July for me has two hotel stays – one for business and one for pleasure, but both claiming to be luxurious.
The first stay was the pleasure one (hang on, that sounds rude. Leisure?) as I treated Husband to a stay at the Hotel Du Vin in Exeter. Work had got confused with my pay in June, and I was due a pile of back-pay in July, so instead of saving it like a sensible person, I splurged on one of their studio rooms. WOO!
Well, less woo, more meh.
I know – seeing these photos you may think me to be a picky snob, but I really wasn’t overwhelmed with the room, which when paying out a lot of money, you kind of want to be. It felt quite small. On closer look, it was a bit scruffy. It was just… meh.
The bathroom was really nice though – we had an en suite bathroom and a separate shower room. The skincare geek in me was overjoyed with the REN, but they were attached to the wall. I thought only cheapo Blackpool B&Bs did that.
I didn’t mind the quirky nature of the room layout – I wanted more quirk. The building used to be the West of England Eye Infirmary, but the only thing that gave it away was the sign at the top, hidden away around a corner. Check-in was quirky I suppose, but in a way that made me roll my eyes so far back they almost fell out. No actual useful check-in desk, just this weird round ball thing that staff have to balance a laptop (or two) on. For the love of god, I need a bit of sanity when checking in.
The restaurant was good – we ate there for dinner the first evening and although my espresso martini was disgustingly watered down, the food was very yummy. The evening was spoiled a bit by a group of drunk men running around naked in the garden, skinny-dipping in the pool. If I wanted to see a hairy butt, I would have stayed at a lower class of hotel, you know what I mean? They may also have been the people who went rampaging round our floor at 4am. Come on guys, have a bit of consideration for the other guests who do not function so well on less than 7 hours sleep.
The other big disappointment was the spa, mainly because I didn’t get a look-in. I hadn’t considered it’d be booked up, so I missed out on all the REN-ey goodness. Gutted.
Curses to our last hotel stay for ruining all future stays.
untold blisses 