Review of The Grange Hotel York
Written by Karen BryanWe stayed at The Grange Hotel York for two nights in February 2010 on a complimentary basis hosted by Visit York. I was looking forward to my stay as The Grange was listed in the Sunday Times World’s Best Hotels in December 2009.
Staircase at The Grange Hotel York
However I was disappointed when I entered our room number 38. I had visions of a much more spacious room but this was an attic room in the side extension. The room was very attractively decked out in floral style wallpaper with matching curtains. The bathroom had a large shower and a large bath with a recessed TV at the bottom of the bath. But my overriding impression was that of being cramped due to the sloping ceilings. Every time my husband walked past the bottom of the bed he had to be careful to avoid banging his head on the slope edges. I could hardly fit our clothes and jackets in the fitted wardrobe as it was pretty small due to the sloping ceiling and it wasn’t tall enough to hang a dress or coat properly.
Although the room had double glazing and the bedroom window faced a side street, you could still hear a lot of traffic noise from the main road at the front of the hotel. The bathroom had a frosted glass door which means that light came into the bedroom in the morning from the skylight in the bathroom. I couldn’t get a strong enough wifi signal in the bedroom, I had to go down to the lounge to get a decent signal although the hotel advertises wifi throughout. I know it’s each to their own, but a strong wifi signal is more important to me than watching TV in the bath.
Me in the bath at The Grange Hotel York
Now a lot of this had to do with expectation and hype. If you have read that a hotel is rated in a global top 100, you are ready to be wowed. Whereas I was left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. While room 38 was a pleasant room, there is no way I’d even rate The Grange Hotel York in the top 100 hotels in the UK (based on staying in room 38), never mind Europe or the World.
The hotel could do more to avoid this potential deflation by having photos and a detailed description of the each individual room on their website. When you click on Bedrooms you are taken to a page which only has text describing some of the room features with a rotating display of photos at the top of the page. The photos are a mix of bedrooms (mainly room with four poster beds) as well as public areas of the hotel.
The public areas of the hotel do live up to the hype. The lobby had a beautiful staircase and the lounge with a coal fire in the evening was charming.
The breakfast was very good with a buffet selection of fresh fruit, fruit juice, yoghurt and cereals. There was a menu for the cooked part of breakfast. I had a vegetarian breakfast the first morning and smoked salmon and scrambled egg the second morning. All the staff at the Grange are helpful, polite and cheerful.
The Ivy Restaurant at The Grange Hotel York
The hotel is in a great location, a ten minute walk from York Minster. It offers free parking to guests but the car park is quite small.
If you are thinking of staying at the Grange Hotel York, my advice would be to check out exactly which type of room you are booking.
We were very sorry to read that you were disappointed with your bedroom but we do appreciate your favourable comments on other aspects of your stay at The Grange. We do hope that you will come and stay with us again at some stage in the future when we will certainly allocate one of our more traditional rooms which hopefully might be more to your liking. Thank you also for valuable feedback on the website.
Adrienne – Thank you for your comment on my review of the hotel.
I think there’s something of a contradiction at work here.
You decry the Grange Hotel because it’s in the Sunday Times Top 100 Hotels and doesn’t live up to your expectations:
“Now a lot of this had to do with expectation and hype. If you have read that a hotel is rated in a global top 100, you are ready to be wowed. Whereas I was left feeling distinctly underwhelmed.”
Your inference is that the Grange’s place in the top 100 is down in some way to the dark arts of PR – it doesn’t deserve its placement there/must be a fix etc. But in the same breath (or piece at least) you still have to credit the provider of your complimentary stay, Visit York and plug their See You in York promotion. (Not sure what they’re going to think about the return on their investment, incidentally…)
Surely travel writers who aren’t entirely independent/objective – by paying their own way and visiting anonymously – shouldn’t gripe when the system they’re helping to create lets them down (as it does for millions of other travellers all the time)?
As you sow, so shall you reap?
A Nobody – Thanks for your considered anonymous comment. I am in a tricky position when I accept complimentary accommodation but my aim is to write honest and objective accommodation reviews with photos and videos so that the readers can evaluate my judgment. I did say in my Grange review that it was based on Room 38.
In an ideal world I would prefer to pay for my own accommodation but being self employed I am not in the financial position to do this. I clearly state when I have received complimentary accommodation so that the reader can factor this in to their assessment of my review.
Are you saying that travel writers should only write gushing positive reviews if they accept freebies? That is not fair to the readers who will soon stop reading Europe a la Carte if they think that I’m a patsy. If readers go to a hotel which I’ve said is wonderful but isn’t I will lose credibility with readers.
When a tourist promotion organisation offer press trips they are not buying blanket positivity. I believe that Visit York will look at my total output from my visit I have uploaded many photos and videos of York to Flickr and Youtube, tweeted during my trip and am writing several posts about York which I think is a wonderful short break destination.
Full marks to Karen, who has acquitted herself with honesty. Nobody who has read this post, or Karen’s tweets during her trip, could be in any doubt that The Grange is a fine hotel which served up a bum room. More fool them.
And more fool the public for buying into these incessant, meaningless Top 10/50/100 lists of best this or that. Instead of writing to Karen complaining about her honesty, “A Nobody” should be writing to the Sunday Times telling them to stop pulling the wool over their readers’ eyes by recycling travel-industry PR fluff.
