Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Ibis Styles

Wednesday : London to Warsaw via Helsinki

Today’s adventure wasn’t an ideal situation, but British Airways needed to change my flight from London Heathrow to Warsaw and the only way that they could get me there was via Helsinki. These are challenging times for airlines at the moment, but I hope that these schedules start to settle down over the next few months, it’s not really a routing that I would have thought the most cost effective to arrange.

I was starting at the Ibis Styles at Heathrow, not my first time in the hotel, but my first time in the separate accommodation bloc. It’s really not apparent, but there’s a floor above what is visible here which is reset a little, which is where my room was.

Not that it’s particularly interesting, but that additional floor is visible behind Esso, with the main part of the hotel on the right.

A bus journey to Heathrow T3 central bus station and my complaint, yet again, that Heathrow have blocked off the pedestrian and cyclist entrance to the airport and so people are forced to use cars or go on public transport. In the past, the airport themselves paid for that public transport, but they don’t now. There’s an element of greed here and I find it a little sinister who is benefiting from these changes, but I had better not meander down that path for too long. So a little ride on the Travelator from the central bus station to get me to Heathrow T3.

And here it is again in all its glory, my favourite of the terminals at Heathrow. This is solely because of the lounges where I can get the most free food, T5 is a much better designed and interesting terminal architecturally (including the bits that my friend Liam built).

I can use the premium security line at Heathrow T3 because of my silver card (I have to mention every time that I got this through judicious use of Flyertalk tips, my spend on flights is very low and wouldn’t normally get me such decadence). A member of staff came over and said that the premium security line was longer than the standard line if anyone wanted to move over. I was by that point near the front and didn’t take the risk, but I was amused when someone just behind me said “you’re the one who just sent me over here”. I laughed just a little inside because the man seemed to want an argue but the staff member walked off. Security at T3 always seems quite quick and I got fortunate with my choice of queue, I think I was through within five minutes including the waiting time in the queue.

Lounge hopping at T3, I decided to start with Qantas to get a Salmon Eggs Benedict and delicious it was too. The service in the lounge was as impeccable as ever, efficient, informal and professional.

Part of the cold food selection, but I’ve written about this Qantas lounge before and won’t bore readers unnecessarily. It was though quiet, comfortable and as lovely as ever. I can’t decide which lounge I prefer, Qantas or Cathay Pacific, so I just visit them both.

I thought some exercise would be in order and so I walked to the Cathay Pacific Lounge to get food there, with this being the menu of the day.

Delicious, that Dim Sum selection is always quite beautiful. There was some spicy kick to that Thai coconut and vegetable soup, which complemented the Asahi beer nicely. I didn’t bother visiting the British Airways lounge, it’s just not as decadent and they don’t have any beer there. Well, they have Heineken, but I mean proper beer. The barman mentioned that I had the last bottle of beer he had left, so I hope he had access to some more stock from somewhere. Service here, just as in the Qantas lounge, is professional and although more formal, it always feels welcoming. It’s a comfortable space as well, there are plenty of different seating types as well as lots of power points to charge devices. I mention that frequently as it is quite important to me, just imagine having a phone without any charge. It’s too much to even contemplate, I shall move on and away from that horrible thought.

My flights to Warsaw were with Finn Air, although it was a little difficult to work out when to board as the neighbouring gate spilled over and they had the wrong passengers in each queue for a short whilst. I think the other flight was going to Africa, so it would have been quite some distance if someone landed in Helsinki by mistake. I had a little problem when boarding as the staff member said “since you’re going to Warsaw as your final destination, I need to see your Covid pass”. I’m not actually sure that was right, as Poland doesn’t need the pass any more, so I spent about three minutes (that feels a long time when you know you’re holding up the queue) trying to find my older one, which he said would be sufficient. He was very helpful and after a few seconds of panic that I had forgotten to do something I should have done, I was ready to board.

I don’t know why they were using such a large aircraft, the Airbus A350-900, as the flight wasn’t that busy and it isn’t the usual aircraft that I’ve been on when shunted onto this service before. I was very pleased with it though, as it’s also a long-haul aircraft and I haven’t been on such a large aircraft since 2019.

I rarely get to see these sort of images, as British Airways opted out of the camera installation which isn’t relatively that expensive, they just claimed their passengers wouldn’t want it. I do, I like watching the plane from above and below, it’s quite surreal as it’s not the sort of image I’m used to seeing.

I had the entire row of three seats to myself, so I could lounge out and enjoy my free blueberry juice.

There was in-flight entertainment, so I watched an episode of Bear Grylls doing something adventurous with Alex Honnold, who I watched on board a BA flight a few years ago climbing with ropes in the film Free Solo (I mean I watched him on the BA in-flight entertainment, he wasn’t on the aircraft climbing things, although that would have been exciting). The series is Running Wild with Bear Grylls, it’s the sort of thing that my friend Liam would be excited to be on, it’s full of adventure and danger. I’d rather be in the pub than jumping out of aircraft or eating rattlesnakes.

We landed and I was transfixed watching the servicing of the aircraft underneath me. I hope British Airways change their minds and install these in the future, they’re very informative about how aircraft are serviced after landing, it’s all precisely timed.

I wasn’t in business class as I’m not that decadent, that’s the sort of thing my friend Richard does as he spends a lot of money on things he doesn’t need, but it looked really rather comfortable.

And there’s the aircraft.

