Hotels General Discussion

[s_g_k]

Apologies for the double post, but at least it’s only £273.50 a night at the Alton Towers Hotel in August based on a 2 night stay.

Or £378.50 if you want to go upmarket and stay in the cbeebies hotel.

For comparison, you can stay at The Ned in London - a famous 5 star hotel - for £40 a night less than the cbeebies hotel.

 

[Vik]

This is utterly embarrassing.

If Premier Inn announced an ATR takeover tomorrow I’d breathe a sigh of relief.

Even Britannia could do a better job!

Those pictures are shocking; Even the worst Wetherspoons I've had the misfortune of going in aren't that bad. Whilst guests do have some responsibility of cleaning up after themselves, that is no excuse not to have someone going out periodically cleaning up and clearing tables, it's basic stuff; And if everywhere looks tidy it should at least offer some encouragement for guests to clear up there mess too. Do they not get rated on this sort of stuff? Though I can't imagine anyone is going to come and inspect things at 10pm on a Saturday night, and when they do the place would be swarming with 'Managers' anyway.

Where were the Managers? Surely they can come out and get their hands dirty for 10-15 minutes every so often so the place is tidy?

Shame there is so little other options for staying over if you want to enjoy a few drinks on park, which would likely be the case with Mardi Gras and Oktoberfest, and also for evening entertainment. Very limited guest house availability, and quite a long walk along some rather iffy roads, especially at night up to the Village to any pubs/guest houses

 

[Craig]

Given the ludicrous hotel prices and lack of staff my two questions are how much money are they making and where is that money going?

The prices had dropped pretty substantially for Saturday, they were around £36 per person for a group of 4 in ATH I think if you booked on Tuesday - some of the "lowest" prices they've had in a good few years.

"Low" prices are great if you need to attract guests to stay, but at the same time you need to have the support in place to provide the service promised to guests. At present, they are nowhere near being able to achieve it in the hotels. We booked a few days earlier at £49 a person, so the best part of £200 on a one night hotel stay. I would still be miffed at forking out £80 for the state of the things last night.

As for where the money is going, I don't think it's as simple as saying that it's because it's going to new developments elsewhere. It's very clear there's a massive, and I mean massive percentage of staff within the hotels and F+B on park that are agency staff. Whilst the staff themselves will be paid the same as direct hires, the agencies will be demanding a cut too. Due to the present situation, that's probably something absolutely extortionate. Add to that the job world being very much an employee's market at the moment where people can just walk out and back into another job if they're not a fan - the increased costs when you factor in having to train every new starter must be absolutely insane.

Of course the agency hires are a very knee jerk, short term panic response. That's because the obsession is to keep the hotels going in the same way that it have before - maximum occupancy for the highest possible cost. However, as the hotel situation is clearly getting much, much worse as the season progresses, there needs to be a real long hard rethink about where they go from here:

• Occupancy - Accept that the current setup does not favour filling the hotels. They do not have the capacity, or the experienced staff to do so at present. Mothball some floors if you have to, but things are completely unsustainable as they are.
• Staffing - Carry out a full review of why they can't get the staff they need as direct hires, so that they can work to run down the reliance on agency staff. They're likely spending considerably more on them than they would on a pay-rise for direct hires to encourage new starters. Their only way out of this is to properly benchmark staff wages and provide pay, benefits, transport options and working hours that are more suitable. As I mentioned, it's an employee's market, and they need to accept that, engage with their current staff and leavers to see their reasons for leaving and try and fix this long term.
• Appeal to different markets - They should be looking at things (to bring back a Covid phrase) -"flatten the curve" a little. At present, they have a spike of people visiting on weekends and school holidays, and probably run at a much lower occupancy and therefore profit on off peak days. If they make progress in sorting out the staffing, what could they do to encourage people to stay during some of those off peak periods? That's where things like more adult settings for relaxing comes in, instead of almost all communal areas being a kids club at present.
• Increase revenue per guest - The park has managed to come up with some really great ideas to increase revenue, whilst dropping capacity. The hotels should be thinking in the same way. Spa and dinner packages for couples? Waterpark and theme park breaks for groups of friends when the unis are off?
• Management Support - They need a whole top team who is very experienced in the hotel world to cover the place 24/7. As Ian mentioned, the current team in general seems to be very young. They need to have experience in there to be able to properly identify and manage issues when they crop up. At present, any problems seems to result in panic stations, with little methodical thinking into how to get try and pull things back from the brink.

