This is the Ibis Budget located near to the city’s university and it was very keenly priced, just a little above £30 including breakfast. It’s opposite a Carrefour supermarket which pleased me, until I got there and discovered that it was a national holiday. France had once again arranged its calendar without consulting me which is entirely sub-optimal. Anyway, it’s a functional and budget Accor hotel with a shaded and seemingly functional pizza machine at the front. I’m waiting for my friend Richard to get one of those (as in get a pizza, not get an entire pizza vending machine), we nearly did in Germany, as he likes investing in side quests like seeing what pizza from a random kiosk is like.
The staff member at check-in only spoke a little English but with my little French we muddled through. She was keen to tell me that the hotel didn’t have air conditioning and I’d better note that it was exceptionally hot when I was there in mid-July. Anyway, I was very brave and I did mention that, but I think that that was lost in translation. The room was as cold as they could have made it with the shades drawn, but it was still hot.
The breakfast arrangement was basic, but my priority was the option of chilled drinks. They were clearly struggling with the heat to try and keep the food items cold, but they did as good a job as I think they could have done.
Fruit, bread, jam, some pretty inedible cheese, bread, croissant, orange juice and coffee. I wouldn’t note that it was exceptional, but this was a very cheap stay so I can’t say that I was disappointed.
Online feedback for the hotel is relatively high, although it’s evident some guests weren’t surprised and delighted by the lack of air conditioning. The team members were friendly, the room was clean and the breakfast was entirely adequate for the price, but I don’t think Richard would have been very impressed. It’s easy to get to the hotel as it’s right by the end of a tram line and I’d stay here again, although perhaps I might wait for the winter months so that the temperature is a little more optimal.
There is no shortage of Accor hotel options in Nantes, which is fortunate as it means that the pricing is relatively favourable even during July. This particular hotel was centrally located and reasonably priced, although it appeared to attract rather more negative reviews than several nearby properties carrying the same corporate branding. This suggested either a hidden catastrophe or, more probably, rooms that were slightly smaller than some reviewers felt entitled to receive in the middle of a major French city.
I arrived an hour before the standard check-in time as I hadn’t had any sleep and needed a little nap before more city exploration. The helpful receptionist said that they couldn’t do an early check-in, but this was no obstacle to me, there were tables and free water and the receptionist said I was welcome to wait. I then discovered that there was no phone signal and I couldn’t access the wi-fi until I checked in, as I needed the room number.
Whilst debating whether I had the energy to get up and see if I could get that room number, the receptionist came over and asked for my name. Fortunately, I have stayed in enough Accor hotels to get free early check-in and she then said that she had checked with the cleaners and a room was available. To be fair, they probably didn’t want me cluttering up reception but, either way, my nap had moved considerably closer, making it a positive outcome for everyone involved.
The stairs to the room were entirely sub-optimal as they had all manner of stuff stored on the steps and it required some effort to get around it. I decided that I’d take the lift for the rest of my stay just to be on the safe side.
The room design was the oddest I’ve seen for some time and although it’s not evident from this photo, the shower is positioned just to the right of the photo facing straight towards the bed. That means that if the shower is turned on then there’s the risk of covering the bed, and the electrics, in a flood of water.
The security catch on the window was broken, which meant that I could open it fully and introduce some desperately needed air into the room. Given the temperature outside, this was welcome, although it did reinforce the impression that the hotel was not allowing excessive health and safety paperwork to inhibit its creative freedom. Between the obstructed staircase, unrestricted window and shower aimed towards the electrics, the building offered a pleasingly relaxed relationship with risk assessment.
The room itself was also small, which is something that seems to be behind many of the hotel’s poor reviews, and there was no desk of note, just a small circular table and chair. However, this was a keenly priced hotel in the middle of a city, so I can cope without having acres of space. I also liked the seating area near reception, so I could have moved there had I needed to.
I was surprised and delighted by the hotel’s beer offering for my welcome drink and the receptionist was enthused at showing me what they had. There was a range of mostly local beers and some national options, it was one of the best selections that I’ve had for some time in an Accor hotel and it was especially decent given that it was a relatively small hotel.
