Premier Inn, Kidderminster

 

Kidderminster - Premier Inn 

Slingfield Mill, Weavers Wharf, Kidderminster DY10 1AA

April 2022

 

Years ago, Kidderminster was a ‘car’ town. Many of the middle-aged residents were long-serving skilled or managerial employees at Longbridge, a town synonymous with strikes, and ‘friday’ cars that didn’t start, had bumpers that fell off or doors that didn’t shut properly. There was a culture, perhaps, that the employees knew best, that they have a job for life making products and providing services to a quality that they deemed to be sufficient. Twenty odd years ago that resulted in Longbridge closing; it's now a huge supermarket.

But attitudes persist, and Kidderminster clearly has a problem. We chose to stay at the PI following our experiences at the other once-decent hotel in town (see my blog entry from February 2022). On our next trip we’ll be staying in Bewdley or Stourport, for we’ve given up on Kidder.

***

Our stay was for two nights, on a mini-tour, after a night’s stop in the PI in Bicester, which is on the outskirts of the town, unlike the Kidderminster one in an old mill in the town centre. The contrast between the two PIs was significant. At Bicester the taxi had been able to drop us off outside the entrance, but there is no drop-off zone at Kidder; also I don’t recall having any concerns over cleanliness of the entrance at Bicester, but at Kidderminster the dingy entrance door, and the surrounding pavement, was splattered with pigeon poo. This sort of thing is surely a sign of an organisation that doesn’t quite understand what customers want, or, indeed, what is hygienic. So much for ‘CleanProtect’.

Reception was up on the 4th floor, of the two lifts one apparently ran at normal speeds but the other took ages. I don’t recall this being the case on previous visits. Check-in was ok, a little confused, although I still haven’t received the email invoice that I was supposed to have been sent. I was, however, not inspired by being told that they were not servicing rooms ‘due to covid’; sorry, but if you work in hospitality, you should expect to encounter members of the public who might have illnesses…. and if you are under 60, and fit, covid poses little risk to you).

Despite there being two of us we were only given one room key - the receptionist clearly not aware of the problems caused if one of a couple goes out to the shops while the other wants to stay in the room, where the lights go out when the key is removed from the holder!

***

Our room was spacious, something I do like about PIs, but it featured the now-standard PI heating/air con and the window didn’t open. (This was probably a good thing in some respects because of the pigeons, but I like fresh air, and PI should deal with their obvious pest problem and clean their windows.) It had been prepared, was reasonably clean, but some details had escaped attention - most notably, the loo cistern refilled at a snail’s pace, meaning it could only be flushed once every half hour. (I did complain about this on the first morning of our stay, and was told it would be fixed ‘if you’re happy for us to enter your room’. I told them I was, but it wasn’t.)

***

The basics of the room were up to the PI standard, but the TV was disappointing - an old, small, screen, fixed high up on a shelf unit and disappointing after the one we’d had in Bicester, for it didn’t get all channels (I couldn't get GBNews). Despite the lack of room servicing, our hospitality tray contained only four milk cartons; a trip up to reception was required to collect more. (Oddly, at reception they had the milk, tea and coffee packed together, so, anyone wanting just more milk took coffees, teas as well…. the objective of only putting out four milks being, presumably, to control costs by restricting the numbers of sachets taken home by guests, I don’t understand why you would give coffees to someone who only wanted more milks….)

The ensuite was clean, but, in addition to the dysfunctional cistern it also featured an incorrectly calibrated shower tap (the thermostat had obviously been changed and not refitted correctly), and, on our final morning, the rollover plug in the washbasin jammed, and we could let water out of it. I have to say that I believe that room servicing standards were inadequate, and some of these points might have been picked up if the room was serviced daily in the traditional fashion. 

***

In the past we have avoided taking breakfast in the PI, choosing Gregg’s or Costa nearby, but this time we did opt for the PI offering. We now regret that and realise why we went elsewhere: the PI staff are clearly not well enough trained to manage the challenges of families around busy buffet serveries. Unlike at Bicester, guests were not required to book a time slot for breakfast.

The first morning - a Sunday - wasn’t too bad, it was quiet. Cereals were rather as at Bicester, mostly dispensed from cylinders, but they did have sealed packs of Weetabix. There was, however, no full fat milk available (which, believe it or not, is more healthy for you than semi-skimmed), and - at 8.20 with breakfast still open for over another hour and a half - the fruit salad was all gone. 

It was at breakfast on the Monday that the inexperience of the team at the Kidder PI really showed itself. For a Sunday night, the hotel was busy - unusually, I thought, because business travellers tend to stay Monday to Thursday nights; moreover, it was busy with families. There were several multigenerational groups, rather as one might expect in a budget hotel on the Costa Blanca, with excited children, disinterested parents, and bemused grandparents. At least one thirty-ish woman was wandering the corridors in her pyjamas at eleven in the morning.

We arrived at breakfast and the restaurant was perhaps half full, with a couple of these family groups sitting at adjacent tables. The staff told us to sit wherever we’d like to. Viv having a few minor disabilities (and wearing a badge to that effect), I didn’t want her sitting too near children, nor too close to a buffet area where hot things might be being dispensed, so we chose a table for two in the middle of a group of four. Within a minute we were surrounded by the family from hell: parents sat at one end, two children between them and us, and on the end table on the other side sat granny and grandad, right next to the tea and coffee machines.

