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The Hotels: A Journey

Alsty said:
Presumably the vocal sets are all by the same person(s) and they were too embarrassed to write it down?
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Pretty much, although I don't think having the same person is a bad thing as they're only short sets. But it certainly needs a bit more imagination in the presentation of the entertainment as a whole. It's a shame they got rid of the themed names, the variety is there I feel - it all just needs to sounds a lot more exciting than it does at the moment.
 
Craig said:
To be fair there's only been a couple of people who have seriously suggested that Merlin contract the hotels out, I wouldn't say it's an obsession. There's been a lot of people comparing the services offered by some chains to be substantially better, and on the face of it for some aspects of the hotel that's true. It's a fair comparison to make that lower budget hotels offer better breakfasts for example, or it's fair to point out others have a better offering in terms of late check outs, or comfier beds despite being a quarter of the price. However, most of these chains do not do anything in terms of substantial entertainment or a proper themed experience. It's a standardised product, basic but done well. So it's a solution that would fix some aspects, but probably further damage others. After all, there's a reason IHG no longer run Chessington's hotels after initially opening under their management/franchise agreement.

But you are right, they can't deal with running the hotels correctly at present, and I think those suggesting alternative operators are mainly doing so out of sheer exasperation from this current situation - "It can't get any worse". Until they really start to put some investment into them, get a very experienced management team in to tackle the issues and properly carry out a full review of every aspect of them, they'll continue to decline.
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As a tertiary sector manager myself, you do everything as a manager to prevent your branch from collapsing. You open when you really can't afford to staffing wise. You reluctantly make the cuts demanded of you despite the fact you know what will happen as a result. If you can't recruit the right people on the wage and conditions the company you work for are preparing to afford then you put either put in the hours yourself or leave the business when a new opportunity arises.

None of these things will be fixed by contracting out of the hotels. Expertise isn't the problem. Corporate "fingers in ears" is the problem. They'll keep on selling the rooms and the beer as long as people keep coming. I feel ashamed to say that I've ran some stores in situations that are, frankly, unsafe and probably illegal. We do this because we need to pay our mortgages and every attempt to contract services out has only led to kicking the can down the road.

Contracting them out will only lead to lower paid workers coming in working for a company that doesn't want to loose the contract. They loose the contract because what is being asked is impossible from Merlin and another one comes in and cycle of rot continues. Contracting out is a slippery slope.

If a company want to make a large proportion of their profit from accommodation, then they need to learn how to run them. I stand by the comment that if Merlin were to contract out everything they're crap at then they wouldn't run much at all. The problem stems from Merlin ignoring the problems for short term profit.

You're only as good as the tools you have available to you. And if the tools are crap and the money they're willing to invest isn't there then the problem remains no matter who is operating things. Should this company really be in the business they're in if they can't run their own hotels and burger joints and even maintain sensible investments in their own parks? I hope that the pictures provided in this thread shock them into action.
 
Matt.GC said:
As a tertiary sector manager myself, you do everything as a manager to prevent your branch from collapsing. You open when you really can't afford to staffing wise. You reluctantly make the cuts demanded of you despite the fact you know what will happen as a result. If you can't recruit the right people on the wage and conditions the company you work for are preparing to afford then you put either put in the hours yourself or leave the business when a new opportunity arises.

None of these things will be fixed by contracting out of the hotels. Expertise isn't the problem. Corporate "fingers in ears" is the problem. They'll keep on selling the rooms and the beer as long as people keep coming. I feel ashamed to say that I've ran some stores in situations that are, frankly, unsafe and probably illegal. We do this because we need to pay our mortgages and every attempt to contract services out has only led to kicking the can down the road.

Contracting them out will only lead to lower paid workers coming in working for a company that doesn't want to loose the contract. They loose the contract because what is being asked is impossible from Merlin and another one comes in and cycle of rot continues. Contracting out is a slippery slope.

If a company want to make a large proportion of their profit from accommodation, then they need to learn how to run them. I stand by the comment that if Merlin were to contract out everything they're crap at then they wouldn't run much at all. The problem stems from Merlin ignoring the problems for short term profit.

