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Some Good News If You Have the Misfortune To Be Called Guy Fawkes
Where: United Kingdom
Know anyone called Guy Fawkes? Or Catherine Wheel? No? Us neither. Funny, because from the offer that Future Inns has announced this morning, there’d be quite a few.
Here’s the offer, in all its resounding, poor-grammared idiocy:
There is hope for some Guys Fawkes’ [sic] this November: Whilst many will be hoisted to the top of bonfires as people across the UK prepare for fifth of November celebrations, leading hotel brand Future Inns has pledged to protect other ‘Guys’ around the UK by offering a free room for the night.”
Neat idea, you’re thinking. You’ll probably tell your friend Guy about this one. Except, no you won’t. Because the offer isn’t open to people called Guy. It’s purely for people called Guy Fawkes. And we would happily lay money on not being able to find one in time to claim his free room (worth a whole £69, or $113), come November 5 (the offer runs from 5-11 November, in case you’d like to have a go).
Tags: Anti-View / Days Inn Hotels / UK Hotels / → All Tags
Not Much Daylight Shines Through at This Days Inn
Ed. Note: Usually we do these feature on Thursdays but we couldn't get to it yesterday.You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
Flickr Member James Kendall took this snapshot of the room view at the Days Inn Wetherby in England saying:
The nice building opposite it the service station. It wasn't very pretty. That's all.
On the bright side, the rooms are new as it just opened in June 2009. It's also close the Wetherby racecourses. Ok, that doesn't really help but we bet free WiFi, a pets allowed policy and room rates of 49 pounds a night takes out the sting of that anti-view.
Tags: London Hotels / UK Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags
VisitLondon.com: A New Place to Score Hotel Deals?
VisitLondon.com, the web home of the capital city's visitor organization, has long offered links to events, sites, and whatever else tourists might find interesting. It developed the same way that most of these sites do, where a bunch of London companies got together to partner up and showcase the city.
We only recently discovered, though, that it has a pretty robust section on all kinds of deals, including an entire page turned over to scoring hotel bargains.
The main "Specials" page is loaded with links to shows, restaurants, and travel packages, with box office offerings marked down as much as 50%. Be careful though: the top of the page has what seem to be unmarked ads labeled as "Specials," where the links take you to the theaters' main booking sites. Which doesn't mean we don't appreciate being reminded that we can catch Peter Pan this Christmas at the insanely awesome O2. It's just that our wallet doesn't appreciate it.
Tags: Country Hotels / UK Hotels / → All Tags
High Summer is the Time to Book an Autumn Stay in Shropshire
Excuse us for being persnickity, but isn’t it still summer right now? And we’d quite like to carry on thinking that until the hot stuff stops.
So we won’t be thinking about the “Autumn calendar of events” that Fishmore Hall in Shropshire has just launched quite yet. But for those of you who like to plan ahead, October and November will see in a Colour Me Beautiful day, when you can see whether you’re wearing the right clothes or need to invest in a new wardrobe (October 2, pencil it in ladies). It costs £25, and includes luck and a glass of wine (and the restaurant is a goodie – we stayed there when it opened and were very impressed).
In case (perish the thought) you’re more interested in imbibing than colouring yourself beautiful, there’s a special wine dinner — four courses plus French bottles — on October 22. Or if you’re the type who’s already planning Christmas presents, book in for November 28-29, when there’s a medieval fayre in town.
Having said all that, the hotel is lovely; supercomfy rooms and gorgeous views over the sheep-filled countryside. But, for now, let’s just think of it as a nice spot for a summer break, yeah? Doubles currently cost from £99.
[Photo: TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotel Packages / Hotel Restaurants / UK Hotels / Country Hotels / → All Tags
Have a Post-Easter Picnic Feast at The Isle of Wight's Hambrough
Apart from gorging on too much chocolate, a proper English Easter involves ditching the city and getting a taste of fresh air in the Great British Countryside. Picnics are an essential part of this. So for anyone who already did this and is feeling exceptionally hearty this week, or for those who didn't because they were put off by the prospect of soggy marmite sandwiches and tepid tea, here's one for you.