The parents told their children to help themselves, and the children also helped granny and grandad; how nobody was scolded is beyond me. There were signs on and above the coffee machines saying ‘this machine is for grown ups only’ but has no one told PI that young children like to do grown up things, and it should have been obvious to the staff - if there were enough of them (there was only one chap for most of the time, the was busy clearing tables and keeping his head down) that the parents would have been the sort that would have said ‘she’s alright doing that’ even if their daughter happened to be carrying a pot of boiling water. Also, the signs were high up, from the eyes of a ten year old they would have been hidden behind the machines!

I told Viv, loudly and quite deliberately so as to attempt to draw attention to her badge, that I would get her food. The fruit salad was all gone, I managed to find a yoghurt for her and one of the few croissants left.  

For me, I looked for Weetabix; there was none. I wasn’t going to take my chances with the loose cereals, who knows how many hands might have had contact with them. A pain au choc looked tempting: there were two left, until a boy, around ten I think, stuck his hand into the basket and felt both before deciding which he would like. His mother (I assume; at least, she was a lady supervising him) was right beside him at the time, and there were tongs provided, which they went unused.

That little boy might have recently gone to the toilet and not washed his hands, or possibly placed his clean hands on a surface (chair?) where faecal matter had been deposited by someone’s shoes…. an efficient way to spread something like norovirus, perhaps, or salmonella, which can arise in pigeon droppings, I believe. Like Coronavirus, food poisoning can kill the elderly and vulnerable; remember ‘Don’t kill granny’? There were plenty of opportunities to at the Kidderminster PI that morning.

***

For the price, and with all the boasting about ‘CleanProtect’, Premier Inn guests are surely entitled to expect measures to be in place to minimise all hygiene risks, not just covid, in the restaurant as well as in the rooms. Far better measures should surely have been in place in the restaurant that Monday, including perhaps

• A booking system for breakfast, as at Bicester

• An area in the restaurant for families, and one for those who want a quieter time

• A rule in place that all buffet areas - hot and cold - were to be approached by adults only (PI could be liable if a child injured (scalded or burned) themselves, or others, using or accessing the toaster, coffee machine, etc.)

• A staff member supervising the buffet area to ensure that tongs were used and that children did not approach the area

These measures could have been explained to guests when they were welcomed into the restaurant for breakfast. 

As it was, on that day,  for over nine pounds I expected to have a filling, relaxing breakfast. Instead I ate only what I trusted and got out of there quickly: in terms of value it was poor. I wish they hadn’t closed the ‘spoons in Kidder.

***

I won’t stay at the Kidder PI again. Ever.  On leaving I read a sign in the lift asking guests to review the establishment on Tripadvisor; I don’t usually post on TA, for too many of the reviews seem to be done by people with little industry experience, but I have done this time: they got one star. Next time it’ll be Bewdley or Stourport, and the taxi I use to get from there to Kidder won’t have been made at Longbridge.

Premier Inn, Bicester

 

Bicester - Premier Inn 

Oxford Rd, Bicester OX26 1AN 

April 2022

 

Bicester used to be a small, quaint, country market town, with two railway stations. Then someone built the shopping village, and while the quaint part of town still exists - and is about a mile’s walk from the Premier Inn - it's clear that the target clientele of the Premier Inn fall into two categories: shoppers, and road travellers, heading along the M40. 

The hotel is beside a busy road - actually the A41, just north of the M40 junction - and within a quarter of a mile or so of Bicester Shopping Village. Perhaps understandably, the entrance to the hotel is on the side away from the main road, but this does make it difficult for pedestrians who wish to leave the hotel and wander along into the town itself. 

Reception seemed to be well organised, check-in being smooth and efficient. Access to the first and second floors is via a lift or stairs in a fully glazed bay, making a change from dark hotel stairwells. The corridor to our room was, however, gloomy.

Our room was large, and (generally) clean. As with many PI hotels now, the window didn’t open, heating and (supposed) ventilation being via an aircon unit. Personally, I like fresh air, and, certainly in the day, might want to have the window open even if there is some noise from the adjacent road. 

The large, flat screen TV was well up to the job, as were the tea and coffee options, and the bed was the usual high quality PI offering. There were also some instructions for the aircon, but, even with them, I was unable to simultaneously make the room quiet and a comfortable temperature.

The ensuite featured an over-bath shower which worked well, with no problems with hot or cold water or loo. Unfortunately, as with most PIs, there was no shaver socket - I was glad I had my adapter with me but had to plug it and my toothbrush into a socket near the TV. Use of the facilities did reveal the basin to be rather slow-draining.

Our sleep was ok, no better. I couldn’t get the temperature right, there was the noise from the aircon, and the guest in the room above ours had, perhaps I might say, rather more audible footsteps than I would wish. 

***

Breakfast required a timed booking; I’m fine with this, it does prevent scrums around the buffet. It was, however, served in the Brewer’s Fayre fifty yards away, across a car park with no proper footpath access: in winter you’d need a coat to go over to breakfast, and it might be uncomfortable if you’ve not dried your hair after a shower.

