Budget hotels discussion

westv · 6 May 2024

Baxenden Bank said:
As the price for a full cooked breakfast is around the £11 to £13 mark it would be quite easy to find a reasonable sized cooked breakfast for less*.

*northern England, not your London prices.

The price is a full cooked breakfast + continental choices + unlimited coffee/tea/juices so I think it's good value if you choose to fill up for the day.

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ChrisC · 6 May 2024

Baxenden Bank said:
In Premier Inn, kids eat free at breakfast. Premier Inn are not a charity food bank, therefore the cost of that free breakfast is being recouped from somewhere. I object to subsidising other people's children so I never buy a breakfast there!

I normally wouldn‘t go quite as far as saying that but I must admit that there was one occasion when I really did think that.

A good few years ago I was staying in a London Travelodge which was very understaffed at breakfast time. It was very difficult to get a full breakfast as there were always some items missing and a queue of people waiting for the food to be replenished from the kitchen. Every time items were brought out of the kitchen a group of greedy teenagers ran straight to the front of the queue, and grabbed all the food before adults who had been waiting could get theirs. Their parents never said a word. At the time I was really annoyed and thought to myself I’m paying to subsidise their free breakfast. It was even worse when you saw their plates piled up with muffins etc.

Trackman · 6 May 2024

ChrisC said:
I normally wouldn‘t go quite as far as saying that but I must admit that there was one occasion when I really did think that.

A good few years ago I was staying in a London Travelodge which was very understaffed at breakfast time. It was very difficult to get a full breakfast as there were always some items missing and a queue of people waiting for the food to be replenished from the kitchen. Every time items were brought out of the kitchen a group of greedy teenagers ran straight to the front of the queue, and grabbed all the food before adults who had been waiting could get theirs. Their parents never said a word. At the time I was really annoyed and thought to myself I’m paying to subsidise their free breakfast. It was even worse when you saw their plates piled up with muffins etc.

I am a placid person, but queue jumpers are something I cannot abide with and must speak up.

Going back to breakfasts, I dont bother unless it's in with the room.
Once I stayed at a Travelodge in north wales, and I fancied a bacon sarny in the morning- as advertised. Went to reception, a few minutes later they re-appeared with said bacon sandwich, it was terrible! Basically it was a cheap microwave affair.

TheSmiths82 · 6 May 2024

DynamicSpirit said:
I've also stayed in the one in Chester and it was pretty dire - room not properly cleaned before I got there. But had much better experiences with Travelodges in other places.

One thing that got me about Travelodge is having to pay extra to use the Internet (beyond a certain fairly low 'freebie' amount of data). I get that part of being a budget place is that you pay separately for extras, but Internet seems such a basic thing that it seems odd for it not to be provided automatically for guests. I can't recall ever being charged to use the Internet in any other hotel.

I rarely make use of it as I am always out of the hotel anyway, it is just a bed but at times when the 4/5g signals have been poor it is useful. Most other budget hotels (apart from Easyhotel etc) offer free internet now. I would have thought that would put business users off.

Budget hotels discussion

westv

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ChrisC

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Trackman

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TheSmiths82

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