Short stay at the Gonville Hotel in Cambridge earlier in the week, a member of the Best Western family and recently promoted to Plus. See http://www.gonvillehotel.co.uk/. All things considered, a good place to stay and we shall, no doubt, stay there again.
Good points
For a modest supplement you could have a kipper, which, as advertised, came with all of head, backbone and tail. No boil in the bag here. Or smoked haddock. And you were allowed to have the haddock without poached eggs, a combination of which I do not approve.
Bacon had a good flavour although it was a little dry, reflecting the fact I guess that most clients are into low-fat these days.
Large, comfortable room. Plus, unusually, we were not overheated at night and, in any event, one could open the window. Plus, even more unusually, there was a huge range of pillow fillings on offer. Maybe as many as a dozen. Presumably catering for every imaginable pillow allergy. Perhaps Mr. Best Western has a problem in that department himself?
Free (sense one) computer in the foyer, which was free (sense two) when I wanted it. System software could have done with a wash and brush-up, but system fit for purpose nonetheless.
Car park right outside the front entrance.
Location on the edge of town centre. Easy to get to. Plenty of restaurants in the vicinity if you did not fancy the decent looking but rather quiet restaurant on the spot. We had a good meal in the nearby http://www.delucacucina.co.uk/ - our second visit to the place.
Staff mainly foreign and young - but very pleasant and lots of them.
Not so good points
The kipper had been grilled, which was not so hot as I have got used to the much milder taste you get by simmering them in water.
The haddock had rather an odd texture, possibly the result of cooking the thing direct from frozen. Also a bit soggy and not very warm - which last was all the more noticeable with all the sog.
Despite the focus on local fish and meat, not much focus on the humble local bread. White rolls were available, but were not up to much, not much good for either bacon or sausage sandwiches. Presumably defrosted fresh each morning. Presumably most people don't care.
The regular breakfast room seemed to have been knocked out by building works, so for the first couple of days we had breakfast in a room the size of which reminded one of the underground breakfast rooms in the sort of hotels that middle of the range civil servants used to stay in when visiting London. One of the points of a proper hotel is that it has a proper breakfast room.
You could not work the bath taps with your toes. Plus the bath was fibreglass which I do not approve of - but I guess one has to put up with that unless you want to pay a lot more for your hotel than we do. Plus it took us a while to work out how to work the taps: easy enough when you got the hang of it but a pain that every hotel seems to have different taps. Can't the chaps at Brussels get onto the case?
You could not work the bedside light with your hands. That is to say that the bed head with the lighting system dated from an earlier refurbishment than the bed, with the result that you had to get out of the right hand position - my position that is - to work your bedside light. Left hand position OK.
The sink started more or less blocked. This was fixed shortly after we mentioned it, but then we had sink stink for a bit because the plumber had not thought to flush the sink drain out with bleach or something - so we had stink of whatever it was that had been blocking the sink.
There were no stairs, so although we were only on the first floor, we had to use the lift the whole time. Both slow and unhealthy. An irritating feature of a lot of hotels these days - which might have stairs but they are often out of the way and hard to find. Plus, on the last morning the lift stank of fags. Shock horror. Presumably off of someone's coat and entirely detectable with my finely tuned ex-smoker nose; a nose which can detect a decent cigar in the street at 100 yards.
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