One up for Travelodge - great value £15 Supersaver rooms
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I’ve been away for a few days. Our destination was Norfolk in the east of England but as we live in the north of England we spent a night in the Scotch Corner Travelodge on the way south to Norfolk and a night at the Harrogate Travelodge on the way north again. the rooms cost a non refundable £15 per night for room only Supersaver rate, if you book at least 3 weeks in advance. The rooms were a good size, clean and simply furnished. The Travelodge in Harrogate is in the town centre, a great location the only drawback being lack of a free car park at the Travelodge.
Our accommodation in Norfolk cost of £65 for a double room with breakfast. As you can see from the photo below the hotel, the Lodge Hotel in old Hunstanton looks very attractive on the exterior. It is a listed building, a former Dower House which has retained some period features. However when we entered our room it was as though we were in a different building. Our room was small, totally lacking in charm or character, with bland white furniture, a ripped sheet and patches of mould growing on the shower tiles. The breakfast was not great, no fresh fruit, warm fruit juice and rubbery fried eggs.
Lodge Hotel. Old Hunstanton
So do you get what you pay for? I don’t think so. To be fair you don’t get the £15 Travelodge rate on Friday and Saturday nights but you can still find rooms at £26 Saver rate and price doesn’t include breakfast. At least you know what to expect at a Travelodge due to the standardisation of rooms. Staying at small hotels and Bed and Breakfasts is such a lottery, you just don’t know what you’ll find when you arrive, even if you read reviews. The Lodge Hotel scored an average 8 out of 10 from 15 reviews on Active Hotels. I would give it a 3 out of 10. Whereas the Travelodge at Scotch Corner a 6 out of 10 and the one in Harrogate 10 out of 10.
The morale of the story, if you’re happy with a bog standard room and can find a Travelodge near where you want to visit and can commit to specific dates, try searching for a low cost room at Travelodge. If you want to stay somewhere special do your research carefully but cross your fingers that when you arrive you find what have been led to expect.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I sometimes think that English people have a fixation with ‘old’ meaning ‘wonderful’. In fact my experience has been that, as here, ‘old’ too often turns out to mean ‘mind-blowingly awful’.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Thanks for your comment, ZRF. I take your point about assuming that a historic hotel building will mean that the hotel will be wonderful. I probably should have been suspicious that there were no photos of the interior of the hotel on the website. Even then they could use their best room for the photos. I think sometimes you do want to stay in a hotel with character but that doesn’t always mean old I have seem some stunning modern hotels.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I see that my score of 4 out f 10 for the Lodge Hotel has been added to the reviews but none of my comments, I wonder why? If I saw a low score in a review I would be interested to ready why that guest had given such a low score.
October 12th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
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March 13th, 2008 at 11:32 am
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