The Hambrough hotel on the Isle of Wight is a bit of a foodie destination already, seeing as it's under the helm of the youthful (26 years old) Robert Thompson who earned his first Michelin star at the tender age of 23. But you don't have to enjoy his cuisine indoors. Oh no. Because it's spring, he'll give it to you al fresco: sign up for a picnic package and he'll whip up a Michelin-starred basket for you to take out into the, er, wilderness, including Bellini cocktails, pea and truffle soup, a crab cocktail, homemade bread and, our favorite, rhubarb and vanilla tarts. That's just the spring menu and it runs till the end of May; come June, there's a summer basket with such delights as gazpacho and lobster and mango.
Tags: Country Hotels / Oxford Hotels / UK hotels / Luxury Hotels / Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Has Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons Gone Down the WAG Route?
We were a little perturbed this weekend when we opened up the usually excellent Mail on Sunday travel section and found this review of Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Not only is Le Manoir meant to be one of England’s top country hotels and gastro retreats (as well it should, given that its cheapest room costs £430, or $632), but when we paid a visit last year, we were pretty enchanted.
For a start, it’s 15 minutes away from Oxford, one of the best towns within an hour’s distance to escape the madness that is London, given that the whole place and half its inhabitants look like they stepped off a film set. But yet, it’s total country manor – 15th-century manor to be precise, with the perfectly manicured grounds to match. And the rooms that we saw and stayed in were lovely and rustically simple, unlike the over-the-top frills that you get in lots of other country hotels.
Tags: mourHotels / Hotel Openings / UK Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Nottingham Bucks The Recession – Or Maybe Not
Julia Buckley is stuck in a hotel with horrible WiFi so we're submitting this story on her behalf.
Not that we had anything against Nottingham, but we never had it down as a trailblazing kinda town. So we’re quite impressed to hear that, while most of the UK is battening down the hatches, canceling the refurbs and slashing the rates in the face of global meltdown, good old Nottingham has just announced a new hotel brand.
The ridiculously named mourHotel (these wrong way round capitals really get on our nerves) is promising “a more sensuous, flirtatious and personable experience seasoned with an enhanced WOW factor!” This means, apparently, targeting “influential individuals with higher than average disposable incomes” and making it a “junction where business meets pleasure.” How very revolutionary.
The company aims to sign up 12 sites in the next six months, with the first in Sherwood Business Park, Nottingham. Let’s hope the rest aren’t on industrial estates as well, shall we? And we’ll be placing bets tonight on whether any of them actually see the light. Something tells us you need a bit more in the way of concepts to launch a brand, especially in times like these.
Tags: Room Rate Drop Watch / Hotel Deals / London Hotels / UK Hotels / → All Tags
Five-Star Hotels Get Affordable in London, Of All Places
Just when we’re having to rein in our hotel habit, we’re getting sorely tempted to start splurging again. A report in London’s Observer newspaper this week said that luxury hotels in the capital are feeling the pinch so much that they’re slashing their prices to below what the budget chains are offering.
They’re calling it the Copenhagen effect--named after the last recession that saw the top hotels in Denmark selling rooms for less than their three star neighbours. And they quote Andrew Pumphrey of discount website Late Rooms, as saying that five star hotels across Britain are “24 percent down on a year ago.”
Last week, the Observer did a price check on London hotels – and found that, at £102.50, the budget Travelodge in Covent Garden was trumped by the five star (and seriously swanky) Grange Holborn, which was selling double rooms for £86.25. Even the Waldorf was going for £129.
Has there been a better time to get stuck in? Not for a while, by the sounds of it. We’re putting our spare drinking money towards a night of linen-sheeted luxury from tonight.
[Photo: Sexiest Hotels]
Tags: Hotel Hell / London Hotels / UK Hotels / Dirty Hotels / → All Tags
The Cromwell Crown is Officially The Worst Hotel in Britain
So this is what they mean by "dirt cheap." We already knew that the Hotel Carter is the pad to stay away from in America. Now meet its UK equivalent – London’s Cromwell Crown Hotel, named today by Tripadvisor as the worst hotel in Britain.