I very much enjoyed visiting the non-Schengen Finn Air airport lounge a few weeks ago, but the Schengen one was much smaller and it was at near capacity when I went to it. The staff were friendly, although it’s the first time I’ve gone into a lounge and the check-in process has been via a scanner checking my boarding pass rather than a human inspecting it. The food wasn’t very exciting, a tray of pasta and a tray of cooked vegetables. It’s not exactly Michelin cuisine, nor actually is it even Greggs cuisine.

They had some feta salad with cooked vegetables, but I’d rather have had something cold and crisp with it, it was all very bland. I greedily got two slices of cheesecake as they looked delicious, but they weren’t very nice either. I can’t complain as this was all free, but I just got my hopes up from how good my experience had been before.

I had a couple of hours in the lounge and it got much quieter during the second half of my visit.

Wine and biscuits. I don’t know anything about wine to comment on the quality of that, but they needed some custard creams I thought. Or Jaffa Cakes, that would have been very good.

My laptop and I moved to the window to watch the aircraft. There were lots of power points in the lounge which was handy, so that I could get everything charged ready for the second flight.

All much more sedate when most people had left.

The self-pour selection.

I left the Finn Air lounge a little disappointed it wasn’t as good as their other one in the same airport, but I enjoyed the friendly service, the clean environment and indeed the entire airport felt relaxed and comfortable.

The flight to Warsaw was on a smaller aircraft.

The aircraft was at near capacity, so no empty row for me this time. The curtain between business class and economy is right at the front on this flight, there were just two people in business class. One of the debates on FlyerTalk is whether customers in economy should be able to use the washrooms in business class. usually it’s preferred not to, but on this flight, I saw the crew turning back three customers and sending them to the back of the aircraft to wait. I thought that was petty and it caused them service problems as then customers were trapped behind trolleys in the aisles and the crew had to reverse back up to let them pass. I don’t know how many washrooms they had on this aircraft, probably two at the rear and one at the front. Having one washroom for two customers and the other two for eighty customers doesn’t really make sense, however much you want to offer a differentiated service for business customers.

The crew member made an announcement at the end saying “please let business class passengers off first” which caused amusement as there were only two of them, and she looked annoyed people had laughed. I just thought it was all a bit odd, although it didn’t impact me.

Finn Air offer free blueberry juice and water, with other items being chargeable. I was quite happy with my blueberry juice.

The flight landed on time and I was through Warsaw airport security quickly enough, even though I (and others from the UK, it’s not just me) now have to wait in a queue separate to everyone else as I was from the UK and not in Schengen. I love being back here, it’s the railway station underneath Warsaw airport, which means I’m back in what is now my favourite city.

Warsaw landmarks on the seats, the train spotlessly clean and it cost me 74p for my ticket to the hotel. Bargain.

I was staying at the Warsaw Airport Mercure hotel again, one of my favourites and I’ve stayed there ten or so times I think now. It’s the smallest room I’ve been given in this particular hotel, but they said I might enjoy the tea theme of the room, so I thought that sounded interesting.

I wasn’t going to run out of tea.

My welcome gift and I always appreciate the gesture, even if it is mostly fruit. Indeed, as fruit goes, it was rather nice.

Pictures, all part of the tea theming of the room.

I liked it, there’s something quite fun about hotels having these individually designed rooms, it seems to be something that a few Accor hotels in the city are doing. Having quirky little elements like this makes things just a little more interesting, especially when it’s a room that I haven’t had before.

That’s the end of today’s little instalment. It was good to be back in Warsaw, I very much like it here.

June 25, 2022
Tuesday : Ealing, Angus Deayton and Heathrow

I liked the Ealing Ibis Styles, my first time there and it was a quiet and peaceful hotel with some strong movie related theming. The reviews aren’t great for the hotel and some are complaining that the hotel is charging for luggage storage, which is odd as I’d have thought that should have been included. I was fortunate to get this hotel for a reasonable price, the cost of staying in London is becoming ridiculous at the moment, well above pre-2020 prices. I hope for selfish reasons that this trend doesn’t continue permanently otherwise I’ll hardly be coming to London at all. At the moment, a single night at a city centre Travelodge is the same price as seven nights in an Accor hotel in some parts of Poland.

It was a pleasant day (well, too hot really, but I nearly always think it’s too hot as soon as the sun comes out) and this is Christ the Saviour Church in Ealing. It’s not that hard to guess the designer of this beautiful building, it’s Sir Gilbert Scott. Built in 1852 when Ealing’s population was starting to rapidly increase, it was damaged during the Second World War, but sensitively reconstructed and there’s plenty of foliage today around the building.

Fortunately, the underground strike of the previous day had come to an end, so the District Line was open again at Ealing Broadway Underground station. Note the old style signage of the station in the background.

It’s visible on the right hand side of this photo as well TFL note that these are originals, with the design dating to the early twentieth century. As an aside, you can buy original signage from the Underground at https://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/vintage-shop/underground-signs. It’s the kind of thing that I’d like, but it’s far too expensive and it’s not clear to me why I’d want a sign from London Liverpool Street in my flat. Although I would, I’d even appoint my friend Liam as the civil engineer responsible for the installation work.

All credit to TFL for this signage to help those coming from Ukraine.

Not many commuters on the Tuesday morning District Line service into central London. They try and paint the poles the same colour as the train service, so yellow for the Circle Line. It doesn’t always work out though, the District Line is green, but sometimes the lines share trains.

A quick Wetherspoons breakfast alongside countless refillable coffees, although it’s not entirely clear to me what they had done with the sausages, but I’d probably be best not knowing. I’m very productive in these surroundings and the coffees were delicious.

It was too hot so I went to St. James’s Park for a little while, a 57 acre park which was once land owned by the Palace of Whitehall.