There's already a situation where a large percentage of guests are returning for either free or having things substantially discounted because their previous stay was so poor, further impacting revenue. There is zero point in doing such discounts/free stays if the issues they experienced the first time round are not rectified, or as we saw last night - getting progressively worse. @AstroDan spoke to a guest in the long bar queue yesterday who had their stay for free last night following a poor experience the year before. So that's zero profit on the room and little profit from their spending on the likes of the bar because they can't get served. You've gained nothing as a business from that compensation, because all the guest has seen is the same things are happening. They're even more unlikely to return again and they'll be making sure their friends know how poor value the place is too. It's doing the complete opposite of what that free stay was intended to do.

Sure, lots of this will cost a lot of money to implement. But the longer this goes on, the longer to alienate your customer base. They needed action years ago to stop the rot, but Covid and Brexit has accelerated the decline to the point where they really do need to make some big, substantial changes and some really blue sky thinking to turn things around.

 

[Poisson]

I found a child's dummy wedged under the bed in the room.

The double I slept on was decent, the single @Jonathan slept was awful and he had an awful night's sleep. @MattyH got about 2.5 hours sleep as his bed was a metal mesh with a mattress thrown on top. Unacceptable. The room had space for an Enchanted Village setup of bunks and a double. The room had plenty of space for such a setup. This was also a premium as it was an Arctic Explorer upgrade thanks to Mike.

If there was anywhere else to stay with access after several drinks I wouldn't stay on Resort. Not a chance.

 

[s_g_k]

I’d honestly post these photos on your socials. This needs sharing and it needs sorting out.

 

[Craig]

Out of interest where was that photo taken with all the rubbish on the floor?

I think that was on the table to the left of the stage, but in all honesty pretty much everywhere had rubbish on the floor. We were sat in the back to the right of the bar. The table behind us pictured in Dan's photo had been left in a state, this is directly opposite the staff entrance into the bar area, so in full view. This was a photo I took, you can see stuff all over the floor near to the bar queue too.


And then looking the other way, there was a collection of drinks that'd just been left. I can understand leaving them for a little while, but in the 20 minutes we were there no one had been near them. You can also see even more empty bottles and crisp packets on the floor:

 

[JAperson]

I think it's clear that there are many problems with the hotels but from reading I think we can say that all the hotels need a refurbishment and some new staff training. Refurbishing the rooms and the public area's so they are better suited to what is needed, making facilities like an adults only bar a possibility as part of the referb along with other new features and a new restaurant with a completely new setup, allowing them to redesign the breakfasts. I think solutions need to be looked at as there surely will be other things that need to be done.

 

[Matt N]

I’m staying on resort tonight for the first time in 3 years, in the Alton Towers Hotel.

Impressions are actually very good so far; we’ve been spontaneously upgraded to a Moon Voyager Room even though we only booked a standard, and the room looks nice and clean, and well themed!

For what it’s worth, I can also hear a singer singing on the ship from my room up on the 3rd floor; it must be quite loud down in the foyer!

I’m dining in the Rollercoaster Restaurant at 7:30, and eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant tomorrow, so I’ll leave some more detailed thoughts when I’m back home tomorrow.

If there’s anything you’d like me to report on or find out about while I’m here, just ask!

 

[AstroDan]

I’m staying on resort tonight for the first time in 3 years, in the Alton Towers Hotel.

Impressions are actually very good so far; we’ve been spontaneously upgraded to a Moon Voyager Room, and the room looks nice and clean, and well themed!

For what it’s worth, I can also hear a singer singing on the ship from my room up on the 3rd floor; it must be quite loud down in the foyer!

I’m dining in the Rollercoaster Restaurant at 7:30, and eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant tomorrow, so I’ll leave some more detailed thoughts when I’m back home tomorrow.

If there’s anything you’d like me to report on or find out about while I’m here, just ask!