It may be in a fairly a swanky part of town, but the hotel’s anything but Tripadvisor reviewers noted “bloodstained” bedding, cans of beer in the bath, rat droppings on the pillows and “slightly mental-looking people wandering up and down the corridors.” Well, if you will only pay £19 ($27) for your room…
According to Tripadvisor, seven of Britain’s ten filthiest hotels are in the capital. If you’d rather not run the e-coli gauntlet, The 41 Hotel, the monochrome gaff by Buckingham Palace, was named the country’s best luxury hotel.
[Photo: RocaRoskilde]
Tags: NiteNite Hotels / UK Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags
Birmingham's NiteNite Hotel Offering Perks, Not Discounts
What to do if you're a British hotel wanting to ride out the recession? You can drop your rates. You can run special offers. You can even give away free rooms, as long as your guests buy a bottle of Cristal. Or, if you're Birmingham hotel nitenite (yes, all lower-cased), you can throw in all the extras you'd expect at a big bucks hotel, while you keep your prices in the budget bracket.
Simply knocking down rates "may attract an entirely different market sector to those originally targeted," says the hotel which reminds me of a hybrid of Yotels and easyhotels. A bit sniffy? Maybe, but rooms start at a mere £45 ($61) in the first place. Also, you probably haven't been to Birmingham before.
Anyway, instead of cheaper rooms, nitenite is offering free WiFi, water and blockbuster movies starting February 2nd. You pay upfront for your pod-style room when you book it, too, so you'll be in for a swift check-in and out. Which should leave you extra time to ponder what exactly you're doing in Birmingham in the first place. We kid, we kid. But this does look like the coolest spot in all of Birmingham. Check out the room pics here.
Tags: UK Hotels / Hotel Woes / British Hotels / Dirty Hotels / → All Tags
British Hotels Need To Shape Up
This hotel room ain't going to cut it anymore.
If ever there’s been a week to put your transatlantic ticket on hold, it’s this one. First came the news last week that the UK's budget hotels were "unfit to lick". Today the chairman of the UK tourist board, no less, made us think we should start stockpiling the supplies for our next venture into an English hotel.
“Threadbare towels, a previously owned bar of soap and a grumpy person who says: ‘We don’t do breakfast before 8am and we don’t do it after 8.12am,’” are all things you could come across should you be unfortunate enough to stay in the UK, according to VisitBritain Chairman Christopher Rodrigues. He reckons that if they don’t shape up, the industry will lose up to 50,000 jobs in the coming recession.
A good hotel doesn’t have to be five star, says Rodrigues, all you need is “a clean bar of soap and fluffy towels." An attainable goal, granted, but we’re thinking that might not quite be enough to reel in the visitors over the pond. Unless, the room is a pound a night.
In April, VisitBritain will launch a £6.5m campaign to tout the UK as a "value for money" destination. If hotels don't clean up their act by then, the campaign may have to feature Basil Fawlty as their poster boy.
[Photo: dogfael]
Have you ever stayed in a budget British hotel that was actually clean? Let us know where.
Tags: W Hotels / UK Hotels / London Hotels / Hotel News / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
W Hotels Like the UK So Much, They Put a Ring On It
Where: United Kingdom
The forthcoming W London-Leicester Square
Even though North America may not be the best place to open up a hotel nowadays, Starwood Hotels and Resort's Global Head of Development, Simon Turner thinks that the United Kingdom is the next place for W Hotels to be--London specifically.
Turner was quoted in a recent PropertyWeek article stating that W is aiming to open 10 hotels by 2019 in the United Kingdom, with 3 to 5 of those hotels in London.Recently, W finally announced its first UK outpost in Manchester, followed within hours by the announcement of its first London area hotel in Leicester Square. This news calmed all those raving-mad W followers who have been begging for Ws to appear in London.
Turner also let slip a hint as to where the UK's third W might be located by stating:
"We need 24/7 cities that have real excitement and activity, and I’m a huge fan of Edinburgh - it’s a great city,"
We hope you're ready United Kingdom. The W-ization of your motherland has begun!
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