The breakfast was included in the room rate and there was plenty of space, although I did go down quite early on. When there’s a free breakfast, I don’t want to faff about.
This was some of the selection and that cheese was delicious and it took quite a hit. The ham was awful, although Accor hotels, especially at the cheaper end, rarely get that right.
I had a lot of bread and cheese, croissants and pastries, alongside fresh orange juice and coffees. This is the sort of breakfast of champions that is a positive start to the day, although I had to have a little post-breakfast rest so I might have overdone it. This is what happens when there is no responsible adult present to impose sensible limits on my access to bread and cheese. Continental breakfast freedom carries responsibilities, and I had plainly failed to exercise them.
There was quite a lot technically wrong with the hotel in terms of presentation, room design and its somewhat free-spirited approach to safety, but none of it particularly bothered me. The room was clean, the staff were friendly and there were no significant noise problems, either inside or outside. I had been allocated a room at the end of a corridor, which helped, as some rooms appeared to be positioned close enough to the noisy lift for guests to participate emotionally in every journey it made.
Overall, I rather liked the hotel. It was inexpensive, central and comfortable enough, the breakfast was excellent and the beer selection was far better than it had any need to be. I’d happily stay here again, but I can see that the lack of space in some rooms might not be ideal for some guests.
Accommodation in Bilbao wasn’t the cheapest, but the Ibis Budget which was a short railway journey away was more affordable, so I stayed here for three nights. It takes around twenty minutes on the train and it’s only around £1 for a rail fare, so that was most agreeable.
The room was more functional than decadent. No-one walks into one of these hotels expecting chandeliers, velvet drapes and a butler asking whether sir would like his pillow angled towards the Guggenheim. Well, maybe my friend Richard actually, not that he’d set foot in anywhere with the word “Budget” in the hotel name.
The view from the window and this photo actually hides that it was quite pleasant with the large hill and forested area behind the factory.
Breakfast was only around £5 per day, which seemed worth it for the coffee and orange juice alone. It was quite a basic breakfast to be fair, that ham looked bloody awful. I am not entirely sure what journey it had been on before reaching the buffet, but I decided not to become involved. Sometimes breakfast is about knowing which items to leave alone with dignity.
The breakfast area was basic, but this is in keeping with the international Ibis Budget branding. The team members were keeping things clean and organised, with everything feeling well managed. They are trying to feed people efficiently in a clean space before everyone goes off to museums, offices, airports or, in my case, railway stations and craft beer bars.
The bread with jam was rather lovely, as were the croissants, so it was a filling start to the day. It may not be luxury, but it does at least prevent the first meal of the day from becoming a formal complaint.
The online reviews are average, mostly people who had expected more luxury than the hotel ever claimed to offer. The air cooling system worked reasonably well so I was happy with that, but there was no air conditioning. Given the heat, this was an important detail, as I was not in the mood to spend three nights gently poaching in a compact room as that would have been entirely sub-optimal.
For the money charged, which was under £50 per night including breakfast, I thought that the whole arrangement was entirely satisfactory. The team members were friendly, there were no noise issues either internally or externally, with the room being cleaned every day which doesn’t happen everywhere now. I’d certainly consider staying here again whenever I next visit the city, assuming I can once again resist the emotional pull of paying much more money to sleep closer to the centre. And that’s quite likely as I like cheap….
And another short post as I’ve stayed at this hotel many times before and written about a fair number of them, so I won’t try the patience of my two loyal blog readers for long. There are limits even to my commitment to documenting budget hotel consistency, although admittedly I keep testing them.
It’s routinely the cheapest of the Accor hotels in Warsaw and it’s not hard to get to on the tram or bus, so it’s a very viable option. It’s probably not the best hotel to use as part of an airport layover, but travel should have challenges sometimes as where’s the fun in efficient?
I had arrived too late for my free welcome drink, which is never ideal, but they had given me a welcome gift of some teas and a biscuit. These little gestures are always much appreciated.
Although the hotel is located by a busy road, the view from my window was rather more pleasant.
And a rather lovely breakfast. The meat looked quite frightening, so I went for some more healthy options. And a heap of bread and pastries at the back, alongside coffee, orange juice and tea. And a big dollop of strawberry yoghurt.