I fully expect that they are upgrading people to try and mitigate complaints.

Tonight will be off peak, so unlikely to have the issues of last night - at least not to the same degree. There'll be nowhere near the families with kids, as it's term time.

There was no issue with our room either (we were also upgraded) - the problems at the hotels currently are entirely with staffing levels, standards of service and food/beverage.

 

[Matt N]

I should also mention that the room was very promptly ready at 1:45pm, as my mum was texted at that time!

 

[MattyH]

I'm shattered. My bed was abysmal. My entire body was aching when I woke up. The breakfast was abysmal. Thankfully I'm in a premier Inn tonight so I don't have to drive the 200 odd miles home knackered.

When I'm less knackered I'm going to have to put in a message to Towers as it's just unacceptable.

This is not an acceptable bed in a PREMIUM room that requires an upgrade. As can be seen there is clearly room for better beds.

Something has to be changed.

 

[Skyscraper]

This is utterly embarrassing.

If Premier Inn announced an ATR takeover tomorrow I’d breathe a sigh of relief.

Now you've said that, it would actually be a great idea. Their breakfasts are very good for a start.

 

[Craig]

I'm shattered. My bed was abysmal. My entire body was aching when I woke up. The breakfast was abysmal. Thankfully I'm in a premier Inn tonight so I don't have to drive the 200 odd miles home knackered.

When I'm less knackered I'm going to have to put in a message to Towers as it's just unacceptable.

This is not an acceptable bed in a PREMIUM room that requires an upgrade. As can be seen there is clearly room for better beds.

Something has to be changed.

There's nothing wrong with the beds as such, but those truckle beds are not suitable for adults so should be excluded as bookable on the website and as an option for an upgrade on check in. Strangely, they've removed the option to book a 5th adult in the truckle bed in Enchanted Village on the website, so I'm unsure why it still allows it in the Arctic rooms. We were upgraded at reception to an Arctic room, but in hindsight I should have asked for a Moon Voyager room instead as they're far more suitable for 4 adults. Have to admit, even though it's a regular thing for us that realistically, 4 adults in a room at Towers is an exception to the norm of two, maybe three adults in there.

We've had minor upgrades to the rooms already, and I'm in agreement with Dan that really any further major upgrades to the rooms should be bottom of the list when they're plainly unable to provide even basic levels of staffing at the moment.

 

[jon81uk]

It does seem the route cause of the major issues is lack of staff. Also seems like the very basics of room provision are OK from the sound of things? Or are the rooms filthy dirty too?

Maybe actually closing Splash completely to focus on bar service at ATH would help?

 

[Ian]

We've had minor upgrades to the rooms already, and I'm in agreement with Dan that really any further major upgrades to the rooms should be bottom of the list when they're plainly unable to provide even basic levels of staffing at the moment.

And I’ll third that. This is the thing; the room stock, save for the final wave of “Standard” ATH rooms is all recently refurbished in the past few years. Arctic, Moon and refreshed Splash are all perfectly acceptable (though I too do think that the sanatorium gurneys they offer as additional beds could be improved. I slept fine last night, but it’s not the best impression of a “premium” brand). The fact multiple people seem to be reporting “upgrades” does suggest to me though that they are aware the standard rooms are lacking, so will push people to the better classes if capacity allows. This is a good thing in my view.

The only criticisms really of roomstock are:

1. How long it’s taken them to get to where we are today. Covid will have played a part here of course, but it does seem a long time ago that the first refurbishments to Moon Voyager took place. We should have seen the back of the ATH standard rooms a few years ago now.
2. The fact that Splash still hasn’t had AC installed. Those rooms are sweatboxes in summer, not helped by the fact the whole building stays stuffy and warm thanks to the waterpark. It’s not the end of the world, as the fans do help, but it does need addressing sooner rather than later.

There are far more pressing concerns to deal with, and 90% of these are operational or F&B related. The fabric of the hotels is generally speaking fine. There is no pressing need for more room refurbs once the ATH standard rooms are addressed.

 

[Craig]

It does seem the route cause of the major issues is lack of staff. Also seems like the very basics of room provision are OK from the sound of things? Or are the rooms filthy dirty too?