This canal was added in the seventeenth century, although it doesn’t really go anywhere and is now more of a lake, they just diverted the Tyburn I think to fill it.

I was here a couple of days after the Jubilee weekend, so a lot of the barriers were still present and endless flags, although they might be permanent. The Government seem to be trying to put the union flag in as many places in London as they can and Priti Patel seems to spend most of her time standing in front of one. Anyway, I mustn’t get distracted back into politics.

I was annoyed at the heat so sat in Green Park trying to avoid the sun. The park was landscaped in 1820, but is one of the plainest of the parks, just lots of grass, but that suited my needs on this boiling hot day. Bloody global warming.

I had free tickets to the recording of Alone, which is a BBC Radio 4 comedy. It’s been going for a few years, but I’d never heard of it and half the audience also put their hands up saying they hadn’t heard the show before. This was by far the quietest of the shows that I’ve been to, the audience were only in the first few rows, although I think they had enough people to make it all work.

Another one of my hopeless photos, but this was the break and the performers (or whatever the word is) were just leaving the stage. There’s Angus Deayton, Pearce Quigley, Abigail Cruttenden, Kate Isitt and Bennett Arron. I like watching the process of recording these shows and how much of it has to be re-recorded because someone has made a mistake, there’s been a sound issue or something else went wrong. I hope the others wouldn’t be offended (although it hardly matters, they’re not going to read this) but I’d only heard of Angus Deayton and Pearce Quigley, the latter from the Detectorists. Anyway, it was all very entertaining.

A pizza from the very reliable and affordable Pizza Union chain, although I was conscious at this point that I should really get a move on to get to my hotel in Heathrow. I always have a slight fear that my hotel room will be resold and that would be a faff to resolve.

I had an hour’s journey on the Piccadilly Line from Holborn to Hounslow Central, where I would get a bus to the hotel. To my great annoyance, Heathrow still haven’t reinstated the Free Travel Zone around the airport, so I thought I’d get a bus from Hounslow instead of faffing about at the airport.

The Ibis Styles Heathrow Airport room, where I stayed a few weeks ago, and the room has a modern feel and I tolerate the lack of desk as that small table is sufficient. That also isn’t an oil slick on the floor, it’s the design of the carpet, which is clever as it hides any stains that guests might leave by just looking like it’s stained anyway. No problems though with my stay, quiet and comfortable with everything as expected.

The free welcome drinks, with the excitement for me that I was going overseas the next day. I never tire of that excited feeling and I wonder if I ever will.

June 25, 2022
Monday : Barnsley to Ealing During an Underground Strike

The LDWA 100 had seemed to go quickly, although the entrants might not say that, and it was the end of the Jubilee Bank Holiday so it was back to usual for me, which meant travelling about the place. I was heading to London, conscious that there was an underground strike which would make crossing the city just that bit more exciting when I got there.

Penny Pie Park is about to reopen soon and this site has had an interesting history. It was a colliery in the mid-nineteenth century, then brickworks were built there and those buildings remained until the post-war period. Then they were demolished and the local authorities dumped a load of refuse into the holes to fill them up, then it became a green space. As the road network nearby has been reworked, they’ve taken this opportunity to develop the park and they’ve been busy moving the trees about the site. They now have 243 trees, which is an increase of four. That doesn’t sound very aspirational to me in terms of increasing the amount of foliage, but there we go. The park wasn’t open when I walked by, but as can be seen, it wasn’t far off and I’m surprised some of the local hoodlums haven’t pulled that fencing down.

After walking back into Barnsley (again) from the hotel, I popped into the library for a while to use their electricity. I had thought about going into the Toby Carvery next to the hotel for another unlimited breakfast, but I overdosed on bacon and salt last time, so decided against it. My train journey was from Barnsley station, which is part of the integrated bus and rail interchange.

Welcome to Barnsley with some vibrant artwork.

I had two trains as part of my journey, the first to Peterborough and everything was going to plan timewise.

Not particularly busy, the colours remind me of a Ryanair aircraft, but the guard didn’t try and sell me lottery tickets.

At Peterborough station, the EMR Intercity train to London arrived a few minutes early.

As can be seen here, I was able to find an empty seat.

Into St. Pancras railway station in London on time. I was annoyed that they’d shut the front of the railway station because of the underground strike, I don’t know why they felt the need to do that, they could have just closed the entrance to the underground network itself. I noticed someone joined the queue to board Eurostar thinking it was the taxi queue, but fortunately he checked before accidentally arriving in Paris or something.

There was though quite a long queue for taxis, the drivers do well out of these strikes.

The strike did reduce my options to get to Ealing somewhat, with absolutely no services from King’s Cross.

So, I remained calm and resourceful and I went to Mikkeller bar to think what I should do. This is the All Day Haze which Mikkeller brew here, a very acceptable Double IPA with a depth of flavour and a not inconsiderable 8.4% ABV.

I’ve never really noticed their brewing equipment at the back at the bar, so I went to sit by it. I’d add there were tables here, I didn’t just sit randomly in their way. Although I could have lingered for hours, I thought one drink was enough as I wasn’t sure how busy the public transport options would be.

And with my plan developed whilst in the pub, I decided that I would walk to Farringdon’s Crossrail station as that line was still operating.

And my first time in the Crossrail part of the station at Farringdon.

I think it was also my first time on the central section of Crossrail, or the Elizabeth Line, which now all joins up to form a complete line, but for the next few months it’s still necessary to change trains at Paddington and Liverpool Street. It’s not ideal, but they’re getting there.

Very nice, platform edge doors have been put in here, just like on the central section of the Jubilee Line.