We had to wait a couple of minutes to be seated in the restaurant, which provided the usual PI buffet fare. Muzak was playing and was, for me, rather intrusive, and the lighting more appropriate for a romantic evening meal with an ugly woman than a serve-yourself breakfast. The restaurant, like many, lacked an essential item needed by business travellers: a clock on the wall showing the time. 

The food was of acceptable quality, and there was enough of all options available for us to have what we wanted, rather than what was there. Cereals were mostly in dispensers - so of unknown vintage and heritage - but there were sealed packs of Weetabix and muesli. There was full fat milk too, I was pleased to find. The large plates for the hot selection were only just off-cold, I would have preferred them a little warmer, after all, PI breakfasts aren’t cheap - I think we paid £9.50 each - so I don’t think a warm plate is too much to expect.

***

During our stay we did leave the hotel to explore the old town of Bicester. It's not an easy walk, for, as with access to the restaurant, the designers of the hotel area seem not to have considered that guests might wish to get some gentle exercise during their stay, and in places there is no proper footpath beside the main road, just a well-worn verge. That said, it was well worth the walk, there are many interesting shops, pubs and restaurants in Bicester, as well as some very attractive historic properties.

***

We did, just before leaving, find something that made nonsense of PI’s ‘CleanProtect’ policy: a worn sock (not ours), under the sofa in our room, which should have been found by the cleaners. Personally, I think hospitality businesses need to come clean about covid, and just advise guests that they clean rooms as best they can but cannot guarantee them to be 100% germ free; potential guests who have developed anxiety about infection, and can’t go anywhere without masks, hand gel and the like, should seek mental health treatment, and not expect every business to sterilise the environment in which they will stay.  

I’m unlikely to need accommodation in the Bicester area very often, but, if I do, I’ll be happy to stay at the PI again - although I do wish they would give guests a window that opens.

The Saracens Head, Great Dunmow

 

Great Dunmow - The Saracens Head Hotel

High Street, Great Dunmow, Essex CM6 1AG

March 2022

 

Great Dunmow is a lovely little town. The High Street features a number of independent shops and restaurants, all perhaps a little pricier than some might expect, housed within old, undoubtedly listed, buildings, some dating from perhaps the sixteenth century. It's a few miles from Stansted Airport, which may be why the Saracens Head is such a nice place to stay.

Its rooms are not expensive; we paid £79 for a double, including breakfast. That’s cheaper than many Premier Inns. But, unlike a couple of other budget hotels in which we’ve stayed recently, it is a place I would be happy to go back to.

Set within the structure of an old coaching inn, the Saracens Head combines a bar, cafe, restaurant and hotel, seemingly very successfully. In these just post-covid times, it was, on the Thursday night we visited, busy. (At breakfast there must have been a dozen other guests eating when we were there, around 8am; perhaps not all of their 31 rooms were occupied, but it was good to see a hospitality business doing a reasonable trade.)

***

Our room was in a block separate to the main hotel, perhaps built around 40 years ago. Construction was possibly not perfect - our window did not shut totally - but for our purposes it was fine. Indeed, the room was quite spacious, featuring a king size bed, and enough space around it not only for a bit of yoga exercises by guests but also for cleaners to get in there with the vacuum cleaner and make sure the place was properly serviced - which, generally, it was. The only cleaning failing I could find was the space between the secondary glazing and the window, someone needs to update the cleaning procedures to ensure the cleaners wave the vacuum in there to remove any dead spiders or errant dust particles. 

The ensuite bathroom was, unlike the room, compact; it was not a room in which one person could shave at the basin and another get in and out of the over-bath shower. But it was clean, recently refitted with good over-basin lighting (yay, I could see to shave!), a heated towel rail, and a grab rail to hang on to when getting in or out when using either the bath or the shower.

The shower worked well, although there was no thermostatic controller - it was a case of matching hot and cold taps to get the water ‘just right’. Water pressure at the basin left something to be desired, but it didn’t significantly lengthen the time needed to brush teeth or fill the basin to wash.

The room featured a radiator for heating, which worked well some of the time. It may be that the boiler was on some kind of timer, late in the evening we thought we needed a bit of heat and couldn’t get any, but the quality duvet kept the cold out. The TV worked well, offering normal Freeview channels, once we managed to switch it on - another point for the cleaners’ checklist (leave TV’s on standby ready for guests who won’t know how to switch them on!).

In-room tea and coffee options provided for more than our needs, and were more than adequate for the price we paid, and we even had complimentary biscuits. The in-room information folder was helpful but would have benefitted from TV operating instructions (where is the on switch?) and a menu for the restaurant.

The Saracens Head restaurant seemed to be very popular for diners; we did not eat there (we went to a lovely wine bar just along the road) but, if you are seeking a quality evening meal, it would seem to be a good place to go - one of many in the High Street. Breakfast was a generally well-organised affair, with a number of hot options (including smashed avocado on toasted muffin) swiftly delivered. Cereal options were somewhat limited (no porridge or weetabix), likewise fruit (only fresh apples - for which the supplied knives were barely suited), and  tea and coffee was from vacuum flasks at the buffet table, and, on our visit, could have been rather warmer.

