Europe a la Carte Blog

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Summary

The Good - short walk from airport terminal, prices start at 69 euros a night with films and wi fi included in price, big comfy bed, spacious shower, one remote control for all room functions, plenty of natural light in bedroom, effective soundproofing, wonderful staff, welcoming, relaxed public areas, quick check in and out, 24 hour self service canteen.

The Bad - heating difficult to control, not much table space, room floor wet after using wash basin and shower, difficult to get in and out of bed if 2 guests, all rooms have double beds.

The Awful - toilet in the bedroom and the ugly rag doll.

The shower capsule (left) and toilet capsule (right)

The Brief

I stayed as a “press” guest the citizenM hotel at Amsterdam airport on the 24 June 2008, the night of the press launch. Below are my personal observations, listed in random order, I didn’t attempt to rank my points.

The Details

The Good

1 The hotel is located a five minute walk, along a covered walkway from the airport terminal. This is really handy as on my first night I stayed at the Ibis airport hotel and had to wait ages for the shuttle bus to arrive.

2 Prices start from 69 euros, around £55 a night, if you book in advance outside peak periods.

3 Room price includes wi fi and movies, either scheduled or on demand. Phone calls are routed through the internet, so cost much less than conventional hotel calls.

4 An extremely comfortable king size bed which was probably the best bed in which I”ve ever slept. The pillows were great too.

5 A spacious shower with either on overhead rain spray or a hand held spray with a choice of two shower gel/shampoos.

6 The all in one control pad lets you adjust the lighting, control TV and open and shut window blinds and shutters.

7 The bedroom is very light and airy due to the fact that the window is wall to wall. If you enjoy plane spotting you can lie in bed and watch the planes land and take off if your room looks out from the airport side of the hotel.

Sunset over Schiphol

8 Excellent sound proofing as you’re so close to the airport but don’t hear any aircraft noise in the bedroom.

9 Very friendly, enthusiastic, attentive staff who came over as genuinely interested in ensuring guests have a good stay versus rather than forced, false friendliness or indifferent staff encounters which I’ve experienced in many other hotels.

10 A choice of three trendy lounges, with Vitro furniture, in which to relax. The layout of of two large tables with bar stools at either side of the canteen is less formal than sitting at individual tables and makes it easier to chat to other guest. As a solo female traveller I’d feel much happier about going down to the public areas than in many other hotels.

One of the citizenM lounges

11 Fast self service on screen check in and out. No long queues here it only takes a minute.

12 Good selection of self service food and drink items for sale at reasonable prices (by hotel standards) in the self service canteen which is open 24 hours.

The Bad

1 I found the room temperature rather cool which was fine for sleeping but rather chilly after having a shower. There is a temperature control on the mood pad which I adjusted up to maximum but I couldn’t discern any difference in temperature.

2 There’s very little table space, only 2 small circular tables at the end of the bed. I prefer to have a bit more area as work space.

3 The wash basin is very shallow so it’s almost impossible to avoid splashing water all over floor. This coupled with water drips on the floor after taking a shower, even if you use the bath mat, leads to potential slip hazards.

4 The bed is wedged in between the window and the walls to adjoining rooms meaning that you can only access the bed from one side. Not a problem if you are sleeping alone as you can lie parallel to the window. However if there are two in the bed and you both lie parallel to the window the person nearest the window would have to climb over the other person to get out of the bed. If you both slept with you heads at the window, you’d both have to wriggle up and down the bed (a new workout move called the citizenM bedercise) and the bedside tables at the bottom of the bed would impede your entrance and exit.

6 All rooms have a double bed so you could only share a room as a couple, it wouldn’t be suitable for say 2 friends on a city break.

The Awful

1 The toilet cubicle is in the bedroom albeit in a ventilated capsule which you can enclose by pulling together opaque glass doors. This didn’t bother me so much when I stayed on the room on my own but I don’t think it works when two guests stay in the room. There are certain things in life that you don’t want to share, even with your nearest and dearest.

2 When I first entered the room I was wondered what on earth was lying on my bed as it looked like something that the cat had dragged in. It was in fact a specially designed citizenM rag doll which was available to purchase for 20 euro. In my opinion the doll is an ugly, totally superfluous detraction from the overall modern, trendy design of the room.