Maybe actually closing Splash completely to focus on bar service at ATH would help?

The difficulty of closing a whole hotel is that you're going to be losing the bar and restaurant capacity. As it stands, Dragon Bar and Margs are too small to cope with the guests in their respective hotels when they're operating at close to full capacity, which they'd need to if one whole hotel was closed. Then you've got the loss of a restaurant the size of Flambo, which would mean you'd struggle to get a reservation in Secret Garden - it's difficult enough as it is! The situation is made even worse when you add Stargazing Pods, Enchanted Village and even potentially CBeebies guests into the mix too. The annoying thing is, the lack of bar/F+B capacity was something which was raised time and time again on this forum right from when all of these developments were first mooted!

There's a possibility they could stretch to having the conference centre open as an additional bar/restaurant, but this takes away their conference capacity when they're only just rebuilding that post-covid, so I doubt this could be viable. There is Emperors, but this will only solve bar space or restaurant capacity - not both.

It's a tricky one, and it really needs some brave decisions to be made.

 

[GaryH]

For the price of the hotel it should be table service at the bar that queue in splash is just crazy and I feel sorry for the staff being the bar taking the brunt of it. It used to be table service, would make sense to do it again and this would up the premium feel of the hotels, at least do it in ATH.

When people ask me where to stay I never recommend the hotels anymore, I always suggest a few good B&Bs nearby. And as much as I loved staying in the hotels I have no desire to do so at the moment because it’s not worth the money.

@Matt N - how is the cleanliness in the room? Have a nose under the bed, and along edges of room. As for the bed, pull back the sheets, any bed protector on the mattress? Last time I stayed there wasn’t just stains all over the mattress underneath.

 

[Craig]

I think it's clear that there are many problems with the hotels but from reading I think we can say that all the hotels need a refurbishment and some new staff training. Refurbishing the rooms and the public area's so they are better suited to what is needed, making facilities like an adults only bar a possibility as part of the referb along with other new features and a new restaurant with a completely new setup, allowing them to redesign the breakfasts. I think solutions need to be looked at as there surely will be other things that need to be done.

Just on the subject of staff training - that's only one part of what is required. Better staff training can only be done when they're not firefighting by hiring agency staff all the time. They're clearly so short staffed that people are barely getting a basic induction before being thrown into it at present, and it really shows.

Good training only works when you have people invested in the role and the company, with correct support, processes and procedures in place to match it. You can only really become properly invested as an employee if what you're doing is engaging and enjoyable. Judging by the faces of some of those on duty yesterday, it's very much the complete opposite. That's where the work needs to be done before anything else, as there's not a single person on earth who would give a job their all if they're waking up every single morning absolutely dreading what's to come, knowing that nothing is going to work as it should.

 

[jon81uk]

The difficulty of closing a whole hotel is that you're going to be losing the bar and restaurant capacity. As it stands, Dragon Bar and Margs are too small to cope with the guests in their respective hotels when they're operating at close to fully capacity, which they'd need to if one whole hotel was closed. Then you've got the loss of a restaurant the size of Flambo, which would mean you'd struggle to get a reservation in Secret Garden - it's difficult enough as it is! The situation is made even worse when you add Stargazing Pods, Enchanted Village and even potentially CBeebies guests into the mix too. The annoying thing is, the lack of bar/F+B capacity was something which was raised time and time again on this forum right from when all of these developments were first mooted!

There's a possibility they could stretch to having the conference centre open as an additional bar/restaurant, but this takes away their conference capacity when they're only just rebuilding that post-covid, so I doubt this could be viable. There is Emperors, but this will only solve bar space or restaurant capacity - not both.

It's a tricky one, and it really needs some brave decisions to be made.

But if Splash is completely closed so no guests at all in that hotel then surely Secret Garden should be able to cope with the guests in ATH?

Of course the issue is that they seem to value income over guest satisfaction.

 

[GaryH]

Problem is you have 4 “hotels” in which everyone can opt to use whatever restaurant they want along with members of the public who can also book tables without staying there. Secret garden is probably the only decent restaurant between them. What would work is opening a decent high end adults only restaurant with wine/cocktail type bar inside it.