We stopped over at the Cbeebies hotel this past weekend, and it is really good.
They are really strict on entry, no Lanyard, no entry, but I understand why this is now. The entertainment area is not as big as I was expecting, I am guessing it is big enough just for the guests in the hotel. The entertainment was good after 5pmish, the shows were 10-15 minutes long every hour, with meet and greets afterwards. Annabelle really enjoyed the shows, even getting picked to take part. You could tell the staff doing it were enjoying it as well. During the day, some of the entertainment was just the Cbeebies channel. But the little ones did not seem to mind that and I did not expect their to be 14 hours of continuous entertainment anyway.
The food at the CBeebies Hotel is really good as well, breakfast reminded me a bit of Alton Towers Hotel Breakfast in the past. One of the highlights was lunch, where we had afternoon tea, which came on a picnic bench, and was easily enough for 4 people. At £19 (£15 with AP discount) this is really good value.
The windmill restaurant is okay, you could call it a glorified Harvester, but I feel that is a little harsh as the food is better. The salad bar was good, as were the main meals. The only issue was the slow service. Not really sure what was the cause of this, and it sounded like others were having the same issue.
We stopped in the CBeebies room, and I really liked it. It was bright and colourful. Had sockets on either side of the bed, USB ports in the main sockets. Every room had a Cot, Baby Bath, Nappy Bin and bottle warmer. The bathroom is in the middle of the room, with the bunk beds nearest the door and double bed nearest the window. I liked this layout, and it felt like a good step forward from what they tried to do with the Moon Voyager rooms. The bathroom door also has the latest child friendly safety features to prevent fingers getting trapped. The hotel was really warm when we stopped as well.
The negatives/niggles with the hotel are little things, you have to go outside and walk all around to get in to ATH or Splash. From what we could tell, their is no shortcut through the Spa.
Their is the entertainment area, but no other area for the little ones to play. Yes, their is a tunnel, and a few buttons to press in reception, but I was expecting a small soft play area.
The only thing I can fault on the rooms is the lack of a demisting bathroom mirror, but maybe I just need to learn some patience
Overall, I really enjoyed stopping at the CBeebies hotel, and if anyone has any children under 6 I would recommend it.
The following night we stopped in the Moon Voyager room, and these are my favourite rooms to stop in (Well you could consider them dark and gloomy but I enjoy the space theme, and adventure and that is what makes me smile and remember happy memories of the room), but coming from CBeebies, the room did feel like it had seen a lot better days. The poor teddy bear in the room had lost his costume, and some of the nice to have items listed above were missing in this room.
The hotel porters deserve a big shout out here, we asked if we could stay in the CBeebies room the 2nd night to avoid moving rooms, but unfortunately it was fully booked so we had to move, but the porters did an excellent job of taking our bags from CBeebies to ATH, so thank you for that great service.
It was very strange walking past Splash Landings on the way to the RollerCoaster Restuarant for dinner, and seeing it in complete darkness, had a very eerie scarefest feel to it.
One of the good things to come from Splash being closed, and Margaritas being closed, was that in the evening, after the Pantos had finished, they turned the down stage conference area in to a giant disco area. They need to use this area all year round as it is so much better for families and worked really well.