You're only as good as the tools you have available to you. And if the tools are crap and the money they're willing to invest isn't there then the problem remains no matter who is operating things. Should this company really be in the business they're in if they can't run their own hotels and burger joints and even maintain sensible investments in their own parks? I hope that the pictures provided in this thread shock them into action.
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So is this just a case of corporate greed then? Because I think if I was charging what Merlin charge for their resort hotels I could afford decent staff to run them and quality food for the restaurants etc. Where is the money going?

I've been in the position of a contractor being hired in to do a job that's actually impossible with the scant resources you're provided with. You work yourself into the ground to try and make it work because you don't want to lose the contract, but deep down you know it's a thankless task and failure is inevitable. If you admit defeat the client just replaces you and the whole cycle of failure just goes round again. It's a depressing state of affairs.
 
The profit will be spent elsewhere, be it propping something else up at Towers, bonuses, used to pay for other parks stuff (CWOA and Thorpe need all the help they can get)
 
NuttySquirrel said:
So is this just a case of corporate greed then? Because I think if I was charging what Merlin charge for their resort hotels I could afford decent staff to run them and quality food for the restaurants etc. Where is the money going?

I've been in the position of a contractor being hired in to do a job that's actually impossible with the scant resources you're provided with. You work yourself into the ground to try and make it work because you don't want to lose the contract, but deep down you know it's a thankless task and failure is inevitable. If you admit defeat the client just replaces you and the whole cycle of failure just goes round again. It's a depressing state of affairs.
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Correct. That's exactly what I'm saying and you've hit the nail on the head there about what contracting out actually does.

It's good when a business needs a specialist expertise. It's bad when the intention is to prop up failing parts of their business by farming it off onto someone else to shoulder the blame. The problem is the root to why that part of the business is failing and not look to sign a contract with someone else who can be blamed instead.

I've lost track over the years how many times our cleaners, security guards, engineers and drivers have been TUPE'd over to new companies due to their previous ones loosing their contract. Some of them get made redundant. Some of them have to eventually sign worse T&C's. Many of them just leave when they get another job.

The hours always go down. The price of the contract always goes down. The service received always goes down. The expectations on the contract always becomes more and more unreasonable. All of the people you get to know and work with get paid less than the colleagues they work alongside. All contracting out does is presents a target for a corporation to threaten for their own home grown incompetence.

If the slice of the pie is the same, this situation won't improve. The hotels are likely in this state because Merlin have managed to sell a service they can't properly provide. If there's no more pie, then it's unlikely another company can clean it up long term. They wanted to sell those rooms, they wanted to sell those pizzas and they wanted to sell that beer. They just neglected to empathise with their workforce in that it was something they could not realistically provide. The only difference is, if there was another party contracted out to do all this stuff for them, the Merlin board would have a dart board to throw things at.
 
After my stay on resort over the weekend (my first stay since 2019), I promised an in-depth review. I shall deliver upon that promise!

Let me break down the elements of my experience into different areas. For clarity, I stayed in the Alton Towers Hotel with my mum and nan. Including park tickets, our 1-night stay was priced at £107pp.
The Room
We booked a Standard Room, but were spontaneously upgraded to a Moon Voyager Room upon arrival; the experience was getting off to a good start already! And I’ve got to say, the room was lovely; this was not my first time in a Moon Voyager Room (I’ve stayed in them before in 2013 and 2014), and I do like them. I think they’re very well themed, with lots of nice little touches!

As for everything else; the room was nice and clean (after a member on here requested I do a thorough check, I did run over some of the surfaces and check the mattress, and no dust or anything untoward was found. I even checked the high surfaces, where I had to get on my tiptoes to reach them!), and overall, I had no major issues.

I slept on the bottom bunk of the bunk beds, and my bed was perfectly comfortable; I had no issues with it, and I slept like a log! The only slight detractor was that I kept whacking my head on the ceiling of the bunk when trying to enter and exit, but I think that’s more to do with the fact that I was sleeping in a bunk bed at 5’9.5” than because of any issue with this bunk bed in isolation… the bed was certainly far easier to get in and out of than I remember the one in the Standard Room at ATH being in 2018, and the size once I was actually in bed was fine; I had more than enough legroom, and I could sit up reasonably OK in bed!

