Bath Travel Guide
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A New Luxury Spa Hotel Will Access Bath's Natural Hot Springs
A new five-star hotel will bring some friendly competition to the centuries-old Thermae Bath Spa, a naturally-occuring thermal spring which has been in use since the 8th century BC. The English city of Bath (named, appropriately, after its most distinctive feature) is planning a 98-room luxury spa hotel that will access the same hot springs as its world-famous neighbor, the Thermae Bath Spa.
According to This Is Bath, developers of this new property will drill a new borehole 75 meters below street level to access the base of Hetling Spring. Our only piece of advice: keep Steven Tyler away from the construction site; we know how he gets around slippery surfaces.
Checking In On / Hotel Hell / Hotel Openings / Bath Hotel Reviews / England Hotels / → All Tags
Don't Expect Halcyon Days At The Halcyon Bath
Behind this door lurks a house of horrors, if our reader is to be believed
It seems like only yesterday that we were happily mulling over the advent of the Halcyon Hotel in Bath and wondering when the hell it was going to publish some pictures of its rooms.
Oh for those heady days of innocence. Because right now, we’re counting our lucky stars that the lack of said photos stopped us from booking a room, if the experience of one of our readers - and half of TripAdvisor - is anything to go by.
To recap, HotelChatter user Will Painter left us a detailed account of his stay at the Halcyon (we touched on it before but were too excited at getting a glimpse of the rooms to take it in properly). You can see the whole thing here, but here’s a precis. His verdict?
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The Halcyon Hotel in Bath is No Longer in Hiding
We've long been wondering what the rooms looked like at the brand new Halcyon Hotel in Bath, England but when the hotel opened last month, they were still displaying black and white sketches of the rooms on their website. We'd almost prefer a thumbnail photo to that!
However, the hotel has finally come through with plenty of pictures on its website. There are room photos for each type of room (that one above is the Studio room) as well as photos of the bar and the rest of the hotel.
Hotel Openings / Bath Hotel Reviews / England Hotels / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
The Halcyon Bath Is Open, But What Does It Look Like?
At least we know what Bath looks like, even if we’re stumped as to the Halcyon itself
Well the opening of the Halcyon Hotel in Bath went to plan this weekend, if its blog is anything to be believed, but there still aren’t any photos doing the rounds to show us what the place looks like.
There’s one review on TripAdvisor, calling the hotel “beautiful”, the staff “very friendly” and the price “excellent”, but seeing as this is that person’s first review, we’re inclined to take it with a pinch of possible PR salt.
Hotel Openings / Bath Hotel Reviews / England Hotels / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
Is The Bath Hotel Scene About to Join the Modern Age?
This is what passes for modernity in Bath
Now we know most people like Bath, what with it being probably the prettiest town in England, but we’ve always found it a bit twee and timewarpy for our tastes. We stayed there once when we were little, and although we don’t quite remember the decor, we’re pretty sure it was on floral overdrive.
But we might be ready for a rematch, if the new Halcyon hotel lives up to its own hype. It reckons it’s going to set a “new standard of modern living” in the city. Seeing as the city in question is Bath, you might think that doesn’t mean much, but it actually sounds quite sleek: Philippe Starck bathrooms, White Company products, MP3 players (not cassettes?), plasma TVs, and walk-in showers. Everything, in fact, we’ve come to expect from hotels these days. Go Bath!
English Hotels / Country Hotels / International Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
The Residence in Bath Is Almost Like Home
Simply called The Residence, there's a hotel in Bath, England, that seems to hark back to Jane Austen days of exclusive clubs and high society--except that if we've got the cash, we can stay there too. There are just six rooms for guests but they are part of a larger complex inside an old Georgian house, with a restaurant, bar and gardens also accessible to members of the private club.
Recent guests at TripAdvisor can't speak highly enough of The Residence, with everyone loving the luxurious rooms and a few mentioning the "adults only" drawer, too! But a UK Telegraph review over the weekend was not quite as over-the-top impressed, citing short showers, erratic bar service and inadequate reading lights in bed--but it sounds like they might be a bit on the fussy side.
Luxury Hotels / Country Hotels / English Hotels / Monica Guy / → All Tags
Quintessential Englishness: The Bath Priory
Monica Guy is fed up with the old guard hotels of the U.K. that may have entertained her grandparents when they were tripping all over the world in their youth but have since been lasting on reputation and little else. In this new feature, she pits her grandma's favorite hotel against some of the new hip hotels popping up across the rainy motherland. Enjoy.
So you'd won in Oxford and won in Cambridge - your slick boutique hotels were a hundred times smoother than gran and granddad's choice. Proves you can't sleep on a bed of reputation.