The ghastly rag doll

Conclusion

So overall how would I rate the hotel? Well that would depend on the price I paid and If I were travelling alone or with my husband.

written by Karen Bryan, Editor

Good - great value 60 euros for a double room including breakfast. Our room had a partial lake view and good sized balcony, friendly, helpful staff.

Bad - no separate shower cubicle, so all bathroom floor wet after shower, room rather small with wall mounted TV a real head bumping hazard.

Rating out of 10 - 8

We stayed for one night at La Vela Hotel in the small town of Passigione sul Trasimeno on the north eastern shores of Lake Trasimeno, near Perugia at the end of May 2008. I wanted to spend a night at Lake Trasimeno and there wasn’t a great selection of hotels available for on line booking in the area. La Vela had received fairly positive reviews and was available at the rate of 60 euros per night booking with Venere found using the HotelsCombined price comparison website. The hotel’s own website just quotes the range of prices but as the lowest price shown was 60 euros, the same as Venere for a double room, I decided to book online through the Venere secure server.

When we arrived I was offered the choice of two rooms, there was larger room on the second floor at the back of the hotel and a smaller room on the 3rd floor at the front of the hotel with a partial lake view. I chose the lake view. We both almost banged our heads several times on the wall mounted TV which instead of being a in the corner of the bedroom was just above the corner of the bed. The bathroom shower consisted of a shower curtain but no solid shower cubicle or shower base, so the bathroom floor was soaked after you had a shower.

We enjoyed sitting on the balcony, the road next to the hotel is pretty quiet and although the single track railway line is fairly close by the trains didn’t appear to run very late or early. There’s a car park at the rear of the hotel. It’s only takes a few minutes of level walk to the lake side and town centre. The breakfast was good with a fair selection of items.

In summary a good value small hotel with clean rooms and friendly staff, ideal for a couple of nights by Lake Trasimeno.

Good - 15 minutes drive from Pisa airport. Beautiful old building from exterior with impressive entrance hall, stairway and ceiling window in lovely grounds.

Bad - far too many rules and regulations and additional charge warnings. Not very clean, small bedrooms with no balcony or terrace. Difficult to find and you have to drive to find a restaurant as hotel restaurant is currently closed. Staff not very friendly.

Rating out of 10 - 3

photo courtesy of Trip Advisor

I selected the Hotel Villa Maya because of its proximity to Pisa airport for the last night of our touring trip of Tuscany and Umbria. Our flight didn’t depart until evening but I didn’t want to have a lot of driving on our final day in addition to hanging around at the airport, the flight and the drive home from Edinburgh. The cheapest price I found for a double room including breakfast was 74 euro on the hotel’s own website. It was the most expensive hotel at which we stayed during our trip but I was captivated by the photos of the late 19th century villa, set in a large garden with bedrooms furnished with antiques and wood beamed ceilings with Tuscan cotto tiles. It sounded a delightful contrast to the standardised boxes of a modern hotel.

My initial impression of the Hotel Villa Maya was that their car park was awful, it was a small graveled area in front of the fence around the grounds. It had rained earlier that day and the potholes were full and water and the clay stuck to your feet. I was glad that I wasn’t wearing expensive high heeled shoes.

I was then further annoyed to be “welcomed” to the VIlla Maya by a warning sign on the front door saying that if you checked in after 23:00 there would be an additional charge of 10 euros per person.

Our room was at the front of the Villa on the ground floor, which meant that anyone coming in or out of the villa came past our window. The room was pretty small and the bathroom was starting to show signs of wear. The rooms shown on the Villa Maya website looked much larger than the room we were allocated. My husband found used soap from the previous guests in the shower soap dish and a couple of hairs in the sink and I found a large dead fly on the bedrooms floor.

When I was reading the guest information in the hall, there was a large sign informing guests that they could only consume food and drink purchased outside the hotel in their own room, not the hotel gardens. In a way I can see their point but as the rooms didn’t have balconies it would have been nice to have a cup of tea (made with my travel kettle) or a glass of wine outside. The garden was probably the best part of the villa with a gazebo and cool shady areas ideal to sit and read.

Had I booked into the correct hotel? The website describes the hotel as making you “feel right at home with a warm, family welcome in a refined, relaxed atmosphere, ensuring that your stay with be a highly enjoyable experience that will stay with you long after you leave”, Well the last part is correct as the bad memory has stayed with me.