One thing I did notice in the room was that I could hear the entertainment going on in the main foyer quite loudly; the singer in particular was very audible from my 3rd floor room. This didn’t cause me issues, as I stayed up quite late, but if you do go to bed a bit earlier or have kids with you in the room who need to go to bed earlier, that might be something to bear in mind.

But overall, the room was very nice, and I had no major complaints!
The Evening Meal
Now, I should clarify that we did not actually dine in the Alton Towers Hotel itself for our evening meal, instead picking the Rollercoaster Restaurant as our dining option of choice. I know that the RCR is not technically part of the hotels, but it is still a dining option that many hotel guests might use, so I’m still going to talk about it.

I love the Rollercoaster Restaurant, and I have since the first time I ate there in 2017! This was my 3rd time dining there, and overall, we had a nice evening! I love the novelty of it, I love all the coaster references and nostalgic artwork they have up, I love the light show, and I think the food itself is perfectly nice for what it is!

I did pick up on a few things, though:
  • There seemed to be a considerable variation in the amount of time it would take for a dish to be delivered, and for some courses, different people in our party were getting their dish at very different times. For instance, with our mains, my nan’s main came… and then it took a good 10 minutes for mine to come. And then it took a good 5-10 minutes on top of that for my mum’s to come. I’m probably being a bit harsh here, as I appreciate that the format will naturally lead to some variation in when things come, but it was just something I picked up on. This issue could be allayed, however, when you ordered two dishes under the same person; for instance, my mum and nan ordered their starters under the same person by accident, and they both came at the same time. I’d like to add that my dessert was also very prompt, taking a couple of minutes at most from when I ordered it!
  • I know that Towers can’t really help this, but quite a lot of things were out of stock. My nan is currently following a low fat diet, and she complained about finding it very hard to order because most of the low fat and vegetarian options were out of stock. A significant amount of the wine options were also out of stock; there was no Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay, so my nan had to order some original sounding white wine that apparently contained “Sauvignon Blanc grapes”.
  • This isn’t an issue by any means, but instead more of a general observation; have they made the projection show play less frequently? I swear it used to play every 20 minutes, but it was only playing once every hour this time.
But overall, we had a lovely meal at the Rollercoaster Restaurant; I’d always recommend it!
The Breakfast
Now I won’t lie, I went down to breakfast with slightly bated breath after hearing some less than complimentary reviews on here.

However, I’ve got to say that what I ate was perfectly nice! Granted, I did not eat any cooked breakfast, only having some pancakes with golden syrup and a pre-packaged pain au chocolat myself, but it all tasted perfectly nice!

My mum and nan had cooked breakfast, and they had no complaints either. My mum commented on her bacon being “crispy”, but she didn’t seem to think this was an issue by any stretch. They did both comment on the fried egg looking “greasy”, so they both went for hard boiled eggs instead, but of what they ate, they seemed to have no complaints, from what I gather.

If I’m being very nit picky, it would possibly be nice to see Towers offer a wider range of fruit options. I could initially only see melon and pineapple on offer, although I could see that fresh apples were bought out later on after I’d eaten. Perhaps a nice big fruit salad bowl containing various fruits, like you often see at the Premier Inn breakfast, might be a nice addition? That is me being very unfairly harsh, though; this is certainly no big issue!

Overall, though, I thought breakfast was perfectly nice, and my mum and nan didn’t seem to have any complaints, either. Now I could just have low standards or I could have gotten lucky with what I ate, but it was nowhere near as bad as reviews on here make out, in my opinion.
So, in conclusion…
In conclusion, I had a lovely stay on resort! I must admit I had no major issues whatsoever, and everything seemed tip top and very good during our visit! Yes, there were a couple of minor things I picked up on, but these were small niggles rather than dealbreakers, and certainly shouldn’t put anyone off booking a resort stay, in my opinion! For £107pp including park tickets, I can’t really complain about what was offered!
 
Burbs said:
Even with your optimism Matt, it surprises me that having very recently stayed at Castillo Alcazar and experienced Europa-Park's delectable breakfast offering, you still review ATR so highly.
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Don’t get me wrong, is Alton Towers Hotel on the same level as Castillo Alcazar/Europa Park? Probably not. Europa Park’s hotels are a lot grander in terms of scale and detail, and also somewhat more “glamorous” (for lack of a better word).

