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The Hotels: A Journey

Slugjc said:
Shutting at 1 will cause an issue. Drunks roaming the corridors late at night. Takes some policing.
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Not disagreeing but I wonder how other hotels cope when many will keep their bars open for as long as residents remain in there drinking.
 
GaryH said:
Not disagreeing but I wonder how other hotels cope when many will keep their bars open for as long as residents remain in there drinking.
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Other hotels are just hotels. Will need bar taking to make vast majority of income. you run a business built on being family friendly, reports of pissed up folk causing a nuisance every night. Not good.

It's a delicate balancing act.
 
To be fair at somewhere like Disneyworld there aren't really bars open past 11pm with only one or two places til midnight, so I do kind of get the argument about a "family friendly" venue. But if they were really family friendly then have more to do in the evening that isn't centred around a bar. Splash Landings does have a stage area for the family entertainment a little away from the bar, but it just seems like what to do in the evening was an afterthought at the hotels.
 
Given the recent discussion here, about the hotel needing to create a child free space, I thought that this opinion article from today's Observer was awfully appropriate.

www.theguardian.com

The internet boils with anonymous rage, but this confrontation felt personal

It’s nearly bedtime and a restaurant row in a seaside hotel leaves everyone shaken
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Eva Wiseman tells a recent tale of how, when dining with her family, the restaurant suffered a power cut. An unidentified woman then takes it upon herself to tell Eva that her children should be in bed, at 8 p.m, and that they weren't in a McDonald's.

I'm one half of a couple who don't intend to have children, but I wouldn't or couldn't ever imagine making a family feel horrible for having them. I couldn't ever imagine feeling the entitlement of a space becoming mine, or child free, because of the time. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, and quite often things don't go to plan. This particular scenario described in the story above irritates me because there's no empathy.

Do I appreciate "adult" spaces? Yes. Do I think that children should be in a pub/bar/restaurant at a late time? Probably not, but I understand that not everyone's expectations line up with real world experiences.
 
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Poisson said:
This is why when we want an adult only section, it'd be a bar area. No reason for children to be in it, they aren't missing anything either.
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What about those who are old enough to socialise, but not yet old enough to drink?

When I was 15-17 I had friends who were 18+. We'd meet in the pub and I would be on softies... Honest. Well, definitely at the younger end of the spectrum. It's a bit unfair to throw emotionally intelligent young people into the same category as 3-4 year olds.
 
You don’t need age limits, as Craig says if you create a bar with a calm adult atmosphere then it puts off families. Centre parcs have their country club bars and yes you get families with children walk in but they tend to respect the atmosphere and then move on to the more child friendly energetic areas rather than cause chaos in that bar.

Trouble with Towers is both bars encourage the chaos.
 
If we were to truly see the hotels head to excellence, then one thing that should be accounted for are the little extras that you'd only expect to find somewhere like Alton Towers. The quirky touches, the weird bonuses, the silly stuff - additional value that can be added to each stay really goes a long way.

They don't even have to be big or expensive either. This lovely post from the Alton Towers Past Facebook group shows ATH at the turn of the millenium - whilst not much has changed, one picture shows a neat little touch that has a certain charm and humour you'd expect from the park:

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The funny thing is, neither the colour-changing kettle or duck hairdryer were uncommon novelty products. And sure, they aren't massively special in that context - but its different. And when you're paying £200+ a night in peak times, it's that little difference that slightly enhances things, and means it's not just a bed close to the coasters.

It's as simple as getting some funky looking mugs, or alarm clocks that make a weird noise when they go off; nothing groundbreaking, nothing exceptional, but the sort of thing you wouldn't get at a Premier Inn.

Whenever I think about the original hotel - more specifically, the history of it - I tend to come across this lovely video, which really does capture the charm they were going for. This sort of energy would certainly go a long way today.


From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBt0PZ9oinA
 
Dave said:
Centre parcs have their country club bars and yes you get families with children walk in but they tend to respect the atmosphere and then move on to the more child friendly energetic areas rather than cause chaos in that bar.
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They absolutely don't! They make the place a stroller labyrinth and let their noisy spawn run riot. The country club was adult only back in the good old days and I still think it sad that space has been lost.
 
There’s probably a reasonable way around not excluding children fully but at the same time maintaining a more adult environment.

If you harness an adult atmosphere but permit well behaved children (and properly police it), then you’d have a non-exclusionary space which allows a more relaxed atmosphere, along with an alternative space for badly behaved children to maraude in the main atrium. I’ve been to plenty of places that get the balance right, although it has to be said it’s far more common in Europe than here.
 
Thing is it wasn’t just the novelty hairdryer or kettle that made the stay special. You had a book of exclusive vouchers to use in the park. You had exclusive access to the pool/waterpark. The entertainment was excellent fun with Dicky and the band. The secret garden served high quality food with service to match. You had a special park entrance via the woodland walk where a member of staff walked a group down in the morning while giving details of the history of the place. It really was an extra special experience and I always remember not wanting to leave.

Anyone here who went at Christmas may also remember the the snow machines on the roof of the hotel and staff walking around sprinkling fake snow over the grounds. They even had bumper cars free for hotel guests in the hotel gardens one year.

Everything they used to do warranted paying the higher cost - and I didn’t mind doing that for the experience we got. And yes that includes the duck hairdryer and colour changing kettle!
 
GaryH said:
Thing is it wasn’t just the novelty hairdryer or kettle that made the stay special. You had a book of exclusive vouchers to use in the park. You had exclusive access to the pool/waterpark. The entertainment was excellent fun with Dicky and the band. The secret garden served high quality food with service to match. You had a special park entrance via the woodland walk where a member of staff walked a group down in the morning while giving details of the history of the place. It really was an extra special experience and I always remember not wanting to leave.

Anyone here who went at Christmas may also remember the the snow machines on the roof of the hotel and staff walking around sprinkling fake snow over the grounds. They even had bumper cars free for hotel guests in the hotel gardens one year.

Everything they used to do warranted paying the higher cost - and I didn’t mind doing that for the experience we got. And yes that includes the duck hairdryer and colour changing kettle!
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Oh Christ, the bumper cars!

Anyone remember the reindeer?

And woodland walk…

All seems a distant memory now’s

Backwards, backwards, backwards
 
The little touches were what made it special. Although, I never did stop at the place until 2010 when the decline had started.

As a man about to hit his 40s. I remember the colour changing kettles and the fad of novelty hair dryers. Remember it being a fad and nothing else.

The other thing that went against them is they were expensive and I'm guessing quiet hard to replace. It would make sense business wise to bring in boring kettles and hair dryers. Less chance of theft, less chance of damage. If Kenwood (or whomever supplied them) no longer makes them. What else are they to do.
 
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