The section of the journey to Paddington wasn’t particularly busy, but these services are frequent at around every ten minutes and they’re long trains so have plenty of space.

This is a bit of a faff with the current set-up, as it’s necessary to leave Paddington station, walk through the concourse, towards the back and then connect with where the other part of the Crossrail service is. The part of the journey from Paddington to Ealing was much busier, although I was just able to get a seat, but thought it was a bit packed to take a photo.

Although I’m not entirely sure that I needed a seat, it’s only one stop to Ealing from Paddington. This Crossrail thing certainly speeds things up somewhat. And it was fortunate for me on this journey that the Crossrail drivers hadn’t also gone on strike, as otherwise it would have taken me three bus trips to get to Ealing, which would have been quite a trek.

I was staying at Ibis Styles Ealing for the first time, a rather attractive building about a ten-minute walk from the railway station.

There’s a movie theme across the hotel, which is one of the better Ibis Styles designs that I’ve seen. All clean and comfortable, with nothing for me to feel the need to complain about here.

Spot the movie related design items in the photos. I can’t remember why I booked a twin, but it was probably 20p cheaper or something.

My welcome drink, which was the Goose Island IPA, which is something else which is always acceptable to me. It sounds like I’m getting easier to please, but there are some grumbles coming up with some other hotels, so I hope no-one thinks I’m tolerating anything less than what I perceive to be perfection (and what some others would consider to be petty comments).

This is a nice environmental idea, avoiding the need for a plastic keycard.

They’ve put some real effort into this design and the welcome at the front desk was also friendly. The hotel seemed to have decent sound proofing as it felt like it was empty, but I noticed the next morning that it clearly wasn’t given the number of guests at breakfast. With that, it was time to spend some time getting work done that I’d neglected a little over the weekend, pleased that I had managed to tackle a public transport system which was partly on strike. And thank goodness for the Elizabeth Line.

June 24, 2022
Reading – Ibis Styles

The reviews of this Accor hotel in Reading are, being honest, dismal and they’re sitting at 3.2 out of 5, which is about the sort of territory that the dreadful hotels operated by Britannia are running at. I wasn’t expecting the most decadent of stays, as there didn’t seem much that was pointing in the right direction for this hotel.

On the morning of the booking, the hotel phoned me, and unusually I thought I’d better answer as I didn’t want to discover that my hotel booking had been cancelled. It was the hotel asking if I really wanted two rooms, and I replied that I didn’t, but it seems that Accor took a duplicate booking due to a technical error. I should have noticed this as they did email me, but it was easy to miss and the booking didn’t duplicate on my future Accor bookings which I would have seen. Anyway, the staff member was really quite charming and said the hotel was happy to cancel one room, I just needed to phone Accor.

And Accor were bloody dreadful. They said they couldn’t do anything about it, although they were polite whilst being annoying. This is the problem with this awful global call centre operation that they have, their call handling staff have no discretion or flexibility. If the call centre for each country was actually within the country in which their hotels were, then their call staff could have a much more personal relationship with the hotels they’re meant to be serving. In short, Accor said they couldn’t help as they had no way of contacting their own hotel. I mean, by phone I would have thought was a possible way, but apparently call centre staff aren’t allowed phones. I wasn’t best pleased with Accor at this stage.

Anyway, I phoned the hotel back and the wonderful lady I had been speaking to answered and she clearly wasn’t going to accept this sort of nonsense from Accor. Within about three minutes an email came through from Accor confirming the cancellation of the duplicate room and the hotel called me to confirm that they’d fixed it. My impressions of the hotel had now firmly shifted from sceptical given the reviews to really liking their customer service. As an aside, Accor should have a set-up which allowed them to do this, but I was just pleased that it was all resolved.

It’s an interesting building, it’s an old hotel that was originally known as the Ship and then became the Royal County Hotel.

And here’s the plaque at the hotel’s entrance to prove it. The member of staff at check-in was personable and helpful, giving me all of the information that I needed about my stay. At this point I was really struggling to establish why they were picking up so many bad reviews.

In the area at the base of the stairs, I can’t imagine when this would have last been used for coats, but it felt like part of the hotel’s history. The hotel is old and so there are windy and twisting corridors all over the place, I thought it was all quite charming.

I stayed at this hotel twice and was given the same room on both occasions, it was Indian themed and that seems to be a throwback to before it became an Accor hotel. The decoration was quirky, but the room was clean and comfortable, so I was still wondering why the reviews were poor.

The bathroom which wasn’t exactly modern, but it was clean and functional.

The welcome drink arrangement is unusual, it’s offered by the Indian restaurant that now seems to be separately owned, but was once the hotel’s main restaurant area. On the first occasion a staff member asked what beer I’d like and an interfering manager behind said “it’s Cobra only” which was an unnecessary intervention I thought as I’d already said Cobra would be fine. On the second occasion, I asked for a Cobra and was surprised to see I was being given the much larger bottle. The interfering manager looked horrified, but the bottle was already open before he could stop it. There’s clearly a customer service issue here, but I’m not going to blame the hotel for that.

As the hotel’s breakfast room now has an Indian restaurant in it, there’s a free takeaway bag offered, which unusually includes a refrigerated carton of milk instead of some odd slightly chilled UHT arrangement. I thought that the breakfast was entirely adequate and there’s a room where guests can get free coffees and teas at any time, although these facilities are also in the room.

The customer service throughout at the hotel was impeccable and the staff here were as good as I could have expected at a higher end Accor property. Indeed, I very much liked this hotel, so I felt that a closer look was needed as to why so many other guests were annoyed at their stay.