This is the power of blogging: no large-circulation print publication I’m aware of would run a hotel review of this length, this style or this tone.
Visit York have hit the jackpot in hosting a writer of integrity, who is unafraid to say it like it is (and be photographed in the bath to boot!). Congratulations to her, and everyone concerned.
I have to agree with Karen’s choice to write an honest and independent review. That’s what travel writing should be about. As for Visit York – they should be particularly pleased that she has been honest. This way, readers will trust the many positive things she has written about the place.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Karen!
I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew & Abi above. Karen, you did well to share your honest opinion of the hotel. I remember your piece about that hotel in Barcelona and I agreed with your points that the room looked great but wasn’t very practical. As for the Grange, maybe they would consider allocating a better room to travel bloggers (one with a four-poster bed) in the future, and not the attic. See if they get a better review. :-)
Ha ha! People are so unaccustomed to reading a full and truthful report that they don’t know how to take it.
Hotel owners obviously want to see their own gushing advertising copy or press releases reproduced as editorial. Many addicts of ‘warts-and-all’ consumer reports, like tripadvisor, prefer instead to see a place totally rubbished.
The truth is always much more like Karen has written it – some good, some not so good. The effect of this article is that, on considered opinion and so long as you choose the right room, the Grange Hotel actually sounds like a pretty good place to stay in York.
One of the best hotels in the world? Maybe, maybe not – but then, the whole idea of a ‘Top 100′ is a nonsense that intelligent people would take with a pinch of salt.
Complete with sensible advice to both hotel and potential guests, this is travel reporting at its best.
Well done Karen. I echo the views of other commenters. Your honest appraisal of the Grange makes me far more inclined to stay there (although I might be choosy about my room) than a review that was overly positive. The latter would be interpreted by most as having been influenced by your arrangement with the hotel and instantly disregarded as meaningless.
I hope Visit York and The Grange see a good return from their investment.
I totally agree with Andy and the others. Your review gives a really good feel of what the hotel is like and if I was going to York I would definitely be interesed in staying there. All hotels have their good and bad points, some general and others down to personal taste, and it is our job to point these out, along with the fact that rooms in some hotels differ widely, with the less attractive ones strangely not appearing on the website. You make perfectly clear that some of the aspects you weren’t thrilled about might not bother other people. Visit York and The Grange ought to be really pleased with a really professional review which I’m sure will generate bookings.
Matthew – Why do think that “no large-circulation print publication I’m aware of would run a hotel review of this length, this style or this tone”. I think that a hotel review has to be a fair length to take in all the aspects as well as the writer’s opinion. Having several photos and videos in the review is also helpful to the reader.
Abi – That’s exactly the point, readers are much more likely to believe the positive things that I write if there is some justifiable criticism (not just nit picking for the sake of it) too.
Keith – My aim is for all my hotel reviews (whether I’ve paid for them myself of they’ve been complimentary) to be honest and as objective as possible. Otherwise hat’s the point in writing them from Europe a la Carte readers’ perspective?
Andrew – Why are all travel writers/bloggers not producing full and truthful reviews, surely these are the only kind that are useful to potential guests? Of course most hotels will be doing better in some areas than others but it serves no one in the long run to gloss over any negativity.
Andy – I feel exactly the same way if I read hotel reviews written by travel writers/bloggers on complimentary stays that are always 100% positive.
Annie – I’m happy to hear that my review comes over as authentic and plausible and that you would consider staying at the Grange on the basis of my review. I do see it as my job to highlight good and not so good points, so that the reader can make their own evaluation according to their own preferences.
Those who’ve met Karen in person know she’s straightforward and wouldn’t blink an eye to express her views honestly. (OK we hung out for only 3 days, but that was the first thing you’d notice about her. ;))
Readers are subjected to their own opinions, but as long as the writer expresses what she thinks of the hotel and that honesty comes true in her writing, who cares about anything else?
Kudos to Karen! ;)
I really liked Karen’s review very much, and, like others, I would certainly consider staying at this hotel. I would not have minded certain things she did, but I would have minded others.
So, the only thing I wanted to add to this discussion is that reviews are ultimately a very subjective opinion of the reviewers, and depend on their tastes, habits, culture, etc.
I like the fact that Karen gave her own evaluation of this stay explaining exactly what she liked and what she didn’t like. Some other travelers might think the attic room is very cosy, and different and love it for that reason. Others might find wi-fi not as interesting as the tv in the bathroom. Others might instead find the decor hideous and the view uninteresting.
So, I think that when you offer something in exchange for a review, you should be aware that what you think it’s your best room, might in fact not be your guest’s first choice.
Nellie – Well I do try to be honest and as objective as possible in my reviews
Gloria – I do try to explain the good and not so good points of accommodation in which I stay and of course you are never going to please everyone as different guests are looking for different things. However I believe that photos/videos give the reader a better opportunity to assess my evaluation.
Thankyou Karen for the review of The Grange. We have just booked there for our 10th wedding anniversary at the end of April.
Do you have any particular room number to try and get
We were booked in at the Lion and Lamb but they have sadly closed down. I tried get a room at Guy Fawkes Inn but no one ever answered the phone, replied to my email and returned by answerphone message.
Susan – Sorry I don’t know any specific room numbers to advise,I can only suggest that contact the hotel to check they can give you the type of room that you’d prefer. Enjoy your anniversary.