With that, I had to start planning my return to the airport, which was slightly annoying as I had only been at the hotel for a few hours. But, there were no noise issues internally or externally and I was able to catch up on sleep after a warm night in Faro the previous day. It was not a long stay, but it did exactly what was required which was a clean room, quiet night, decent breakfast and a biscuit-based welcome.
I’m not sure anyone will notice unless they’re particularly avid readers, and there’s a limited number of those, but I’m jumping around a little with these posts to try and get to the end as I’m now on the next trip. This is the constant difficulty of running a travel blog at my level of international glamour. Sometimes one has to write about Swindon while mentally being somewhere else, which is probably how a lot of people experience Swindon anyway.
Anyway, this is the Ibis Budget in Swindon, the first time that I’ve stayed there. In a rather sub-optimal manner, there was no staff member at reception and I had to trek around to Holiday Inn Express to find someone. I’d note that I’m aware that they are different chains, but previous guests have said that they’re sharing receptions to a degree.
After I located the receptionist I was pleased to be told that my room had been upgraded. Now, this is all a bit relative, I had booked a thrifty room with no window and I was allocated a room with a window. I have not included the window in the photo, perhaps because I didn’t want to show off too much.
I liked the carpets in the corridors, but I should probably get out more. There is something worrying about reaching the stage in life where hotel corridor carpets become worthy of comment, but at least it shows I am still noticing the world around me. Not necessarily the important parts of it, but parts nonetheless.
The restaurant menu.
Apparently it’s open 24 hours a day although since I couldn’t find a reception in the evening, I’m a little sceptical about getting a chicken curry and a pint at 03:43.
Breakfast was included in the room rate and was quite basic, although it happened to suit my needs entirely. If you like ham, yoghurt and burnt bacon, then this was a winner and those are elements that suit me.
It worked for me and I went through a lot of the hotel’s ham and bacon offerings. The coffee machine was broken and they had run out of orange juice, so I opted for apple juice as I’m flexible like that. I like to think of myself as adaptable in moments of crisis, provided the crisis is relatively small and involves chilled breakfast beverages.
It wasn’t busy at breakfast and I’m not sure that it was very busy anywhere in the hotel.
I’d note that they probably need to make these automatic doors easier to operate as they’re not automatic and require the pressing the button on the left hand side. I have no idea why they’ve made it that complex and that’s confused numerous reviewers and it confused me. I accept that confusing me is not necessarily proof of poor design, but when several other people are also baffled by a door, perhaps the door needs to take some responsibility.
Get healthy when staying at Ibis Budget…..
I found this a slightly odd hotel which doesn’t sit entirely well in the Ibis Budget brand. I’m not sure that they should have joint receptions with other chains, I wouldn’t expect Travelodge and Premier Inn to share reception desks. The restaurant area needs some investment and the breakfast was a little odd in its selection. The rooms with no windows don’t really feel appropriate even for Ibis Budget, although I would have been content with one. However, there weren’t any internal or external noise disturbances, the room was clean and I liked the breakfast as burnt bacon and a heap of ham works for me.
I set off for Heathrow yesterday as there was a cheap offer advertised by Accor and, naturally, I hadn’t formed any other plan. This is what travel looked like before people insisted on having itineraries, aims and a vague sense of personal responsibility. Anyway, here’s the train to Stansted Airport which departed on time and without issue. There was no driver until one minute before departure and I was slightly hoping for a delay repay, but it wasn’t to be. I’d add at this stage that there isn’t any fascinating content in this post (not that there usually is), but I like a complete write-up for my own memory. And, imagine, a future historian might query why civilisation failed and they might discover the answer from this blog.
Safely in Cambridge.
There was a six minute connection time to get the Great Northern train to King’s Cross and it took me four minutes to cross Cambridge railway station so anyone with accessibility issues would have likely missed it.
Setting off and the train remained relatively quiet, which made it easier for all the people with seats to keep them there. These trains, similar to Thameslink, don’t have power points but I do like the ironing board seats, although I seem to be about the only person who does.