If you want a like for like breakfast comparison, I would have probably said that Europa Park’s homemade pancakes tasted a bit nicer than the ones on offer at Towers (don’t know if Towers’ are homemade or not; I would guess not, but I wouldn’t like to presume), and I also remember Europa Park’s homemade pastries tasting nicer than the pre-packaged pain au chocolat at Towers. I won’t lie, there is something about homemade goods that often seems to enhance the taste, which does make Europa Park benefit, in my view.

However, if viewed in isolation, I still think ATR does a great job. I don’t think the Europa comparisons are entirely fair; ATR is a very different scale of resort with somewhat cheaper pricing than Europa. And to be honest, I did not have any gaping flaws with my experience; yes, I had a few minor niggles that I picked up on, but there were no major flaws, and I overall had a thoroughly positive experience! The breakfast at ATR still tasted perfectly nice, and I had no major complaints!

Granted, I could have struck lucky by not eating cooked breakfast at Alton Towers (as this is what most criticism of the breakfast seems to be levelled towards), but I found breakfast at ATR to be far more pleasurable than most reviews on here imply.
 
Matt N said:
Don’t get me wrong, is Alton Towers Hotel on the same level as Castillo Alcazar/Europa Park? Probably not. Europa Park’s hotels are a lot grander in terms of scale and detail, and also somewhat more “glamorous” (for lack of a better word).

If you want a like for like breakfast comparison, I would have probably said that Europa Park’s homemade pancakes tasted a bit nicer than the ones on offer at Towers (don’t know if Towers’ are homemade or not; I would guess not, but I wouldn’t like to presume), and I also remember Europa Park’s homemade pastries tasting nicer than the pre-packaged pain au chocolat at Towers. I won’t lie, there is something about homemade goods that often seems to enhance the taste, which does make Europa Park benefit, in my view.

However, if viewed in isolation, I still think ATR does a great job. I don’t think the Europa comparisons are entirely fair; ATR is a very different scale of resort with somewhat cheaper pricing than Europa. And to be honest, I did not have any gaping flaws with my experience; yes, I had a few minor niggles that I picked up on, but there were no major flaws, and I overall had a thoroughly positive experience! The breakfast at ATR still tasted perfectly nice, and I had no major complaints!

Granted, I could have struck lucky by not eating cooked breakfast at Alton Towers (as this is what most criticism of the breakfast seems to be levelled towards), but I found breakfast at ATR to be far more pleasurable than most reviews on here imply.
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Ah, but to go back to @Burbs point, should we not consider fairly comparing the 2? I know you got a good deal Matt, but some nights these hotel rooms are going for £400+ for a bog standard room.

A few weeks ago, I stayed in Hotel Matamba at Phantasialand in a park view room, cost less than £400. Far bigger, far better quality and breakfast was not comparable to AT in any way shape or form (not only was it actually edible, but it was excellent). 4 nights in Efteling followed, worked out at £120 per night. Again, breakfast, hotel and bar standards made AT look like a hostel. There really was no comparison.

For the average price of a room at AT, why should we be hoping for the dizzying heights of a bog standard Premier Inn or Travel Inn when we should really be judging them against the prices they normally charge? And those prices often exceed those at EP, PL, Efteling and PA.
 
Matt N said:
Sauvignon Blanc grapes”.
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Had no one in your family heard of Sauvingnon Blanc? It’s the most common wine from New Zealand and is my current favourite wine.

Matt N said:
pre-packaged pain au chocolat
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I thought they got rid of these after covid and went back to the freshly baked ones? This one thing is enough to entirely put me off staying at ATH now.
At least when I went to the Big Blue at Blackpool when they had some covid restrictions last year they had freshly baked the pastries and then put them in paper bags themselves so they were still fresh and crispy. The pre-wrapped ones are always soggy.
 
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jon81uk said:
I thought they got rid of these after covid and went back to the freshly baked ones? This one thing is enough to entirely put me off staying at ATH now. At least when I went to the Big Blue at Blackpool when they had some covid restrictions they had freshly baked the pastries and the put them in paper bags themselves so they were still fresh and crispy. The pre-wrapped ones are always soggy.
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The pre-wrapped ones in non-recyclable packaging are still there, absolutely terrible in 2022. They're clearly stored en masse in a freezer as well, as the ones we tested on Sunday morning were still cold and hard in the middle.
 
