Copthorne Hotel (Newcastle)

.../> Then she rang the Copthorne Hotel, who told her that yes, they could get three to a room (a twin room with a camp bed), and they wouldn't need to take a deposit unless we wanted 4 or more rooms. They quoted her a price of £135 per room per night, so for 3 to a room, £45 each ain't that bad. It didn't include breakfast, but with it being right on the Quayside, yards from the Sunday "market," it wouldn't be hard to find a van selling ...
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PPP called the Copthorne again to cancel the provisional booking of 3 rooms that we'd made, and request a twin room for me and her. They told her the only one they had available that weekend was an executive room that would be another £50 - then she pointed out (in a conversation that should have lasted 2 minutes but in fact lasted for 20, including the time it took to fetch the reception team manager) they'd been holding the 3 standard rooms ... more

As I've mentioned in most of my previous reviews, I got married last year, and as is traditional, my bridesmaids organised a boozy night out on the town to celebrate the end of my freedom. We'd been to York for my best friend's hen do in September '05, so we decided to go away for a weekend again. After discounting the usual trip to Blackpool in fancy dress (do that every Feb for my mate's birthday - brrrrr) and realising that the standard "hen weekend" package providers really weren't worth it , we started to look for a suitable city break… but didn't want to spend too much or retrace our steps from previous trips, which narrowed down our search criteria!

Manchester? No. I live in Greater Manchester, we go out in the city at least once a month, and this trip was about getting away from the familiar!

Liverpool? No, we'd been to Liverpool for a friend's birthday less than 3 months before so we didn't want arepeat of that night.

Leeds? One of my bridesmaids is from Leeds and didn't see any benefit in going there apart from the fact we could stay at her mums.

Chester? My husband-to-be would be working that night in Chester, and much as I love seeing him in uniform, I'm guessing any pals who'd not met him would see me snogging a copper and assume I'd got off with a strippagram!

Birmingham? I'd gone to uni in Birmingham. I have very few fond memories of it. Although to be fair, I haven't been back since 1998, so please don't hate me. I believe it's a very attractive place to be!

So that narrowed it down to one - Newcastle!

My bridesmaid, the Party Planning Princess or PPP, got on th'interweb to look for hotels. We couldn't afford a spa day (as much as we wanted one) so she had the brainwave of looking for somewhere with leisure facilities, and we wanted to be reasonably close to the action, since we all realised that being stranding 8 miles out of town in an unfamiliar city wouldn't be much fun. Everywhere she found was unable to accommodate more than 2 adults to a room, but we ideally wanted somewhere flexible so that if we ended up with an odd number, we wouldn't have to have one on her own. Plus most places wanted a non-refundable deposit to secure the rooms - which we didn't want to do as circumstances, when it comes to my mates, can change very rapidly and make forward planning a bit of a nightmare!

Then she rang the Copthorne Hotel, who told her that yes, they could get three to a room (a twin room with a camp bed), and they wouldn't need to take a deposit unless we wanted 4 or more rooms. They quoted her a price of £135 per room per night, so for 3 to a room, £45 each ain't that bad. It didn't include breakfast, but with it being right on the Quayside, yards from the Sunday "market," it wouldn't be hard to find a van selling sausage butties. And we got to use the Waves leisure club (more on that later) for free. So she emailed me the link to the website and I got on the phone and started calling up my pals, to check their availability for the weekend we wanted.

Starting with a list of 20 names, we got 9 people who were free to take a trip up North for some drunken shenanigans, plus my sister-in-law in Whitley Bay. By the week before, however, a broken leg, morning sickness, a kid with measles, a surprise trip to Barcelona, and serious money issues had whittled it down to 3 - me, PPP, and my sister-in-law who lived up there anyway. Harrumph! This was turning into a bit of a washout.

PPP called the Copthorne again to cancel the provisional booking of 3 rooms that we'd made, and request a twin room for me and her. They told her the only one they had available that weekend was an executive room that would be another £50 - then she pointed out (in a conversation that should have lasted 2 minutes but in fact lasted for 20, including the time it took to fetch the reception team manager) they'd been holding the 3 standard rooms for her, could she not just have one of those without the camp bed? Oh yeah! Course she can! This is quite probably the ONLY problem we had with this hotel, except trying to find the entrance (but that wasn't their fault as Newcastle City Council had closed the usual access road the day before)

The entrance to the hotel when approaching by car is rather unassuming, just a ramp into the carpark - but it was nice to have an onsite carpark, after years of parking at city centre car parks and trekking to the hotel, it was great to have it right there connected to the building. The main entrance is quite similarly utilitarian, although they have big glass automatic doors that swoosh open and closed in a slick 4-star fashion, and when we arrived they'd laid out the red carpet for us… or maybe for the couple who'd been married there earlier on (they hold a civil marriage license at the hotel). Still, it made us feel very welcome!

