It's Better to Travel than Arrive?

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive"

Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, 1881.


"Robert Louis Stevenson speaks utter tosh and has

obviously never flown long haul economy class"

Kristy, first ever blog post, 2011.


Sunday, September 28, 2014

Hotel Review : Premier Inn, Leamington Spa, UK


This was my second stay at this property, and this is the only Premier Inn I've stayed at, so this review might not be applicable to the entire chain.

UK hotels are known the world over for being madly expensive, but chains like Premier Inn have figured out that if they provide good basics, they can get great occupancy repeatedly.  You will average around £70/night at most of their properties, but of course those rates do increase when events and things are on locally and they can make more money.  You can even get rooms as low as £25 from time to time, but I've never managed that!

I stayed for two nights on each of my visits and I can say that the Leamington Spa Premier Inn has the friendliest staff I've experienced at any hotel anywhere in the world, and I'm talking friendlier than 5* star properties.  They are all just so nice, cheery and helpful - nothing is too much trouble for them.



This property is in an old renovated shopping centre space, though you wouldn't know that if you hadn't been told.  It looks like it's part of the terraces along The Parade in Leamington, and it fits in very well and is in a great location for visiting the area.  It's clean and modern inside - I don't think it's been open for too long.

There's a self check-in desk in the lobby, but there's always a happy staff member around if you need help getting through that - though it's pretty basic stuff, and the machine spits out your room number and also your room key.

The property is only on two levels and the rooms are very generously sized.  Each basic room I've had has a king sized bed (remember the post I did on bed sizes - UK king is smaller than US king) and a chaise lounge, plus a desk and chair, and TV on a set of shelves.  The bathrooms are a good size too, with a shower over the tub.  The towels are rather large and soft for a budget chain, but there's no dinky bottles of shampoo etc., just a dispenser of "hair and body wash" on the wall - yucko.

The beds are very comfortable, and Premier offers a "sleep guarantee" - they will actually refund your bill if you don't sleep well!  My only quibble with their beds is that their duvets are so incredibly thick that you could take them along on an Arctic expedition and not get cold.  This would probably be okay if you could open the window, but all of the windows are locked closed for safety reasons (grrrrr, hate that!).  You have to keep the air conditioning on all the time at about 19c or you will get too hot.  If you think you're going to boil whilst you sleep, ask the friendly staff for a sheet that you can use instead of the duvet if you don't want to sleep in the air conditioning.



I had breakfast there each morning and even the catering staff are really friendly.  The cook happily put my bacon under the grill each morning to give it a "crisp up" as it was a bit pallid looking and their sausages are scrumptious.  I love a good UK fry up, but there's also a cold selection (breads, cereals, yoghurts) and a really yummy Costa coffee station with bottomless refills - their cappuccino is lovely - all for the breakfast price of £8.75/person.  It is really good value.

I think Premier Inn in Leamington Spa is great value and I'll stay there again if I'm in the area.  My only quibbles are the madly thick duvets and the note in the shower asking you to consider the environment and re-use your towels if you wish - if the duvets were thinner or if you could open the windows, you wouldn't need to have the air conditioning on 24/7 and that would be a hell of a lot better for the environment!  Rant over.

There's great parking behind the hotel in a council car park for £4/24 hours - you can't beat that.

154-156 Parade
Leamington Spa  UK  CV32 4BQ
Phone:- 0871 527 9380




1 comment:

  1. Gosh...you make me want to hop on a plane!! Great review. Very helpful

    ReplyDelete

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