After a number of disappointments at budget (and less-budget) hotels since the start of Covid it was refreshing to go somewhere that the staff seemed to, generally, know what customers are looking for. For the price we paid it was excellent value. Great Dunmow isn’t exactly a place that a lot of people go, or that we are likely to go to again soon (my previous visit there, to the Saracens Head - just the bar - was over forty years ago), but we’d be very happy to stay there again should the need for accommodation in the area arise. 

***

The proprietors of other hotels offering B&B for something like £80 per night - or room only for £60 - should visit the Saracens Head to see what their guests should be able to expect. I hope the Saracens Head continues to do well. 

The Gainsborough House Hotel, Kidderminster

 

Kidderminster - The Gainsborough House Hotel

Bewdley Hill, Kidderminster DY11 6BS

February  2022

 

I can’t remember how many times I’ve been to Kidderminster. My father and stepmother moved there nearly thirty years ago; he died in 2006, she last year. I’ve an inkling as to why they chose it as a place to retire; it's not everyone's idea of an ideal location to live out one’s final years, and I have to say I don’t find the town has much to offer, but I’m an executor of my stepmother's estate, so have to travel down there every few weeks at the moment, and took my partner with me. 

The closest hotel to the family property has always been the Gainsborough, on Bewdley Hill. I’ve stayed there before, three or four times perhaps, most recently though over ten years ago; it used to be such a welcoming place, with a good restaurant, weddings every weekend, and even what I could describe as a sexy atmosphere - down to the flirtatious and divorced aunt-of-the-bride in the bar who’s up for some fun with a man staying on his own. More recently, the more modern Premier Inn has been our choice in the town, but we thought we’d try the Gainsborough again for a recent visit. Following it, though, we’ll probably revert to the Premier Inn next time.

***

The hotel’s website warned that evening meals were not available at the time of our visit, but seemed to imply that breakfast was. Knowing the area a bit I wasn’t too worried about having to go out to find supper (even a bus or taxi over to Bewdley to go to ‘Spoons was an option) but breakfast was a selling point - we didn’t want to spend ages looking for food in the morning when we could be sorting out the business to be attended to.

We arrived bang on the time I’d suggested when I booked. The place was quiet. Very quiet, it had all the atmosphere of an undertaker’s in an empty town. It used to be busy, with a pleasant aroma emanating from the restaurant, and the function room and bar busy. None seemed to be in use now. Reception was manned seemingly by the only member of staff on duty - a middle aged suited man. I gave him our details and the formalities were performed. ‘We haven’t booked breakfast, we’d like it tomorrow please’, I asked. 

‘We don’t do breakfast’, came the reply. I was then handed a list of places where, apparently, we might be able to obtain dinner or breakfast. 

‘Not much of a hotel’, I thought. 

We made our way to our room, around the rather curious gloomy corridors that result from the way the hotel was extended perhaps forty years ago. Redecoration and better lighting would improve it significantly.  Breakfast, we decided, wouldn’t be too much of a problem; there's a Tesco mini-mart next door, at the Esso petrol station, and we opted to get instant porridge, juice and croissants there, which would fit the bill nicely. 

For what we were paying - £150 for two nights - the room was OK. The decor was unchanged (apart from fading somewhat) from the time I stayed there fifteen years ago. Faded indeed describes it well, the room we had wouldn’t be the place to take a prospective partner for a much-anticipated night of romance and passion. The atmosphere was decidedly cool, the heating having not been on, and the lighting was more up to a drunken night with someone you’d rather forget than facilitating the savouring of every visual and sensual moment with the lover of your dreams.  The walls and paintwork were past their best, stains had developed on the grouting of the tiled floor and around the hinge in the ensuite, and much of the gloss paint in the ensuite was not the colour it was when applied, obviously many years ago. 

The room did have plenty of storage, a full length mirror, iron and ironing board, and heating controls for the aircon/fan heater - these, however, we couldn’t work out how to operate. (A radiator would have been my preference.)  Also, from the window, we enjoyed only a view of the back of a wall: we could just about see over it into the car park, if we tried. There was half of a door chain on to provide security; the other half would have been useful. 

The ensuite did have a shaver socket - something that was common in the nineties, but often now seems to be left out (perhaps for cost reasons?) in hotel room design. There was, however, only a tiny bar of soap to meet the needs of the two of us for two nights. Fortunately, Tesco next door sold soap. There were only two towels for us; normally I’d expect a hand towel and bath towel each. Also lacking in the ensuite was any significant form of heating - it was February, after all, and a hook on which you might hang whatever clothing you needed to put to one side while you did whatever you had entered the ensuite to do. The thermostatic cartridge in the shower tap was obviously well past its best, not only was it barely possible to get a constant temperature from it, but also at the stop point (supposed to be set to body temperature) it dispensed only cold water.

One thing I did like in the ensuite was the heated mirror: as things steamed up in there, an area of the mirror behind the basin remained clear. It was a shame that whoever had fitted it hadn’t sealed the mirror edges with nail varnish (or similar) to stop condensation there getting to the silvering; but then, the whole bathroom is well due for a refit anyway. 