As an example, a one night stay on the 6th August in Colosseo is a little over £300 for 4 adults. That same stay at Splash Landings? £345. At ATH? £375. A one night stay at the 4 star Crowne Plaza London Docklands for 4 people including breakfast - £344....

We absolutely should be making comparisons when on price aside from the odd cheaper room rate, Alton Towers is often far exceeding the prices of those we're comparing it to.
 
jon81uk said:
Had no one in your family heard of Sauvingnon Blanc? It’s the most common wine from New Zealand and is my current favourite wine.


I thought they got rid of these after covid and went back to the freshly baked ones? This one thing is enough to entirely put me off staying at ATH now.
At least when I went to the Big Blue at Blackpool when they had some covid restrictions last year they had freshly baked the pastries and then put them in paper bags themselves so they were still fresh and crispy. The pre-wrapped ones are always soggy.
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Oh, my Nan absolutely has heard of Sauvignon Blanc; it’s usually her go to choice. She said the wine she drank in RCR “tasted nothing like Sauvignon Blanc” in spite of it supposedly containing the same grapes.

No, the one I ate on Monday morning was definitely pre-packaged. It didn’t taste like it had been warmed either (it definitely tasted cold), but it certainly wasn’t frozen in the centre like some have experienced, and it tasted perfectly fine to me.

I did wonder about the environmental impact of all that packaging. Surely it must go against any climate-related corporate targets Merlin has? All that plastic can’t be good for their carbon footprint, anyway…
 
Matt N said:
I did wonder about the environmental impact of all that packaging. Surely it must go against any climate-related corporate targets Merlin has? All that plastic can’t be good for their carbon footprint, anyway…
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Sadly for Merlin (and many many other businesses) environmental impact is generally only of interest when it’s saving them cash. When it is likely to cost or lose them more money (like being able to use freestyle refill mugs across all parks, or having to buy more expensive fresh pastries for breakfast) suddenly they are less bothered about such issues.
 
Yet Merlin are quite happy to slap their environmental credentials up on LinkedIn as if they're a planet-saving messiah. Not with those crappy pre-packed pastries they're not.
 
Matt N said:
Oh, my Nan absolutely has heard of Sauvignon Blanc; it’s usually her go to choice. She said the wine she drank in RCR “tasted nothing like Sauvignon Blanc” in spite of it supposedly containing the same grapes.

No, the one I ate on Monday morning was definitely pre-packaged. It didn’t taste like it had been warmed either (it definitely tasted cold), but it certainly wasn’t frozen in the centre like some have experienced, and it tasted perfectly fine to me.

I did wonder about the environmental impact of all that packaging. Surely it must go against any climate-related corporate targets Merlin has? All that plastic can’t be good for their carbon footprint, anyway…
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I'm guessing you never actually saw the wine being poured from the bottle, so who knows if it was the wrong wine being served or just cheap rubbish wine!

I guess it could be said that as they aren't baking those pastries less electricity is used so the overall carbon footprint is similar? Also the bake-from-frozen will still have a plastic bag lining the cardboard box. However the cost of using the ovens is probably worth it to get a significantly better product.
 
Pre packaged pastries 😮 that surprises me as when I stayed at Chessington hotel a few weeks back the pastries were not pre packaged, I was actually quite happy with the quality of the breakfast there. Breakfast at towers sounds terrible.
 
jon81uk said:
I'm guessing you never actually saw the wine being poured from the bottle, so who knows if it was the wrong wine being served or just cheap rubbish wine!

I guess it could be said that as they aren't baking those pastries less electricity is used so the overall carbon footprint is similar? Also the bake-from-frozen will still have a plastic bag lining the cardboard box. However the cost of using the ovens is probably worth it to get a significantly better product.
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That is correct. The wine was bought over to our table by the waiting staff. I would like to assume that the wine was the correct wine, though; it was certainly white wine, and I have no reason to assume that the staff would have poured the wrong wine.

Ah, that’s a fair point. If you’re not cooking the pastries, I guess that does cut down a bit on carbon footprint.
 
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