“If I could rate this 0 I would. The worst hotel I have ever stepped foot in. Do not waste your time or money. Staff are rude and their customer service is appalling. All rooms are awful, they were that bad I made other arrangements to stay elsewhere as I physically could not stay there. Shocking”

This review is from a couple of days before I visited. All the rooms are clearly not awful, but I’m puzzled how one person manages to find all of the staff rude whereas the four staff that I encountered were all very customer service focused.

“Probably the worst hotel I’ve stayed in, and i travel a lot. Broken shower holder, so water went everywhere . Water either very hot or cold. Very squeaky floor boards. Dated room and had to keep my shoes on when moving about. A-lot of drunks in the hotel keeping us awake during the night and close to the main road so also kept awake by local traffic. If you want a cheap room for a night out and don’t care where you sleep this is ideal. If you’re with your family then I suggest elsewhere. Definitely won’t recommend to anyone.”

It is possible that this is why I had a different experience, or at least to some degree, as the room they gave me was at the rear of the hotel and near the end of a corridor, so I was far away from any noise. But perhaps I just got lucky….. There are also several reviews annoyed that no tea and coffee facilities were included, but my room had a kettle and it’s not as though I was upgraded to a suite.

I do have some history with this hotel, as they cancelled a booking on me last year, which was disappointing, but it was a fair way in advance of the booking. They tried to transfer me to the nearby hotel but there was a mess-up with the bookings and I just gave up, which is partly why I came back this time. I’d be surprised if they remember those interactions, although I found the staff helpful then as it wasn’t their fault they were closing, but maybe they wanted to be helpful after the problems of last year.

Either way, I liked this hotel and would happily return. It is though an older building and the set-up is old fashioned given that, it reminds me of the Ibis Styles Croydon which has a similar old hotel arrangement. For anyone who likes new and shiny, there’s the Novotel and Ibis hotel which is just around the corner, so something for everyone (or nearly everyone).

There’s more information about the hotel here.

February 20, 2022
Warsaw – Ibis Styles Warszawa Centrum

I’ve stayed at this relatively new hotel before, it’s not really that central, but I liked it previously. It’s also next door, and indeed the hotel is visible to the left in the above photo, to the Ibis Budget that I stayed in last week. The check-in was swift and efficient, with a slightly early check-in being possible which was useful.

The room is colourful and I like this sense of informality and fun.

The shower arrangement wouldn’t be ideal for everyone, where a curtain can open it up to the rest of the room.

The view of the ceiling from the bed. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it is better in my view to sterile and dull. Incidentally, despite this being a new build hotel, they did have windows that open, which is now a requirement of mine in hotels (although it’s sometimes hard to work out which ones have sealed up rooms, but fortunately it’s very few Accor hotels in Poland).

The welcome gift, these chocolate pastries were delicious.

I went to the bar to get a welcome drink and was pleased to be offered a choice of five craft beers, as well as the more standard options that are available in Accor hotels. This is a great little enterprise and is a change to when I last visited and had no decent choice at all.

The breakfast in the morning is included in the room rate and it’s all a little oddly laid out in the space that they have. I found it slightly illogically laid out, but I often find things complex so that didn’t concern me. Some of the items weren’t perhaps of the best quality, although they’ve got a lot of fruit for guests to make juices from which is a decent idea. They’ve also got the honey arrangement that I’ve only previously seen at the Crowne Plaza in Dublin where I stayed a few weeks ago. There were some hot items as well such as scrambled eggs and sausages, although these didn’t look overly appealing. Anyway, there was plenty of choice and other guests seemed happy.

I liked this whole hotel and paid for it using the Accor rewards points offer, so that was all rather handy. It was spotlessly clean throughout and the staff were always helpful. I thought it was slightly odd that coffee is provided downstairs free of charge at all times, but they provide kettles and tea in the rooms. This is a hotel that I’d come back to though, a really quite lovely stay and there were no noise issues either internally or externally.

December 2, 2021
Barnsley – Ibis Styles

The Ibis Styles in Barnsley, which is around a 30 minute walk from the centre of the town. I had thought about getting the bus, but I couldn’t be bothered and so just walked there and back every day. Sometimes it’s just easier to walk than try and understand the bus ticketing policy. For those who don’t like walking everywhere or getting the bus, there’s a free car park on the site.

This hotel wasn’t built as an Ibis Styles, it rebranded a few years ago when it became part of Accor, so it’s a slightly different design to what I’ve seen before from the chain.

Every Ibis Styles has a theme, sometimes quite quirky, although this hotel seems to have gone for glass which is in fitting with the new Glass Works development in the town centre. The room was spacious, had a modern bathroom and was very clean.

I quite like the look of all the lights, but I was slightly concerned that I’d break one. Not that I actually break much stuff, but it’s good to have something to worry about. I didn’t break any incidentally….

The hot drinks arrangements, with a carton of water.

My view from the window, there’s actually the M1 in there as well, but the railway line is more visible in this photo. I quite like the noise from the road and railway, something a little different. The windows open in this hotel which is quite handy, saves me complaining about sterile rooms.

The welcome drink, which was satisfactory to me even though it’s from Greene King. I wasn’t given a drinks voucher and had to ask for one, which is never quite ideal. Friendly barman though and there was a choice of around eight different beers across the taps and fridges, which isn’t bad at all.

The breakfast area, although I didn’t eat at the hotel and went to the neighbouring Toby Carvery on one morning.

The reviews for the hotel are broadly positive, although the management seema bit abrupt in their responses to the negative ones. They had a run of complaints about the decor and they responded:

“The rooms are not dirty, however we have steam marks on most of our bedroom walls as the decorator who did our refurbishment in 2015 used the incorrect paint and we now are unable to remove any marks from the walls and the steam marks have stained the walls, we have tried our hardest to remove the marks. All our bedrooms now require a full re paint and this will be completed soon.”

