only ordered two burgers, took around 35 minutes to arrive.

At breakfast, I felt the food was rather overcooked, and their lunchtime sandwiches, that master of ceremonies Brian Thompson joked “cheap sandwiches are available – I don’t know if that means inexpensive…”, were £2.50 and lacking in filling.

Given the Britannia Hotel is just across the road, I’m not sure the Mercure represents best option.