Palace Hotel, Manchester

...spent a night at the Palace Hotel in Manchester, on business. It is a rather grand, distinctively impressive Victorian building right in the heart of the city, that was originally built as insurance offices, apparently, and still does slightly have the feeling as you arrive in the door of being a rather commercial venue.

I actually walked past the entrance the first time, assuming that what I could see was a shopping mall or something ...
...to the Palace Theatre on Oxford Road and is within an easy 10 minute walk of the Arndale centre and other shops. China town is also only a few minutes' walk away and there are a number of restaurants, cafes and other stuff nearby, including a large Sainsbury's. It is opposite Oxford Road train station and within walking distance of Piccadilly station. There are a couple of car parks nearby - the nearest is the NCP Palace car park but at £15.50 a ... more

I have just spent a night at the Palace Hotel in Manchester, on business. It is a rather grand, distinctively impressive Victorian building right in the heart of the city, that was originally built as insurance offices, apparently, and still does slightly have the feeling as you arrive in the door of being a rather commercial venue.

I actually walked past the entrance the first time, assuming that what I could see was a shopping mall or something - the entrance is that vast. It is right next to the Palace Theatre on Oxford Road and is within an easy 10 minute walk of the Arndale centre and other shops. China town is also only a few minutes' walk away and there are a number of restaurants, cafes and other stuff nearby, including a large Sainsbury's. It is opposite Oxford Road train station and within walking distance of Piccadilly station. There are a couple of car parks nearby - the nearest is the NCP Palace car park but at £15.50 a day it's not cheap - a better deal for Palace residents can be had at the one a 5 minute walk away which only costs £7.50 a day if they validate your ticket at reception.

It is an imposing building amd hard to miss (clever of me to walk past, actually!) and the entrance hall is cavernous and grand. The staff on reception are friendly and check-in was swift - this is a four star hotel and it shows. THey have a separate concierge for leaving luggage etc.

Through to the bar/restaurant and grand becomes impressive rather than soul-less. Nice staff, comfy sofas and a decent bar snack menu serving til 11pm was ideal for a weary business traveller whose head was still humming from the road noise of the the M5 for 4 hours. Paying £6.75 for an (admittedly large 250ml) glass of white wine woke me up though. Flippin' Nora; I was glad I was on expenses. I also has a burger and chips (all seven of them) for £9.95, but the burger was home made and fresh, and pretty yummy, and it was half past ten, so I was pretty grateful for anything to be honest. They have a proper hotel dining room with grand prices serving things like monkfish at £18 a go, type of thing, if you want the full monty.

On to my room then. I had a small double which had clearly been recently renovated, with faux fur and brown leather decor, it was smart and stylish if not exactly what I'd chose to do in my own bedroom. Plenty of space for one person, a decent full sized bathroom in excellent nick - no mouldy grouting here - good shower and full sized bath. The freebies were good - nice smellies and shampoo etc, and there were plenty of mirrors including a magnifying one so lovely ladies could ensure maximum loveliness before facing the world.

A freestanding wardrobe revealed a safe and an iron and ironing board, which in one way is great as if you need one it saves the hassle of having one brought, but it did take up quite a lot of space in the hanging part of the robe itself, which might bizarrely have actually exacerbated the need for the thing. Sadly no Corby trouser press. I miss those.

The room also boasted an unexciting looking CRT telly which provided me with a bit of BBC Breakfast whilst I was getting ready the next morning and clearly could do the hotel package of pay-per-view movies and local radio should I have required.

After the shock of my expensive glass of wine, I did need a lie down and the bed and pillows were extremely comfortable with good quality cotton sheets. The room had full length windows overlooking a central courtyard but I could sadly not get a window open for the life of me. I also could not work out how to switch off the bathroom extractor fan which ran all night and drove me mad, and I did believe these two facts were interlinked.

In our conference facilities during the day we could not open any windows either; I do think fresh air is not an unreasonable ask, personally. So despite the comfy bed I didn't sleep too well as I was in need of an open window. Grr.

Morning dawned and I used the hospitality tray which gloriously had your actual proper Twinings tea and a yummy biscuit selection. A gorgeous stainless steel kettle and some surprisingly acceptable milk-type stuff meant that for the first time, I think, ever, I had a hotel room cuppa that was decent to drink. For coffee lovers though, only those annoying tubes of Nescafe were left to offer a hint of what coffee might be. A dull choice of fluted naff off-white cups and saucers ruined what could have been a cool tray, on runners under the TV, but still, I was happy. A wired internet connection and a sensible working desk was available in the room, though at 50p a minute I decided my emails could wait, the full length windows meant that there was plenty of natural light the next morning and if I'd only been able to throw a window open it would have been a glorious place to get a bit of work done before breakfast.

Instead I took papers down to breakfast with me, to discover the table was a bit small and cluttered to cope. There was a buffet service and the selection was decent with plenty of pastries and fresh fruit as well as the full English and cereals. I was offered coffee and accepted and was pleasantly surprised that something vaguely resembling coffee and not bearing more than a passing resemblance to hot water actually turned up. I was well fed.

Lunch was also a serve yourself affair, with a choice of hot and cold - I had a perfectly decent fish pie, though there appeared not to be any green veggies, which was a bit odd. I added cauliflower cheese and potatoes (mmm, balanced) as that appeared to be all there was, and a bit of tomato from the salad bar just to add some colour other than white to my plate! Pudding was a good apple crumble, or a pile of cholesterol-laden tarts and pastries plus cream or custard and the ubiquitous fruit salad. The general consensus round the conference table though, was that lunch got the thumbs up. Maybe these people don't get out much.

Check-out was as quick as check-in, and the conference facilties were good (same lack of air issue, but hey, what's a bit of oxygen between friends?) - but at least the rooms had very high ceiling and were well sized for our needs. They didn't seem to be able to get the internet going, so our presentation at the start was a bit "what I should be showing you is..." I don't know whether blame for this can be laid at the hotel's door though. At least there were plenty of boiled sweets, eraser-tipped pencils and fizzy water. Apparently if you are at a conference you need those. I haven't actually bought any eraser-tipped pencils for over twenty years.

They have a web site, if you are interested - http://www.palace-hotel-manchester.co.uk/

This reveals that the internet rate for rooms varies considerably according to demand - they obviously have that easyjet-type approach to pricing. You can easily get £225 quoted at you for a single room on a busy night, but likewise if you fancy staying on 24th December you can have a double for £85! They do seem to charge the same for single or double occupancy, and children in your room appear to be free. £120 seems to be a standard price though. I paid less than that though, but on a company tariff.

All in all, I was happy with my stay - it is a great experience and certainly better than staying in the Ibis, which my company offered me as an alternative. I have to return to Manchester in two weeks and have booked to stay there again, despite the oxygen issues, but I will ask next time for a room with a window that opens and see how I get on. I'll let you know.... 

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