As we were leaving to go out for dinner the receptionist informed us that if we arrived back after 23:00 we should ring the bell as the front door would be locked and we only had a room key. Now if they are don’t want to give guests the front door key and are going to be disturbed by late returns anyway why should they charge late arrivals an additional 10 euro?

Breakfast was served in an out building which had a plastic awning so you could enjoy the garden views. The lady serving breakfast was pretty surly and my husband saw her moving the ham with her bare hands. There were large signs saying that it was not permitted to take items from the breakfast buffet to consume later.

I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel that had so many signs advising guests what they can’t do. and how much they’ll have to pay if they do it.  I was very disappointed by this hotel and had a far larger, more comfortable, quieter, cleaner room, better breakfast, friendlier staff and a proper tarmaced car park at a lower cost per night at hotels which are part of chains such as the Holiday Inn in Perugia.

Good - low price 65 euros for double room with breakfast, good breakfast, comfortable, clean rooms, lovely pool with great views,

Bad - a fair distance from old town, courtesy bus only ran 3 times a day, road noise at pool.

Rating out of 10 - 9

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Perugia for two nights in May 2008 during our one week touring holiday of southern Tuscany and Umbria. The best rate available when I booked in mid February was 65 euros per night for a double room including breakfast on the hotel booking site Venere found using the HotelsCombined price comparison site. You should also check the Holiday Inn Hotels site as they may offer the best rate. The Holiday Inn site offers a Price Guarantee but there seemed to be so many exclusions that I thought it simpler just to book on the Venere site.

View to Perugia from the Holiday Inn pool

I knew when I booked the hotel that it was several kilometres from the city centre but this meant that the hotel had free parking and there was a courtesy bus to the city centre available from the hotel. However during our stay the bus only ran three times a day, departing the hotel at 09:00, 15:00 and 18:00. None of these times was really suitable. It was very hot around 35 degrees celsius during our stay and we wanted to visit in the evening when it was cooler. I think that a service running every 2 - 3 hours until at least 22:00 would be more useful. We drove into the city centre where it’s free to park after 20:00.

The rooms even had a kettle to make hot drinks in your room, very unusual in Italy,. The room was very clean and comfortable with a good shower. Our room was at the back of the hotel away from the road noise from the nearby dual carriageway enabling us to sleep with the window open, rather than having the air conditioning on all night.

Breakfast was one of the best during our trip in Italy. Breakfasts in Italian hotels can vary quite a lot in quality and variety of items on offer and the Holiday Inn had a fair choice and the quality was good.

We were lucky to have the swimming pool and jacuzzi to ourselves on a couple of occasions. There’s a wonderful view to Perugia but the road noise is a bit distracting. There were about eight sun loungers around the pool which could be a problem if the pool were busy.

In summary a great value hotel with good standard of rooms and breakfast, free parking, easy access to a fast road with the bonus of a swimming pool. It’s ideal for a touring holiday as you’re only a couple of minutes drive from the dual carriageway. However I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have your own car or courtesy bus frequency improves dramatically.

This post was featured in the Carnival of Cities on 21 June 2008.

Good - great value at £49 sterling for double room with breakfast, close to Pisa airport, swimming pool and private beach, spacious bedroom and bathroom.

Bad - not really up to 4 star standard could do with revamping.

Rating out of 10 - 8

I selected the Grand Golf Hotel because of its proximity to Pisa airport as we were flying into Pisa in the early evening and didn’t want a long drive in the hire car after the flight. I found the hotel for £49 with gta hotels using the HotelsCombined price comparison site.

It took around 30 minutes to drive to the hotel from the airport. The hotel is a quiet location, near pine woods around a 10 minute walk from the town centre. Our bedroom was very spacious with a large bathroom. The fittings in the room were quite old fashioned but perfectly serviceable. Our balcony was tiny but there was a sea view. The breakfast was adequate. The swimming pool was attractive but be warned you can only swim there wearing a bathing cap which costs 4 euros at reception.

We walked to the hotel’s private beach in the morning which took around 5 minutes. There were only a few fishermen around. It’s free for guest to enter but you have to pay for sun beds and parasols but there was no-one around collecting money when we were there. There are changing facilities, showers and a cafe.

I think that the hotel is ideal for a stopover if you have an early or late flight in or out of Pisa. It would also be ideal for a relaxing couple of days by the seaside.

Good - Low price of £25 for a room which sleeps up to three adults. Ability to get low rate even with late booking. Convenient location, just off M9 with plenty free parking.