***

In the evening we found a few problems with the room. The lighting was, as seems often to be the case, quite poor; there were only dim, and not enough, lights to properly see what you’re looking at. The flatscreen TV was in a curious position: wall mounted, about three feet up from the floor, opposite the end of the bed. ‘They must have penny pinched on the cable and trunking when they fitted it’, I decided. The TV did, however, have a good range of digital channels - certainly all of the freeview ones I tried - and they seemed to be on the correct channel numbers.   

Our overnight experience was so-so, perhaps as you might expect for the price. The air heating made the air very dry, as a result neither of us slept that well. Turning the heating off resulted in it becoming quite cold, the thin duvet not being up to keeping us warm on a cool February night.

I didn’t see or hear much sign of other guests staying at the Gainsborough - no muffled voices coming from the corridor, sounds of ecstasy from a neighbouring room, car movements outside, or sounds of doors being closed in the morning. I did hear sounds suggesting a lone occupant was in the next room on our first night, but none on the second. A lack of customer presence usually indicates a business isn’t meeting customer expectations; ‘maybe’, I thought, ‘I am not the only person to feel the way I do about the place’. 

Overall, this stay at the Gainsborough wasn’t an experience I shall look back on fondly. It was in a period when the world was still rather obsessed with Covid, so some issues - like the signs everywhere asking you to wear a mask (why - when there’s no one else around?) are excusable. But it badly needs an injection of money, energy, and ideas. 

***

Unsurprisingly, I’ve heard this hotel is up for sale. There are no doubt reasons for this - many customers may feel like me, that they’d much rather stay at the Premier Inn in town. The new owners will either need deep pockets to do a complete refurb, and some good publicity, or have plans to convert it - perhaps to a care home. I don’t believe there is sufficient demand for this sort of hotel as it is in this area for the business to generate a profit. It's not a place that I can recommend until something is done with it.

I still have fond memories of that night with the aunt of the bride many years ago, by the way.

Flat 9, The Adelaide, Shanklin

 

Shanklin - Flat 9, The Adelaide

15 Esplanade, Shanklin, Isle of Wight PO37 6BN

December 2021

 

It seems to be a commonly held view now that experience is of little value; young people, those under thirty perhaps, seem to have little appreciation that knowledge is something you accumulate as you go through life: it isn’t programmed into you in your sixteen or so years of formal education, never to be added to. The incorrectness of this modern view has never been more apparent to me than in the past few days, when Viv and I have been staying in this flat, with a good sea view, in Shanklin.

We arrived at 5.20 pm on Tuesday 21st December, to find ourselves within thirty yards of the waves lapping on the beach. We arrived by taxi from Ryde, where, after our hovercraft flight, we had a very good meal at the Ryde Castle Hotel, one of the very few Greene King establishments I hold in high esteem. Normally we would want to arrive at a holiday flat rather earlier in the day, and eat in the locality, but our booking was through Hoseasons, who had advised us:

***** ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE TIMES HAVE CHANGED TO ALLOW MORE TIME TO PREPARE THE PROPERTY. PLEASE DO NOT ARRIVE AT YOUR PROPERTY BEFORE 5PM AND LEAVE BEFORE 9AM ON YOUR DAY OF DEPARTURE. THIS INFORMATION SUPERSEDES THE CHECK IN/CHECK OUT TIMES BELOW. Thank you *****

We therefore expected the property to be warm and ready for us when we arrived.

It wasn’t; the digital thermostat in the hall read 14.5 Celsius - perhaps not an unusual temperature for an unheated flat in the area around the end of December, but not one that had been ‘prepared’ for us.

Neither, for that matter, did it really seem to have been cleaned thoroughly: surfaces had generally been wiped (with the exception of the table mats, which had clear stains on from previous use, which I removed easily with water and a kitchen towel), the carpet looked generally tired, and, on closer inspection, had definite fluff and dust on it. The extractor fan on the ensuite had enough fluff on it to stuff a small cushion. Perhaps the hoover filters needed changing, but that surely doesn’t excuse visible dirt in the current climate, not when there is so much - possibly irrational - fear of poorly cleaned surfaces.

 

Not only was it clear that there had been no one in in the previous hour or two ‘preparing the property’, but, when I looked into the low temperature I found out the boiler had a fault. I reset it, but it failed again; over the next day or so I became very familiar with Vaillant boiler error codes F28 and F29. After faffing around for two hours I first called the property manager, who did not answer, I then called the Hoseasons helpline and reported the fault; they referred it on to the property manager and owner but we had no help until Wednesday morning. We were on the brink of going home and cancelling our holiday when I accidentally discovered that the hot water was actually working (thanks to an immersion heater I had previously managed to fire into life). I would have noticed this earlier if one of the basins in the flat had not been plumbed in incorrectly (hot is always on the left, cold on the right). Whether most of their customers would have known how to get the immersion heater going might be an interesting question.

The manager did visit the flat, bringing us a ceramic heater, but deferred to the owner to resolve matters. The owner arranged a repairman to visit, on the Thursday morning indeed (which must have involved some string pulling). He ‘freed the condense trap’ which did solve the problem. We had only had to survive with electric fires and Heath-Robinson hot water for a day and a half.