That must have been a bloody nightmare, go through a refurbishment and they end up worse than when they started. Anyway, it all seems fixed now. I really quite liked this hotel, it was all quiet and peaceful with the room cleaned and restocked every day.

September 18, 2021
Ibis Styles – No Longer Serving Free Breakfast

I forgot to write about this a few months ago, but it’s relevant (or slightly relevant…) to the next post I’ll be making.

Last year, Accor decided to change the brand image of their Ibis Styles network of hotels and remove the need for them to offer a free breakfast. It had been a little bit clunky for years though, some offered a basic continental breakfast only (which I liked, Ibis Styles Croydon did that) which was free, and some offered a paid-for cooked breakfast on top as well. That set-up was never really viable as it seemed to just annoy customers who thought they were getting free bacon and eggs, but had to fork out another £5 or so.

That meant that an Ibis Styles hotel could offer a free continental breakfast, which would be fine for me, but they disappointed people who wanted a fully cooked breakfast. I asked at Ibis Styles Kensington earlier this year why the change had been made, as I worked through numerous breakfast bags during my many visits there and then they suddenly stopped. They said that Accor recognised that the free breakfast wasn’t meeting the demands of the customer and so hotels were given flexibility on what they offered. Apparently this process started before the health crisis, so must have been an ongoing problem for a few years.

I like the differentiation of Ibis Styles, their branding is often quite fun and different, with a theme to each hotel. In a few locations, some of the themes are quite half-hearted and I can’t see why a hotel has picked to become an Ibis Styles over a simple Ibis. Anyway, the breakfast situation was clearly muddled, with hotels paying quite a lot of money out when there were two people and two kids in a room, and it’s not hard to note the guests who pinch stuff for their lunch and the like. Whether or not they should be doing that, it comes at quite an expense to the hotel.

So, it was probably the right decision from Accor, although I’d like them to start offering the hotel deals which include breakfast again, I liked those. They were stopped during the last couple of years as breakfast rooms are already at, or near, capacity, but it’s definitely time for them to return.

I mention this now as next door to the hotel I’m staying at, Ibis Styles Barnsley, is a Toby Carvery and so I went there for breakfast this morning instead. As it seems did a fair few other hotel guests, but that’s a different matter.

September 16, 2021
Glasgow – ibis Styles Glasgow Centre George Square

I have to begin by mentioning that I’m still having problems with Accor, so it is probably best for me to recommend that people book using a third party agent.

With that little bit of negativity out of the way, I have to say that this hotel in Glasgow seems to be run to an incredibly high standard. I don’t know who the manager here is, but I’d suggest that they’re doing a great job and this is the best Accor visit since my little trip to Whitechapel Ibis Budget a few months ago.

This messaging works for me, I love the slight irreverence. The welcome at the reception was genuine and authentic, with the staff member being engaging and helpful. Nothing felt scripted, it just seemed to be a personable greeting, so my first impressions were very positive.

One of the worst hotels that I’ve visited was Ibis Styles Seven Kings, which I won’t whinge about again here. This hotel though nailed it though for me, the decor was modern, on-trend, bright, functional and everything was spotlessly clean. There was a desk, chair, sofa and thought had been put into the design elements here. I like the nod towards the cone statue as well, given that it’s just over the road.

It’s hard to say this without sounding entitled, but I like to receive little gifts like this to acknowledge that I seem to spend half the year in Accor hotels. I’m a fan of Irn-Bru and Tunnocks, so this was a lovely welcome for me, something really positive that didn’t cost the hotel much. This is a time to acknowledge the rather lovely carpet in the room as well.

It’s not possible to walk along the balcony, but I liked it being there.

I was on the top floor, so there were some decent views over Glasgow. As a bonus, there was air conditioning in the room and it worked perfectly at nicely chilling the room as I wanted (it’s too hot in Glasgow at the moment…).

I don’t know who wrote this, but they’re a good communicator. This fits entirely with the Ibis Styles brand, all nicely done again.

I very much like the local nod towards Tunnock’s.

They’ve even been creative with the carpet design, so someone has given massive thought to the decor at every customer touchpoint throughout the hotel. If I’m being honest, the lift arrangement wasn’t ideal, as they seemed to struggle with the number of customers. However, it didn’t reach the point of being annoying and guests seemed to be very cheery about everything, so all was well.

Brave to do this so that it doesn’t look like graffiti, but they’ve pulled it off. It’s a better look in the lift than in the photo to be fair, but I was trying to avoid my reflection being in the photo.

The restaurant and bar area, all spotlessly clean again.

And my free welcome drink. I’m going to credit this Ibis Styles with making an effort to provide a range of beers and they had around six, although draft options were off due to a gas supply issue that was outside of their control. Entirely acceptable to me, as being offered a choice of Corona or Budweiser isn’t ideal, although I accept there are greater things in the world to worry about.

I experienced no problems with this hotel at all, with no noise issues either internally or externally. I liked that they have WhatsApp if I needed to contact them and the staff were so friendly that this was the sort of hotel that I’m fairly confident would have fixed any issues if I had them. I tried to think of some things that the hotel could improve on, but there really aren’t any. The desk in the room looked a bit like it would collapse if someone jumped on it, a sign not of any problem with the hotel, but just how I couldn’t find any fault.