Bad - Dirty shared bathroom facilities and no tea and coffee making facilities in room. Room very basic with very thin mattress and small double bed. A 6 digit pin code rather than key to access room.

Rating out of 10 - 5

I started my search for accommodation in the Falkirk area on my favourite hotel price comparison site, HotelsCombined where the Metro Inn in Falkirk came up at £30 a night for room only on the Laterooms site. However following my own advice on how to find the lowest rate I checked out that Metro Inns site and the found the room for £24.50.

I stayed at the Metro Inn in Falkirk for one night in April 2008. The hotel used to be branded Formule 1 part of the Accor hotel group but five of the Formule 1 hotels, Falkirk, Newcastle, Teeside, Doncaster and Peterborough were sold to Metro Inns a couple of years ago.

Metro Inns have shared bathroom facilities. There are separate plastic moulded wc and shower units which are designed to be self cleaning but I’m don’t think that the cleaning was taking place. I had two problems with the shared bathrooms, the first that the bathrooms were not clean. The other than you don’t receive a key but a six digit pin code to access your room. If you need to go to the bathroom during the night you need to remember to take the slip of paper with your pin code or you’ll end up locked out of your room and it’s much easier to lock and unlock a door with key than punch in six digits when you are half asleep. I dropped my slip of paper on the wet floor in the shower room and could hardly read the pin.

Shared bathrooms alone is not enough to discourage me from booking accommodation, it depends on other factors too, the price of the accommodation, the ratio of bathrooms to guest bedrooms and the cleanliness of the facilities.

The room had a TV but no tea and coffee making facilities. There were several vending machines selling food and drink in the hotel lobby. There was a small double bed with a very thin mattress which had a single bunk directly above. There was a sink in the room.

The website says there is free wifi access at Metro Inns but I didn’t check this out.

I wouldn’t be keen to stay at Metro Inns again, mainly because of the dirty shared bathrooms and the very basic rooms. It is good value, especially if 3 people stay it’s as cheap as a youth hostel dorm and you have a private room. I rate Travelodge much more highly as you can get a much better standard of room, more spacious and a large comfy bed with a private bathroom, which sleeps up to 2 adults and 2 kids but you have to book at least 18 days in advance to get the non refundable Saver rate of £19.

I read a post today by Phil Caines, one of the organisers of the Travel Blogger Summit in Berlin last week, describing the Newsweek report on the growing disillusionment among consumers with user generated reviews.

I think that there’s too much emphasis on user generated reviews. If you’re going on a trip where you’ll spend most of your time out exploring, how much time and effort should you place in finding the perfect hotel? Surely what you’ll remember most about your trip is what you saw and did rather than your hotel room. I know a bad hotel can spoil a trip but as long as the hotel is clean and comfortable it will serve as a place to sleep.

Personally speaking I’ve been caught out by reviews. For a special occasion I do want to stay somewhere with a bit of character. Last year I booked a hotel for our wedding anniversary which received good reviews but we thought our room was pretty awful. The booking was made through Active Hotels were you can only write a review about a property that you have booked through their site and actually stayed at the hotel. We had a much better room on our way home for a fraction of the price at a Travelodge.

Thinking back a few years, when you booked a hotel blind, I had my share of good and bad hotels, much as I do now, even although I may spend hours searching through user generated reviews.

Good - right next to S Bahn, tram and bus stops, good continental buffet breakfast, clean shared bathroom facilities, reasonable prices

Bad - noisy, mainly from banging fire and room doors but also surprisingly from housekeeping staff starting work early and talking loudly to each other

Rating - 7 out of 10

I choose the Generator Hostel for a stay of 4 nights during my attendance at the Berlin Travel Trade Fair in March 2008. Prices had rocketed at any accommodation close to the Fairground in the west of Berlin, so opted for this hostel, a converted factory, in the east of the city. I’d booked a twin room as I initially thought my husband might come over for a couple of nights. In any case I didn’t want to sleep in a dorm. It cost 213 US dollars for the 4 nights for a twin room including breakfast, booked through a third party, after searching for the best price on the HotelsCombined price comparison site.

On check in I was upgraded to a four bedded room which was more spacious and told jokingly by the receptionist I could have a different bed for every night of my stay. The room was clean, apart from some stains on the carpet and had a small sink. The issue of stained carpets is being addresses as laminate flooring was being laid in the rooms during my stay.