The thing is, Viv and I should never have been in the position we were. Hoseasons had told us the property would be prepared for our visit. It hadn’t been.

Nevertheless, we coped. Others around us - the property manager, the Hoseasons helpline -  were seemingly less able to cope with the situation than us; our experience - of matters plumbing and household - proved useful; the property owner, who had only bought the flat eighteen months previously, and had the boiler fitted just two months before, and the manager were, perhaps, distracted by Christmas. All we wanted to do was to enjoy our holiday.

Their lack of preparedness for our stay was the first of a number of observations we've made about the place that, if it was considered from the viewpoint of a holidaymaker, would have clearly been considered to be a bad move. There are others.

***

The kitchen area at No. 9, The Adelaide features a ceramic induction hob, controlled by touch-sensitive controls. These incorporate a child lock - presumably to prevent children cooking their own supper, for, in this era, allowing that must be tantamount to child cruelty. As anyone who has ever tried to open a container of tablets or laundry capsules knows, a child lock might just deter a few children from using the device, but it also comes very close to wholly preventing a significant proportion of the adult population from being able to use it. The hob was no exception; it took me half an hour to get one of the four rings going; if I tried another the whole thing went off. It was not clear where I had to ‘touch’ or in what sequence; there were vague instructions by the hob, but no manual; I managed to find one on the internet (fortunately the flat has great wi-fi) but that only got me to the ‘one ring’ stage. If we had been desperate for beans on toast when we arrived the beans would have had to be done in the microwave (which worked very well); pasta unfortunately needs to boil, so we had to fight the hob. 

I can just about forgive the current owner of the flat for the hob, she’s only owned the flat for a fairly short while, but I can’t imagine why the previous owner - who also let it out for holiday use - chose such a feature for the kitchen. Anything that is complicated to use is a liability in a holiday let, for visitors will either fight to use it, become disillusioned and decide to go elsewhere next time, or they may somehow use it incorrectly, and break it. There’s nothing wrong with an old-fashioned gas or electric hob, with simple knobs that turn it on and off - and, if necessary, a set of reins to keep the toddler under control.

***

Other devices that visitors may have trouble with in holiday lets include TV’s; I myself have managed, a year or two ago, to mess one up completely trying to retune it after getting a ‘you need to retune your set’ message. The TV in the lounge at Flat 9 uses Freesat, fairly standard perhaps, although the channels have very different sound levels: you need to undertake a complete adjustment of volume settings on two controllers when jumping from channel to channel. There’s a TV in the master bedroom too, that seems to use Freesat but the channel numbers are nonstandard and it’s a nightmare to find the (supposedly) obscure ones, like GB News or Talking Pictures. Young folks may find it easy to master these different technologies but those of us who have got a bit set in our ways get confused by them, and these challenges might be just the sort of thing that would lead us to look for somewhere with predictable TVs, rather than at The Adelaide, next time.

**

I also found a simpler technology failing to meet my expectations at 9 The Adelaide: lightbulbs. A couple of decades ago, before the internet took over, holiday accommodation had to be advertised in published books, or brochures; to avoid liability the publishers would require all listed properties to be accredited with the AA, RAC or VisitBritain. The BnB I was involved with chose Visit Britain, and they required rooms to have a certain wattage of lighting for the business to be accredited; I was surprised at how high it was - off the top of my head, I think a double room had to have 200 watts of light (this was in the days of simple, incandescent bulbs) - that’s perhaps a hundred in the central room pendant, two forties in the bedside lights and a forty tube over the mirror or in a wall lamp.

Many accommodation businesses fail to meet this standard nowadays; they may think they are doing ‘their bit’ to save the planet. Possibly the owners of Flat 9 think that way; more likely, judging by the building, the builders just put in as few lighting points as possible (for they cost money), and past and present owners have just assumed this to be adequate. 

The owners, however, need to put themselves in the place of a visitor trying to find their clothes in the wardrobe in the main bedroom, around 9am, with the curtains open, on a dull, December morning, with the room light on. They then need to consider a visitor in their sixties, perhaps with minor optical issues, undertaking the same task. Then they will see the need for better lighting, in the bedrooms, hall, and lounge (particularly over the dining table). The main bedroom probably has a 75watt equivalent bulb in the main pendant, and 40 equivalent in the bedside lamps - 155 watts in all. A light over the mirror would supplement this nicely, and illuminate the wardrobe. Better lighting in the second bedroom and in the lounge would significantly improve the customer experience.

***

One item a VisitBritain assessor used to expect in a bedroom at an accommodation business for it to be accredited - I think at any level - was a full length mirror. Flat 9 isn’t the only place I’ve stayed recently where there wasn’t one; maybe the younger generation don’t care what they look like when they go out. Don’t they want to check themselves in a mirror before leaving to dine in their best evening dress and high heels - or can they manage to check a full length image of themselves on their phones?