The reviews of the hotel are generally very positive, not that this surprises me in the slightest. I’ve had a look at some of the negative reviews, and some seem to be a little aspirational, such as the guest who was unhappy that the hotel reception didn’t deliver them milk to the room when they phoned. Another negative review said simply “No fridges…what hotel has no fridges and no netflix”, although the answer to that is actually most of them.

As a hotel, this is brilliant and I hope to come back here. All very nicely done. This is absolutely the reason that I like Accor hotels and why Ibis Styles used to be my favourable brand within the chain.

August 25, 2021
Birmingham – ibis Styles Birmingham Centre

I was a little nervous of visiting this hotel, given how much I had to complain about in the terrible Ibis Styles Seven Kings hotel in London over the weekend. Incidentally, the promised communication from the general manager from there unsurprisingly didn’t happen, but that’s no surprise. Anyway, moving on from that disaster, I was hoping not to find another problem hotel. There comes a point where it would become clear that the problem was me, not the hotel.

As a TLDR, this hotel in Birmingham is much better. The welcome at reception was authentic, smooth and efficient, with the welcome drink proffered without my asking for it. Lots of information about the hotel and the staff member was conversational, so my first impressions were positive.

The rooms here all appear to be the same size, but reception mistakenly gave me a room they’d made up for a family.

I fixed that. The room has some faults, but it’s a few years old and I suspect it’ll get renovated in the next few years. The windows don’t open, which I don’t like, but there are vents which mitigate the problem somewhat. There aren’t power points by the bed, but that’s a legacy of when the hotel was designed. It was otherwise clean and it has a desk, which I consider to be an essential in a hotel room (unlike the designers of the Ibis Styles Seven Kings, which I feel I might keep mentioning).

The main light was flickering, but I reported that they had a bit of a broken bulb to reception and they had it fixed by the time I came back. The air conditioning is also central, with no way for the customer to cool or heat the room, which is absolutely not ideal either, but the temperature has been OK for me.

The drinks selection was though inadequate, a choice of Bud and Corona is not much use to me and there should be a nod towards something local. By chance, a guest asked when I was there if they had any real ale and the polite staff member sent them to the pub next door. The hotel should offer bottled real ale here, this is in my view an omission which is easily fixed.

I like these and I wouldn’t have expected those early times to be so quiet. I don’t like a breakfast with ambience, I like one with no people, so I went down at 07:15.

The breakfast area, which is partly served by staff and partly self-service. Now that “Freedom Day” has gone by, I wonder how long these staffed sections will remain, but it was all efficient and well managed.

And there we go. All fine and everything at the appropriate temperature, with the environment being spotlessly clean. Those pain au chocolate are generic, but I quite liked them with the above average machine coffee that they had. Incidentally, the breakfast is included and that used to be the case at more Ibis Styles, but Accor seems to have removed that as a requirement from the brand which is a shame.

Unfortunately, the hotel has below average reviews, which is a shame given the friendliness of the staff. The problem is evident when looking at the detailed scores on Google, the location gets 4.8/5, the service gets 4.6/5 and the rooms 2.9/5, so it’s clear that a refurbishment would be better sooner rather than later. Problems seem to be mostly be about air conditioning, a lack of openable windows and slow wi-fi (it is quite slow as I checked) which with the exception of the latter they are likely to be difficult to fix now. There are very few negative reviews about the staff, so at least customers feel welcome and that’s important.

I’m still here for a couple more days, but I’m not expecting any debacles, which means this is a hotel that I’m perfectly happy in. I got this as part of the Accor ‘three nights for the price of two, with free breakfast’ offer at the beginning of the year, although it’s the only one that the chain didn’t ultimately cancel due to some of their hotels still being closed. Anyway, it’s a relief not to have two bad hotels in a row (not that I get many hotels that I consider bad anyway).

July 20, 2021
London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings

[NB, I wrote this post mid-stay, and it got a little worse…..]

I was very excited to hear about the opening of this new Ibis hotel in Seven Kings, near Ilford. Ibis Styles is my favourite brand within Accor, I like the quirky, informal and innovative design approach which often has some intriguing and brave themes. It’s also located next to a railway station and some rooms have views over the new Elizabeth Line trains (not yet officially called that, but they’re running into Liverpool Street and being tested through the central zone).

I was eyeing this up to be my new favourite hotel given that it’s this side of London, especially as I’ve stayed at Ibis Styles Kensington 15 or so times over the last year. The omens were positive that Accor could pull something off here. I e-mailed the hotel asking if I could take photos of the public areas, as other hotels have said to ask them that and they can ensure I see everything that they want to show off. This hotel didn’t reply, but since it only opened on Monday, I thought that they might be busy. Although as a side issue, hotels ignoring e-mails does irritate me, it normally shows up wider problems.

I had good cause to be hopeful, as the Ibis Budget Whitechapel have had a sensationally good renovation and they are absolutely on it. The management there replied to e-mails nearly instantly, they’ve got a cool design theme and they use Instagram to promote their hotel. I really rather love that hotel and will have to stay there more often.

And before I start writing about this hotel, I know that nearly no-one will care and this post will never get more than 2,000 or so accesses, but there we go….. And I am also aware that the hotel has different rooms which might have led to me writing a very different post.

The check-in process was torturous, although the team members here are enthused, friendly and clearly trying their best. Three asked if I had been having a good day, so I assume that’s part of the training. Unfortunately, the management here have skipped the rest of the training, with the knowledgeable and personable team member at reception not knowing much about Accor’s loyalty programme. That isn’t ideal for a new hotel opening, but these things happen and I didn’t view it negatively. It did mean I had to request a drinks voucher, which the hotel don’t have yet, but after consulting with a manager, they agreed they would provide a free drink.