I always like arriving into King’s Cross, it’s a beautiful station.
And safely into Hayes and Harlington railway station using the Elizabeth Line. There’s a decent fair from Norwich to here, it came in at £12 which felt rather reasonable.
I thought I’d pop to the Botwell Inn, the JD Wetherspoon operated pub located near to the railway station. This real ale went back, it was vinegary on the taste, but the manager was quick at checking it and replacing it. Actually, the manager was very good in general, this always feels like a well-run pub and real ale based issues are inevitably going to occur.
The replacement beer was the Wolf of the Woods from Twickenham Fine Ales with a biscuity, toffee and nutty taste to it. It also cost only £2.39 a pint which is the usual bargain price from the chain.
I decided that it might be useful to actually plan my week at this stage, since it was already Sunday evening and I had no idea where I was going. I do know that I needed to be back in Bristol for Friday morning, so I needed a plan to get there cheaply. I decided on a route via Skopje, booked the flights, trains and National Express, ready now for the craft beer festival. I mentioned a few days ago that this is one of the countries that I haven’t visited, so it felt a wise choice.
Given that I was lingering here, I paid £6.39 for the steak pudding with chips and that included the Guinness 0%. It’s not exactly going to surprise and delight those who like fine dining, but it’s hard to complain too much at that price.
It was an hour walk to the hotel and this time I decided to have a look at the church in Harlington for the first time, but more of that in a separate post as I don’t want some ecclesiastical masonry interfering with this post.
Back at the Heathrow Ibis hotel which I’ve stayed at numerous times before. The reason I stayed here is that with the Accor offer it came to £13 for the night, which I thought was reasonable.
I also get my free welcome drink and here are some of the options.
Not Magners, but the Eazy from Camden Town Brewery which is growing on me, it’s got flavours of orange, it’s hazy and it’s quite intriguing. That is a pint glass, it’s just that the chair the other side of the table is unusually large.
A room. This blog really doesn’t fail to delight with riveting content…. But, I arrived here with a plan for the week and that felt like an achievement in itself.
I’ve stayed at this Accor operated Ibis hotel twice before but that was over eight years ago and I was pleased that this hotel hasn’t bothered with the new Ibis rooms, as I’m one of those who prefers the old style. I suspect that there will be an investment soon, as I’m not sure that they’re had a renovation in a decade.
This design adds some character to the whole arrangement, I like it.
The room, and I was given a larger one which had three sets of windows. I feel that city noise adds to the authenticity of a night’s stay, so I opened all of those windows straight away.
The welcome gift, this was delicious. I like welcome gifts.
The hotel’s bar area.
I didn’t eat at the hotel’s restaurant, but for my hundreds (well, two) excited readers, here’s what I could have had.
My welcome drink was Żywiec Białe and I managed to confuse the very helpful member of staff. She didn’t speak much English, although they had nearby staff that could, so I ordered this beer in my bestest Polish. Unfortunately, their standard beer on draft is Żywiec and she thought I was trying to order that, but my beautiful Polish tripped off my tongue after the third go and all was well. On that note, the team members here were all very personable, it all adds to the atmosphere.
Cheeses, meats and the various salad type options. There were some hot breakfast options, but they looked a bit rustic for my liking.
The bread selection and the little croissants.
That’s a smoked cheese and I kept going back for that, it was unusually decent and went rather well with the tomatoes. I can definitely do healthy, especially with that mango smoothie thing at the side. The selection was quite broad and I liked that the breakfast area wasn’t that busy.
The Novotel is next door and is a bit too decadent for me, although Richard would have merrily booked in there. Although, I noted that it was actually full the night that I was staying, which made choosing that bit easier.
The hotel night cost £42 (actually less as I used reward points) including breakfast, which I thought was perfectly good value for money. I’ve missed this city, I’d like to come back sooner rather than later. And, as I mentioned, I don’t dislike that they haven’t modernised much recently.
And at just after 02:00, I arrived at Ibis Centrum in Wrocław, which is in the same building as the Novotel. The hotel had sorted out the payment earlier in the day (well, the previous day) for me and so the check-in was prompt and efficient. Accor in Poland, as I’ve mentioned several (hundred) times are operated by Orbis and they are a reliable option to stay at.