I never had any problems with access to the bathroom facilities which were always clean but the toilet paper was more like kitchen roll.

The breakfast was pretty good, fresh white rolls and sliced rye bread, a selection of cereals, yoghurt, cheese, jams and salami. The coffee from the machine was very good.

My only problem, serious to me, was not being able to sleep. There was a certain level of noise made by other residents from the adjacent rooms, the corridor and slamming doors but I was awakened every morning from around 06.30 by housekeeping staff banging away and talking very loudly to each other.

I have been disturbed by noise from other residents in more expensive accommodation on some occasions and I acknowledge that I am a light sleeper but the experience has really put me off staying in hostels in the future.

Good - £45 a night for a twin room with breakfast on the Great Getaways rate, which could be canceled without penalty up to 48 hours before arrival, peaceful rural location.

Bad - long queues at breakfast buffet, no sound insulation between rooms. Rural location means you’re dependent on car to get there and if you want a selection of restaurants or pubs.

Rating - 6 out of 10 (at £45 a night)

We stayed for 3 nights in February 2008 at the Shap Wells hotel, which lies around 20 miles south of Penrith. I’d assumed the hotel was in Shap. so had to call into another hotel to ask for directions after we’d driven through Shap with now sight of the hotel. It’s down a single track road a couple of miles south of Shap. It’s a grand old buidling in a quiet, rural location, next to a stream.

There were no spaces in the car park when we arrived and my husband had to move a glass recycling bin so we could squeeze into a space. The receptionist on duty was not very friendly or warn just efficient. Our room was adequate. fairly compact with a small window overlooking the inner courtyard. The bathroom sink had a large crack and there were some cracks in the side of the wardrobe door. We could hear quite a lot of noise from the corridor and nearby rooms.

Breakfast on Saturday morning was an ordeal as there was a 15 minute queue at the cooked breakfast counter. The queue snaked around our table and it wasn’t very relaxing having all these people standing next to your table. There were several large unused tables left all along the window from a function the previous evening which meant that you couldn’t enjoy the lovely view out to the stream.

I asked to speak to the manager to voice my displeasure and while he listened politely he more or less said it was inevitable that there would be a queue for breakfast at a large hotel and there had been no time to remove the large function tables before breakfast. I did try to explain to him that I was trying to be constructive in order to improve the guest experience in ways that don’t necessarily involve spending more money, just more consideration of the guest. The view from the restaurant is one of the best features of the hotel and it’s a waste not to let guests enjoy this because you can’t be bothered to move some tables. When I told the manager this, his reply was “everyone would want to sit by the window”. Well at least some guests would have their wish fulfilled if the function tables had been removed.

Overall at £45 a night the Shap Wells was OK but if I’d paid much more for a rather basic room and poor breakfast service I’d had been pretty hacked off.

Good - fantastic value for £20 a night bed and breakfast for ensuite single room midweek in February 2008. Good location, just of London road, 15 minutes walk from Princes Street.

Bad - room quite basic beginning to show some minor signs of wear and tear.

Score - 10 out of 10 (at £20 a night)

I found the hotel searching on my favourite HotelsCombined price comparison site with Laterooms for £22 for a single ensuite room without breakfast. I thought this was a pretty good price but I thought I’d also have a look at the hotels own website. Unusually the rooms were even cheaper there. A single room was £19, a double £29 including breakfast if you paid upfront and £20 for the single and £30 for the double, for the option to cancel up to one day before arrival.

The hotel consists of a conversion of several adjacent terraced Georgian town houses. The receptionist was cheerful and welcoming, My room was a good size for a single room, basically furnished with an ensuite shower room. Although the room had a high ceiling and it was a cold night, the room was nice and cosy. My room was at the front of the hotel on the ground floor but I didn’t hear any external noise as it’s a few hundred metres from the main road.  Breakfast was adequate with a choice of cereal, yoghurt and tinned fruit, fruit juice and a cooked breakfast. If you have a car, you can park free overnight until 08.30 and it’s 70 pence an hour from 08.30 with a maximum stay of 4 hours.

I had a look at the availability of these low rates and could only find them midweek until the end of February, then the price increased to £37 a night. At that price my overall score would change as the price has almost doubled.

It’s always a good idea to use a price comparison tool in conjunction with a look at the hotels own site, to ensure you find the best rates.  You can use the search box below to check the best rate available through HotelsCombined.