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The Hotels: A Journey

As stated above, very few people will have been in this hotel on the forum.
However, I have been inside last year (didn't stay overnight though) and it seemed clean, but the entertainment was very low effort, especially as it was aimed for children.
 
Benzin said:
I presume as it doesn't have a bar there's no interest from those on here.

Plus the pricing for it is even worse.
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I don’t think you can even step a foot in the hotel without having a booking? So even if there was a bar, no one on here would be able to go in there!
 
James said:
I don’t think you can even step a foot in the hotel without having a booking? So even if there was a bar, no one on here would be able to go in there!
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Luxury Treehouse guests are allowed in too.
 
zeock said:
but the entertainment was very low effort, especially as it was aimed for children.
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It must of been three or four years ago since we stopped at the Cbeebies hotel, it was good. Not that good that we have been back, or would go back on current prices, but nothing to complain about good.

The mini bench sandwich\cake platter was great for lunch, no idea how much it was, but really hope they still do these as we all enjoyed it.
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From what I can recall the evening meal was acceptable, with the restaurant having plenty for kids to look at. The windmill being the main attraction.
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The kids entertainment was perfect for the kids, different characters would come out, do a show, and then do a photo op, and this would repeat throughout the night. Some of the shows would get the kids joining in and jumping around as well. Low effort is unfair on the performers as they put a lot of effort in to and the kids do enjoy it. This was probably the best part of stopping at the hotels for the little ones.

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The current price of the hotels puts me off going back. I would love to take the kids but the value for money is just not there.

We recently stopped at the new hotel at the Yorkshire Wildlife park and it reminded me of Alton Towers when it first opened. Lots of free samples in the room, balloons for the girls, quirky number plates which used lights and reflections to make the door numbers appear (Dont ask me how you find your room in a power cut though).

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Updated to include images and additional comments
 
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Our life or death National Health Service is heavily staffed by agency workers. Maybe Merlin are taking inspiration from the high quality service the national government are providing at the moment? Nothing could possibly go wrong.
 
Ian said:
Thorpe, Chessington and Lego probably don’t experience this to the same extent, having access to plenty of young people looking for work within easy reach. Pay low but have confidence the supply will always be there. The same model just isn’t viable for Towers.
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You must be kidding - the southern parks have exactly the same issues, albeit yes they definitely don't have the same remote location issues that Towers has. But no, there's absolutely not a glut of young people looking for work down here either - staffing is a huge, huge struggle.
 
I know Legoland in particular have really been struggling to attract staff the last few years, can't speak for the other two southern parks though.

As we've already seen at the hotels, Merlin's answer to staffing issues will be making everything as automated as possible sadly.
 
MaxPower said:
As we've already seen at the hotels, Merlin's answer to staffing issues will be making everything as automated as possible sadly.
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By far it's not a unique problem with Merlin or the Leisure industry, it's systemic in our economy for low-paid service work to be understaffed and businesses are turning to automation across the board to make up for the shortfall, the UK is slowly aging and COVID has accelerated this stress in the labour market and Brexit cut off immigration as a cheap, short term solution. For our economy to maintain where it is, we need automation because fundamentally our labour market is broken.

Having said that, as someone who has never set foot within any of the hotels, I believe the park have made the wrong decision in automating reception and check-in services, as it has profound psychological impacts on the guests stay within the hotels. There's always going to be Karens who get frustrated with the technology and wants to speak to a human face, and the impact of a friendly face upon arrival would make the hotels significantly less corporate. seventy or whatever percent of guests may not care whether they interact with a machine or human, but subliminally it might be make the difference for them to spread their positive experience through word of mouth or whether they return the next year.

If the Resort wish to automate, they first need to look towards departments like Food and Beveridge and Retail first to see how they can run things with such large numbers of staff, and then after that they should be looking towards the park's attractions to see what positions for staff could be automated. It's going to take investment and the correct expertise for them to do this successfully, however I'm hesitant that Merlin would commit the capital and employ the correct people who understand the technology.

It's an issue of where they want to use technology and using it effectively, and I believe there's still time to turn it around, no theme park is yet to embrace current technology innovatively enough on such as large-scale for it to be successful, but there's enough examples leisure industry-wide to compare theme parks to.
 
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So I stopped at the hotel last week for two nights.

First off, apart from the food, I really enjoyed the stay.

The staff were great, the room (Artic Explorer) was spotlessly clean, and the evening entertainment ran as usual despite the hotel being a lot quiter than the staff are used to.

The breakfast was ok. I didn't have a full English, just cereal and pancakes (which weren't fantastic). My better half said her full English wasn't anything to write about. The main tea time menu was limited and well overpriced. I ended up paying £19.50 for a chicken and mushroom spaghetti and wish I had not bothered. It was tasteless and had that 'bung it in a microwave' feel.

Overall, I would stop again, but not at peak season when it is stupidly priced. I wouldn't eat there again if you offered me a free meal.
 
Drew Peacock said:
So I stopped at the hotel last week for two nights.

First off, apart from the food, I really enjoyed the stay.

The staff were great, the room (Artic Explorer) was spotlessly clean, and the evening entertainment ran as usual despite the hotel being a lot quiter than the staff are used to.

The breakfast was ok. I didn't have a full English, just cereal and pancakes (which weren't fantastic). My better half said her full English wasn't anything to write about. The main tea time menu was limited and well overpriced. I ended up paying £19.50 for a chicken and mushroom spaghetti and wish I had not bothered. It was tasteless and had that 'bung it in a microwave' feel.

Overall, I would stop again, but not at peak season when it is stupidly priced. I wouldn't eat there again if you offered me a free meal.
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Nice to know! Perhaps Merlin are finally improving hotel standards?
 
Depends what standards you are used to I suppose:

For £300+ per night I would expect

- king size comfy bed with choice of pillows
- air conditioning as standard
- a quiet well noise insulated room
- a clean carpet without loads of stains
- a well cleaned room, little dust on fittings, clean under the bed and clean bedding, no mold in bathroom
- decent toiletries in the bathroom
- coffee machine in the room with pods or decent coffee at least
- room service
- a decent restaurant and bar

Bear in mind here the likes of premier inn/holiday inn and other chain hotels offer the majority of these from £28 a night …..
 
But the bloody grockles and thoosies still fill the place out in the peak, at silly prices, without management effort anyway.
Why try harder, a fresh wave of mugs turns up every year.
Don't think things will improve until the visitor numbers actually crash.
 
rob666 said:
But the bloody grockles and thoosies still fill the place out in the peak, at silly prices, without management effort anyway.
Why try harder, a fresh wave of mugs turns up every year.
Don't think things will improve until the visitor numbers actually crash.
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Totally agree - I said this a few pages back. Every year there are thousands of fresh families whose children reach the age for them to consider a short break at the resort.

Whether they come back is irrelevant when there’s a new wave of customers each year.
 
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