The hotel has some themed rooms and I was in the Game Room for this visit.
The room decoration and they’ve put some considerable effort into this.
Not that I had time to play it, but there was a games console in the room.
And some board games.
Very nice.
There was also a welcome drink of a decadent apple juice and some ginger biscuits which were rather lovely. There were also teas and coffee, it all proved reasonable value at under £40 for the night. Given the relatively small amount of time that I had in the hotel, I opted against getting breakfast as I didn’t want to get up too early.
I’ve stayed at this hotel, both the lower floors which are Ibis and the higher floors which are Novotel, before and had views over both sides. This is looking out the front and they’re making progress on that building to the right as they were digging the foundations out when I was last here.
I didn’t have any noise disturbances either internally or externally, but the hotel is ready for the construction noise.
Anyway, this was a rather lovely stay once again with everything being trouble free and as expected. Arriving at 02:00 meant that the welcome drink wasn’t an option, as not unsurprisingly they don’t want to keep the bar open that late, and I wanted to get going to my next stop early the following morning. The team members were friendly and it’s just a slight shame that I didn’t have time to play on the games console or the city’s version of Monopoly.
Back to mid-January, when Richard and I decided that we needed a little adventure and we opted for Burton upon Trent and the Ibis Styles there.
The corridor arrangement is clever, as if someone stains it then it’s not really evident. I’m fairly confident that this was the actual reason for this design as I can’t see anyone picking this by choice.
Richard was very excited that the room he had booked came with a kitchenette. I was pleased that mine did too, but solely as I didn’t want him having a better room than me (I’m not petty). As an aside, I personally don’t like these kitchens in rooms, they’re a nightmare to clean properly for the staff and require substantial maintenance for something that many guests aren’t going to want. Keeping a microwave and every piece of cutlery and crockery clean isn’t an easy thing to do, I can’t really see why they want to burden themselves with this.
Someone rather unkindly used AI to put a bottle of wine in the fridge and pretended that it was a welcome gift. Actually, on that point, there was no welcome gift, but I won’t labour that matter. Anyway, Richard was stomping about the place as he didn’t get a gift of wine but luckily I was able to reassure him before the manager was called. It would be helpful for Richard’s stress levels if people didn’t do this, but at least I calmed the matter down before there was a diplomatic incident. It was a good job that I was there to be honest.
There was a modern looking bar area, all rather comfortable.
It’s quite a clever mix of retro and modern, although it hadn’t exactly inspired hundreds of people to come in.
I would have preferred a wider range of beers, but in fairness, they have Pedigree which is an important beer locally so at least they’ve made an effort to have a local option.
As for the hotel in general, it was all clean, welcoming and well maintained. Richard didn’t end up having an argument with the manager and there were no noise issues either internally or externally. It’s a relatively new hotel and it faces competition from an IHG hotel literally next door, but it all seemed well managed.
Although I’ve completed my write-up of my trip to Turkey, Georgia and Armenia, there was quite a lot that I missed out and have meant to come back to. This is one of those posts, but the summary of the trip is at https://www.julianwhite.uk/turkey-georgia-and-armenia-final-thoughts/, with a link to all the blog posts that I wrote up telling the story of that little adventure.
We only had one night in Ankara, so whilst Jonathan opted for a basement room in a nearby hotel, I went for the Ibis Styles.
The rather nice lobby.
The beer selection from which I could choose my welcome drink.
The room, which was clean, cosy and warm. So I promptly opened the window to make it cold.
They made me a coffee during the check-in and there’s the welcome snack and bottled waters.
I went for the welcome beer of the Efes Malt, which was light, malty and really rather good.
The breakfast room in the morning, when I first realised that there was now quite a lot of snow outside.
The breakfast buffet.
Delicious and healthy.
The colourful corridor.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a warning of a fine for not returning the keycard.
Anyway, this was a really rather lovely hotel with friendly staff, fast wifi (this was important), a comfortable environment and clean rooms. The breakfast choice was extensive, the stay was reasonably priced and I’d stay here again.