***

I mentioned that the current owner had clearly inherited many flaws in the property when they bought it. I don’t know whether they got a survey done, or whether the original purchaser did, but whoever plumbed in the main bathroom didn’t know what they were doing, and any surveyor would have told them so. As previously mentioned, the hot and cold are the wrong way round on the basin, which is a breach of building regs and a sure sign of an incomptent plumber: if they got that wrong, what else did they cock up? It may appear to be a minor problem but, in a property used as a holiday let, users will become frustrated and, when thinking of where to stay another time, may decide to go somewhere that has proper plumbing. (It is also an important safety issue: the blind know hot is to the left and cold to the right, and risk injury when using incorrectly plumbed in taps).  

Another similar flaw is that there seems to be no window in the property that can be easily opened for ventilation. The main opener in the lounge is an - ill-fitting (so much so that light can be seen around the edges when it is closed) - uPVC door onto the balcony; there is a window, a small, inward opening one, above the kitchen worktops. But shortage of kitchen storage and worktop space mean that sill is in use, leaving the balcony door as the main option for ventilation. In one bedroom is a large tilt-and-turn opener, on tilt leaving a much larger opening than I would want in December; in the other bedroom, the opener is a door for a Juliet balcony - again, hardly what you want for overnight ventilation in the winter. Builders don’t fit more windows than they want to, they cost more than breeze blocks, but, strangely, paying customers may well want them.

***

I mentioned kitchen storage: a bit of a rethink might permit some shelving above some of the worktops, which would have given us somewhere for us to put our non-fridge food items - for which there was only one tiny cupboard available. There is also nowhere to put the roasting trays that are stored normally in the oven when you’re cooking in it; I ended up putting one in the bedroom while our tuna pasta bake cooked in the oven. Another kitchen point relates to the tap: hot and cold positions aren’t obvious, and it is of a shape that does not always make for easy filling of the supplied kettle - the spout of the tap is quite low.  

More in the kitchen: some of the wine glasses provided had very long stems. I’d rather not use them, I fear they would easily topple over. We ended up using the tumblers provided, even for wine. 

***

A point that might upset some is that the flat has no assigned parking space; from May to September, anyone staying there would have to buy a parking permit to park on the Esplanade - assuming they can find a space. In terms of location, there is also no convenience store within easy walking distance - all the shops are up the hill in the town. The location itself, beneath the cliff at Shanklin, may be the cause for the poor mobile phone reception we experienced in parts of the flat.

***

Strangely, even with all these issues, Viv and I coped. Indeed, we enjoyed our stay at Flat 9. Why? Because we understood the limitations, we used our experience and knowledge to cope with them. There are some very positive points about the property. For a start, it’s modern, warm, with reliable water, electricity and wifi. The location is good if it suits you: right opposite the beach, with its restricted sea view, a couple of pubs close by, and great for walks along the bay towards Sandown. The sound of waves on the beach through the open windows at all times of day does compensate for many minor failings.

That doesn’t mean we’d necessarily stay there again however; maybe I’ll ask Hoseasons whether they have any correctly plumbed properties on their website (I bet they can’t tell), or we’ll just choose the Premier Inn, or Ryde Castle Hotel, because they are chain hotels and we know what to expect there. If we stay at The Adelaide again, we shall, at least, know what we might be letting ourselves in for. 

Finally, we won’t book with Hoseasons again. ‘Covid’ has become a byword for shortchanging the customer,  incompetence, and lack of service in supposed service industries. Yes I can clean a shower vent or get an immersion heater working - but why should I have to when I’m supposedly on holiday? So we shan’t be booking anything with Hoseasons until they stop pretending that it's a good thing for the customer that they can’t check in until 5, because they are arranging cleaning that’s so intensive it will need that extra time.   

 

 

Stourport-on-Severn - The Wharf

Mart Ln, Stourport-on-Severn DY13 9EN 

My father and stepmother lived in Kidderminster, and I must have stayed at hotels in the area at least thirty times in the last twenty years. I wish I had found the Wharf sooner, for they’re both now no longer with us, and I may not be travelling to the area as often in future.

It’s difficult to classify The Wharf. It’s not a hotel. It’s not a BnB (they don’t do breakfast); it’s not really a pub, although they do have a bar. They market themselves as an events venue, and have live music on at weekends, and they have a few rooms upstairs that they let out on a room-only basis. And, I have to say, the combination works.

Lack of meals isn’t much of a problem, there is a good cafe nearby (in Bridge Street) that opens at 7.30am for breakfast, and a couple of pubs / bistros that offer evening meals in the High Street. Indeed, the location is very convenient, only yards from the canal basin and the River Severn, close to the funfair, and an easy walking distance to all the shops.

We stayed in the ‘bridal suite’ - not that we were just married, or even at all married. For the price - around £285 for three nights - it was very good value; a spacious room, with kitchenette in one corner, featuring a microwave, fridge and sink, as well as the usual kettle and tea/coffee making stuff you’d expect. The room was in the roof, with restricted height at the edges, which might be a problem for some, and the bed was on a dais in one corner, up against the wall on one side. (This might limit some of the edventures that a newlywed couple might want to get up to…?). The only window in the room was a velux over the sink, which some might struggle to operate - fortunately I have three at home so know how they work.

The TV was to one side of the bed, a downside if you like to watch TV in bed, but there was a sofa well positioned to watch it. It could have benefited from a coffee table, I moved a drawer unit so that we had something to put our coffee on when watching TV.