But your grandparents excelled themselves in Bath with the much discussed (in upper-class circles) Bath Priory. The quintessential hotel image of Englishness in a hotel that's worth its reputation.
Bath is a beautiful University city in the west of England, with hills as steep as the sides of houses and a newly opened working reconstruction of the healing Roman baths after which the city's named. It's increasingly on the tourist trail as visitors venture further and further out from London.
But Bath is as old as, well, the Romans, and there isn't much room for shiny new buildings. Hotels - anything from mangy tourist pickups to stylish boutique hotels such as the Queensbury hide behind Victorian, Edwardian or even Gothic façades and you've got little chance of knowing what you're in for.
England Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Bath's Queensberry Is Pleasant, But Lacks Minibars
We like the UK Times regular feature where they send a Mystery Guest into a hotel: of course, the Mystery Guest is usually just a staff writer enjoying a weekend of perks, but the logo they use in the write-ups is kinda cool. Recently an MG hit the Queensberry Hotel in tourist-mecca Bath.
In true British style, the MG summed up the Queensberry as "agreeable". As we understand it, that's a pretty positive rating. On the positive side, the Queensberry room picked out for the Mystery Guest was
pleasant, soothing and quiet, with high ceilings, a huge sash window looking on to the terrace, and a big, light-filled white-and-chrome bathroom with decent toiletries.
So far, so good. But it doesn't quite have everything: the flat-screen TVs are small, the bedside reading lights twist too much or burn your fingers, and--the ultimate travesty--there's no minibar. Game over.
Related Stories:
· Queensberry Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Queensberry Hotel Bath [UK Times]
· On Your Bike To Bloomfield House, Bath [HotelChatter]
· English Soaked About Bath's Baths [Jaunted]
Eco-Hotels / England Hotels / Bath Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
On Your Bike to Bloomfield House, Bath
Bloomfield House in Bath, west of London, was taken over by new owners a couple of years ago who were determined to turn it into an environmentally responsible hotel. The food is all organic, they promise to minimise their resource use and they're working towards zero waste output; they even run seminars on environmental topics! But beyond the long "sustainability charter", they actually also put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, by giving discounts to eco-guests:
Being an emerging eco-hotel, Bloomfield likes to reward guests who are themselves prepared to make an effort on behalf of the planet and society. Those who travel by train or other public transport - or even by bicycle - will earn themselves a discounted bed and breakfast rate. Conference guests arriving in a sustainable manner are entitled to additional privileges, negotiable when booking their events.
Can't get fairer than that. Bloomfield House's motto is "A break with convention" which seems to sum them up quite well.
[Photo: *stardust*]
Related Stories:
· Bloomfield House reviews [TripAdvisor]
Hotel Hell / → All Tags
What's Wrong With British Hotels?
The Menzies Waterside hotel is basically a cheapo Travel Tavern with 4 stars as part of its logo, but which actually delivers a 2 star experience.
So says blogger Commonplace Book, and it looks just about every TripAdvisor user to visit the hotel agrees.
Another recent hotel guest added:
How this hotel rated itself as 4 stars in the glossy brochures (and on travel sites) remains a mystery.
None of the basics of a 4-star hotel - such as ventilation (no heating or air conditioning, window only opens two inches), no fridge or mini bar. Some parts of the bath room obviously parts of the old hotel with just a new slap of paint and poorly renovated. Bed only just technically a "Double".
Blogger Commonplace concludes:
It's my firm belief that the British simply can't "do" hotels. Whenever I've stayed in the UK it's inevitably been shabby, threadbare and hideously expensive.
Wow. Is the UK dangerously close to entering Italy's territory as country of terrible hotelier's?
Let us know if you have had similar or opposite experiences at UK hotels.
Related Stories:
· British Hotels [Commonplace Book]
· Menzies Waterside Bath Hotel Reviews [TripAdvisor]
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Bath England Hilton: Tissues Not Included?
[Hotel Maven rumgal vents about a bad stay at Bath England Hilton. Enjoy.]
After returning from a bad experience at the Bath England Hilton, I emailed Hilton, only to be told that management would be unable to respond directly to my concerns. The Bath Hilton is owned/managed by Hilton International. The lengthy explanation went on to say, "Hilton Hotels Corporation and Hilton International are two separate companies. Hilton International is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hilton Group PLC, based in London. Even though, for the convenience of our shared customers, Hilton Hotels and Hilton International share a reservation system and a stay at any Hilton can qualify for HHonors points, the responsibility for the day to day operations of the hotels fall under the direction of the owning company."
So no one is gonna help out with this?
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