I paid for the room, after some confusion about whether the hotel accepted Amex (they thought they did, but it transpired that they don’t). I then realised that I had already paid for the room in advance, leading to a quick refund being issued. Anyway, I was still quite content at this stage as the team members were really engaging and so it would be unnecessarily harsh not to expect some mistakes here. To reinforce that point, the team members were as friendly as realistically could be possible, they were really doing their best.

Back to the design, I’m not sure what the hotel’s theme is, I think it’s just an environmental one. I still like some of the mainland Europe themes, like Romans or space, something very different.

The view from the hotel bar and reception, they’ve got a really good location here. It’s a fast rail route into London Liverpool Street, all really convenient. There’s also free car parking available for those who want to drive in.

The room is dreadful and entirely inadequate as far as I’m concerned. The room photos for this room type had photos of a desk, but this small room didn’t have one. This sort of room size is in Ibis Budget territory (and Ibis Budget provide a desk) and it’s only marginally bigger than the deliberately designed small rooms of Hub by Premier Inn.

I’ve on five different hotel advisory panels (including two from Accor, although I suspect with posts like this I’ll be purged) and they come up with some brilliant and innovative ideas. Premier Inn’s Hub concept is really thought through, they’ve made great use of the space, they’ve built in a desk, air conditioning and all I could want in a very small room. Other hotels have put forward for advance feedback some intriguing room concepts. The room designers here haven’t burdened themselves with any design attempt, they’ve shoved a bed in and some clunky lumpy thing in the corner. That green wall might look fine in a larger room, but in a small room it’s made the thing feel really quite drab.

The next problem here is that the hotel windows don’t open. I don’t like this, but it’s manageable if there’s air conditioning. The hotel is boldly advertising that every room has air conditioning, but they don’t have, they have a cheap centralised air warming and cooling system (although I suspect the hotel operating company will argue they paid a lot of money for it). The rooms are simply too hot and there’s nothing that can be done. No windows, no fans, no cooling mechanism.

The air conditioning system they’re using seems gloriously ineffective as well at pushing any fresh air into the rooms, it’s like the old aircraft that pump the same stale air around. At least Dreamliners and the like pull in fresh air to circulate, but goodness knows what system is in place here. I’ve digressed to writing about aircraft…..

As part of the hotel’s plan to make their rooms as dingy, sterile and miserable as possible, they’ve put in sound proofing from the outside. I accept that’s likely appreciated by nearly every guest, but I like road noise, although I can’t really fault the hotel for my strange likings. Internally, the hotel doesn’t feel well built, as sound circulates around the building and I can hear neighbouring rooms.

Nothing says “welcome” like some smashed biscuits. Although to be fair, they didn’t have to offer this.

Anyway, rather than complain here when it was too late, I went to tell reception that I didn’t like the room and asked if they had one with a desk. Apparently they don’t, otherwise they’d have upgraded me, only the hotel’s five suites have a desk (which is not what the photos suggest). I did offer to pay more money for a better room (although Platinum guests should be upgraded anyway for free), but they apparently couldn’t help. The team member was polite, but it was clear that this was the best room the hotel had available. The Accor web-site has substantial room availability for this hotel on-line, so I’m not sure if the hotel’s room inventory system is broken (they were having technical problems with their hotel management software).

Back to being positive, the hotel bar is much better, the designers have put some considerable effort into having a bright and airy feel to the public areas. For customers who want it, they can enjoy a drink with a view over the station for those who like people watching, it’s nice. I have no idea what the food menu is though as it’s not published on-line or in the rooms, but they serve meals.

The beer selection is the worst I’ve seen in an Accor hotel in recent years, limited to Corona and Budweiser. Two generic beers with sod all effort made at localising the menu or offering some local beers. I’m not expecting decadent craft beer (although some hotels do make an effort in this area), but other Ibis hotels in the city do manage to have local beers from London. Accor were meant to be promoting an element of their localisation of their food and drink, but I can see no evidence that the hotel is reaching out to the community and local producers at all here.

I think it’s clear that I don’t like this hotel and I can’t recall any Accor I’ve ever stayed at having worse rooms. For a new-build hotel where the rooms are five days old, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the hotel industry if this is the sort of rubbish that is going to be pumped out. Travelodge rooms are simply far better and I think even by their own measure, Travelodge are seen to be at the lower end of the scale in that regard. Really this hotel is operating at Ibis Budget standards, although is still someway behind locations such as Ibis Budget Whitechapel.

Early media reports stated that this hotel would be the first UK venture for Novum Hotels, who I’ve stayed with numerous times and have been impressed with. They don’t list the hotel on their web-site, but if this mess of a hotel is anything to do with Novum I’ll be extra disappointed [I’ve checked since writing this, and I’m delighted this has transpired to be nothing to do with Novum and I’m not surprised at that. It’s actually run by Black & White Hospitality, part of the Marco Pierre White operation]. I suspect that this hotel will score fine initially in reviews, as I’m not convinced their rooms are all as basic and so I can imagine might be quite exciting with views over the railway and some seem to be more airy. But, I can only judge what they gave me, which was worse than I’d expect in an Ibis Budget.

A five minute drive or a twenty minute walk away is the Holiday Inn Express Newbury Park, I’d recommend anyone stay there instead. The quality of the whole experience there was in a different league to this Ibis Styles. Incidentally, I should add that the prices here were low, but seem to be increasing, so they might have had lower rates initially to build up occupancy. And I have to credit this hotel with being the first one I’ve stayed in since the pandemic started which is cleaning the rooms daily, with the hotel paying for plenty of staff to be available.

July 17, 2021