The main lobby is rather fantastic, with a lift to the car park on the immediate left as you come through the main doors and the lifts to the rooms just beyond that, and the reception desk on the right. It's a light, bright space, mainly due to the super high atrium ceiling and the massive floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the Tyne. Even on a miserable rainy day, it looked awesome. The lobby is split level, and beyond the lift area you go up a couple of steps to a carpeted area with big squishy leather sofas, tub chairs and the big open fireplace, which wasn't going during our visit on account of all the children kicking around for the wedding that was going on.

We had a quick recce of the on-site catering, there are two restaurants in the hotel, both with views of the river. Harry's Restaurant has a jolly nautical theme and seems quite informal, and attached to Harry's Bar - where we spent quite a bit of time during our stay, and then there's the posher "Le Rivage" (I know I've spelt that right because I just looked it up on th'interweb) which is where you'd go for a spot of "fine dining." I expect they serve upmarket stuff like pate and lobster in there.

Check-in was a breeze, there were two staff on the desk all the time, and before long we were zipping up onto the first floor with our little wheelie cases, doing our bestest impressions of cosmopolitans girls about town. The room was simply decorated, with dark pinkish wallpaper, dark wood furniture, and floral curtains and bedspreads. French windows led out onto a balcony overlooking the river (all of the rooms have a Tyne view, which makes the other side of the hotel, as seen from the top of Tuthill Stairs, look a bit odd as there are no windows) and we had a great view of my favourite Tyne bridge, the swing bridge (when we lived in Newcastle when I was younger, my dad would take us out once a month while mam recovered from having two squabbling brats round her ankles. If we came into town on the metro, we'd finish the day eating ice cream and waiting for the swing bridge to open. Easy to keep northern kids occupied, int'it?)

We had a quick scout around the room. There was the standard hotel equipment - an iron and a trouser press, ginormous TV, minibar, Gideon bible, tea & coffee gubbins and two badly powered hairdryers, one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom. The bathroom was a reasonable size, with a utilitarian white suite, marble vanity, and a shower with an uncompromising shower head over the bath. There was only one bath sheet and one hand towel in the bathroom, but extras were stashed in the wardrobe, and they provided the usual complimentary soap, shower gel etc. There was a connecting door to next door's room, so had we needed more than one room we could have been nice and kept in touch with the other half of the crew.

We hung up our glad rags, shoved our bikinis on under our clothes, and went in search of the leisure club. At reception, we'd enquired where it was, and she'd said "it's right opposite your room!" And it was, literally. We went through the door and down about 18 flights of stairs to the ground floor (under the lobby), showed our room key and were given two towels. This is where we started to feel a bit disappointed. The towels were clean but very tatty, and as we went through to the ladies changing rooms, we avoided the puddles of water and big clumps of wet hair on the floor. After chucking our clothes into a locker, we went through to the pool area, which although it's small is well thought out, with troughs of tropical plants to perk it up a bit. And it needed perking up - the walls had been painted a lovely sunshine yellow, but unfortunately this appeared to have been done in about 1612 and never touched since - big flakes had come away, revealing the plaster underneath. There were 4 sun loungers along one side of the pool, and 2 white plastic patio tables and assorted chairs on the other, all looking a bit tired, but at least there was a Jacuzzi! There are also floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the Tyne, and it was a lovely feeling to swim to the edge of the lovely warm pool and look out onto the grey rainy weather - until the big packs of early drinkers started walking past on their way up to the bars of the Quayside, and we suddenly started feeling a little exposed! We spent a little more time in the steam room and sauna, then wandered back off up the 18 flights of stairs to our room. Except it was only 4 flights, really.

We got ready to go out, my mam came to meet us in the hotel lobby and we stopped for a drink in Harry's Bar as there was plenty of time til we needed to be at the restaurant, and sat and enjoyed the fine views of the river. The bar had a really pleasant atmosphere, and it was almost a shame to leave! But leave we did, off to Sabatini's Ristorante (see my other review!!!) and a night on the tiles, about which we will never speak. What happened in Newcastle, stays in Newcastle, as they say…

 

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