The TV signal wasn’t brilliant, not all digital channels were available all of the time. 

The ensuite bathroom was just that - no shower. Some might consider that quite a drawback. Hot water was a-plenty and the water pressure was good at all times. 

One missing item was a full length mirror; the room is the sort of place people might prepare for an evening out, or even an evening at an event downstairs. You need a mirror to check you look as you should for such events. 

There were enough power points although they weren’t well placed; there weren’t any either side of the bed from which you might charge your phone overnight. Indeed, bedside reading lights were a bit of a problem, there was one on one side of the bed (beside the wall), the other was missing. There were no bedside cabinets.

Entrance to, and exit from, tour room was via quite steep stairs; this accommodation wouldn’t suit someone who struggled with stairs. Surprisingly, there was little noise audible in our room from the music in the hall downstairs in the evening; indeed, we were allowed to go into the hall when the singers were on, and that really made our stay. 

The proprietress was very friendly and welcoming. She wasn't servicing rooms ‘because of Covid’, but she was around every day during our stay, and she made sure we had plenty of towels and sundries to last through our stay. The bin was overflowing when we left, but otherwise the lack of servicing wasn’t a problem.

We mentioned our experience at the Wharf to the taxi driver who took us back to Kidderminster station when we left, and she said that there had been many positive experiences of The Wharf. I’m happy to add mine to the list.

Harwich - The Fryatt Hotel

 

Harwich - The Fryatt Hotel & Bar

65, Garland Road, Parkeston, Harwich, Essex CO12 4PA

I’ve probably been to Parkeston more times than I’ve been anywhere on a leisure trip. This may seem strange, but my grandparents lived there, and I still visit the area to tend graves there and at Wix, a few miles away. I’ve known the village since the sixties, the ups and the downs, and I remember the Fryatt Hotel when it was The Garland Hotel, and the local welfare park was a bit farther along the road, with swings and slides to entertain under-twelves like me.

Much of Parkeston was built by the railway company, including some housing and community buildings; those parts farther from the railway, including Garland Road, were built by private developers. But that was almost 140 years ago, and I’m afraid the area hasn’t entirely aged well. Other parts of Harwich - around the old town, or Dovercourt, near the beach - might be attractive to tourists; Parkeston isn’t, it's an industrial area really, with a few residential streets laid out in the days when workers had to live close to their work. With a Premier Store over the road, the Fryatt Hotel is ideally situated for contractors, and it is no doubt that that market brings in much of its business, with there being a perennial need for contract workers around the port, much of which is only half a mile away.

First impressions of the Fryatt Hotel aren’t what they should be; piles of cigarette ends litter the street outside the entrance door. I’m not against pub goers having a cigarette, but a wall-mounted ashtray could be provided, and emptied by the cleaners, and patrons ‘encouraged’ to use it with appropriate words from behind the bar.

There’s no reception as such, just the bar, a somewhat spartan, public bar at that. There is a small snug to one side, but the overriding atmosphere is not one of peace and relaxation.

We stayed in a ground floor room to the back of the building, in what was once the ‘Hamilton Room’ (named after the one time Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway). In quite recent times this area was a restaurant, indeed an Indian restaurant, and a damn good one at that. It's not so well suited to accommodation, having few windows, and not being terribly warm. Heating in our room was provided by an electric radiator, and an electric towel rail in the ensuite; there was a lobby between our room and the ensuite which was unheated, which, at the time of year we stayed, did cause something of a shock when venturing between room and ensuite and being not fully dressed.

There was a bath in the ensuite, with a reasonable shower over, but no grab rail to hold on to when getting in or out. Towels were supplied but not refreshed in our stay - in fact the room was not serviced at all in the three nights we were there, a mountain of rubbish accumulating around our bin for the cleaner to deal with after we checked out. The ensuite was a decent size, but the room itself seemed to have been built down to size, to fit a dressing table/desk, double bed, and bedside cabinets; our suitcase fitted in the cold lobby by the ensuite, but we only had a small bag with us. Travellers with bulky luggage would have not had enough space.

There was no wardrobe in our room, just a hanging rail in that cold lobby between room and ensuite, and no full length mirror; nor was there anything like a dressing table in the bedroom. It was a good job neither of us wanted to do make-up or similar. In fact even if we had had a mirror it wouldn’t have been much use because the lighting in the room was dreadful, I was tempted to buy a stronger light bulb because the one fitted in the room would, in the old days, have been rated no more than about 40 watts.

Breakfast was in the bar area, a self-service buffet of cereals, juice, tea or coffee, yoghurt, fruit, toast and preserves, and croissants. There was no hot option; Morrisons supermarket, ten minutes walk away, does have a cafe if a good breakfast is important, but for the price we paid, around £175 for three nights, a continental was more than adequate.

Being honest, if I were to looking for somewhere to stay around Harwich, the Fryatt would not be top of my list; even nearby there is a Premier Inn, and a planning application has been submitted for a sixty bed Travelodge close by too, and both might be preferred to the Fryatt even if they were a little more expensive; indeed, when that Travelodge opens, I think the Fryatt may struggle to fill all of its rooms. Perhaps they should turn that ground floor area back into a restaurant.