Potters International Hotel

...down the website of the Potters International Hotel. It looked quite modern and was pretty close to where I need to be; so I gave them a call. There isn't a booking facility on the site and after a short time on hold I was offered a room at £99 including breakfast.

It was a bit more than I wanted to pay - I could have stayed in London for less; but to be honest I couldn't be arsed looking any further so booked it over the telephone.
...lost in Aldershot. Don't know what it is, be it paper map or sat nav I always end up heading in the wrong direction and this time was no different.

The map on the hotel's website looked fairly complicated but showed I needed to come off the M3 at junction 4. The sat nav wanted to go onto junction 5 - but I'm in charge, so we had am unscheduled detour around an army base for the best part of an hour [just a note - if you've never been ... more

Ok; I'm hopeless at making firm arrangements.

I was due at a leaving do for a colleague in London this last week; but had been uming and ahring whether or not I had the time to go. What really swung it for me was another 2 former colleagues who I haven't seen for years also decided they were going at the last minute.

I offered to do the driving (seeing as I'm a non-drinker) and swing by Aldershot on the way past, pick them up and then drive onto South London. So in need of a hotel room (which, by this time, was tomorrow night) I was frantically searching the t'internet for a room for the night.

There's a Premier Travel Inn in Aldershot, but on the numerous occasions I needed a room, they'd always been full (and was so in this case). I'd managed to track down a room at a Travelodge, but by the time I came to confirm the details - it had already gone too.

Getting desperate now I opened multi-map and asked it for all the hotels in the area. After a bit of googling I tracked down the website of the Potters International Hotel. It looked quite modern and was pretty close to where I need to be; so I gave them a call. There isn't a booking facility on the site and after a short time on hold I was offered a room at £99 including breakfast.

It was a bit more than I wanted to pay - I could have stayed in London for less; but to be honest I couldn't be arsed looking any further so booked it over the telephone.

ARRIVAL

I always get lost in Aldershot. Don't know what it is, be it paper map or sat nav I always end up heading in the wrong direction and this time was no different.

The map on the hotel's website looked fairly complicated but showed I needed to come off the M3 at junction 4. The sat nav wanted to go onto junction 5 - but I'm in charge, so we had am unscheduled detour around an army base for the best part of an hour [just a note - if you've never been to Aldershot, it's the most bizarre place in the world; it's like a giant army base with public roads running though it (and a Tesco's!)]

The positioning of the hotel I suspect used to be better than it is now - although it's on a main road, you can't turn [right] into it from the dual carriage way; instead you have to leave 1 exit before you get there and go round some back roads to find your way in. Because it's neither signed nor terrible clear from the map, this accounted for at least half of my time being lost.

I pulled into the car park about 5:30pm; it was fairly quiet and the hotel building itself is fairly imposing - even if the neon "reception" sign is perhaps a tad naff.

When I arrived the lady behind the desk was having a rather animated conversation with another person who turned out to be a staff member.

They put aside their augment for enough time to check me in. The registration card had already been printed out so I just had to sign it. It seem to cause much confusion that I hadn't put a contact telephone number on the registration card - with a French-style shrug of the shoulders the receptionist checked to see if they had a number on file for me before issuing me with: My room key, A key card, a folder for the key card and some fairly complex directions to my room.

I was in room 213 - which rather bizarrely was on the first floor. Inside the lift was a rather bewildering array of directions to all the different room numbers (see the photo) but after getting lost again (seems to be a theme of the day) I found mine down a corridors which smelled like someone had been having a air-freshener party.

THE ROOM

As soon as I got into the room, I had to place the key fob in the holder by the door in order to activate the power; a feature I'd normally expect to find in hotels at the cheaper end of the market?

First impressions weren't good. I'd managed to turn on the light just inside the door but this left the place fairly dark. A quick investigation found that the switches either side of the bed did absolutely nothing - so it was down to a bit of gymnastics to gain some successes from the one remaining switch which was thoughtfully placed so you could only reach it while you were in bed.

The room was fairly clean, although it could only be described as tatty. The laminated wooden surface on both the desk and the bedside tables was all bubbly and the carpet (which I have to say is one of the most vile I've encountered) was a little past its sell by date.

The curtains and bedding looked fairly new, but were a pretty acquired taste. It might have looked ok if all the colours hadn't been purposely chosen to clash with both the carpet and the wallpaper.

There was also a small table and chair, a place for your suitcase, a TV with tea and coffee tray, a Corby trouser press and a wardrobe that didn't shut. It did all feel a little retro. In fact, if you are interested in hospitality history and would like to experience the interior of a 1980's Trust House Forte Posthouse -you've hit the jackpot here.

Things went from bad to worse in the bathroom. Again it was clean, but very, very tatty. I think someone had been around it with a does of fresh sealant in the year 2000 and that was pretty much it for maintenance. There were cracked tiles, marks on the bath, bits missing from the tap, a broken bin and the whole sink unit was at a rather jaunty angle.

The shower curtain looked fairly new, but for some reason they'd attached it with rings that were too small for the rail - rather than using the perfectly good hooks which were still attached at the other end.

FACILITIES

As always - I like to go poking around the room to see what I can find and there was plenty of in-room information. Apparently "Potter's Leisure" owns quite a few places locally and there were plenty of details about all of them -and to be frank, they all looked fairly average.

There's also some other useful information in the room folder which was written in a font not seen since the demise of the typewriter. My personal favourite was the "international dialling section". At the bottom of the page it said "please note that from April 1995 the international dialling code will be 00". 1995? You mean the room folder hasn't been updated for at least 11 years? It did list many of the calling codes for all the countries of the globe (Ceylon, Rhodesia etc [slight jest, sorry]), and presumably this contribution to international telephony is where the hotel claims the "international" part of its title.

There were also a couple of typed notices attached to the mirror. One reminded people that the check out time was 11:00am and "failure to comply would result in additional charges". Comply? Are they the borg? There was another equally patronising (and badly worded) notice reminding me that this was a non-smoking room ("for the benefit of Asthmatic guests").

The room also had wi-fi, but as it was a jolly and not strictly business, I hadn't brought my laptop so I don't know whether or not it worked or how much it cost.

Being unsure of what time I was due to eat, I thought a bit of room service might be in order. There was a full menu and the room service charge was 10% (which is fairly reasonable). Unfortunately before 6:30pm it's the "afternoon" menu, although rather helpfully it doesn't give any indication of what food counts as "afternoon" food or give you a number to phone to place an order. I didn't bother in the end, instead choosing to shower, change and go out.

A NIGHT'S SLEEP

I got back to the hotel about 1:00am and had to wait around for the night porter to come and unlock the front doors (we're talking a fairly large hotel here - you'd think it would have a 24 hour reception)?

I successfully managed to navigate my way back to the room, finding it unlocked. What I'd failed to notice on the way out was another typed notice saying "doors are not self locking". Nothing was missing, but an automatically securing door wouldn't have been too much to ask for £100 a night.

The bed was a super king size (the size of two single put together), which incidentally they were - with a rather obvious and annoying join down the middle. It didn't help the fact that one was as hard as iron and the other was saggy. There was also a rather curious curly bit of wire coming out of the headboard (like a phone cable) - which didn't seem to do serve any purpose, which does beg the question why is it there?

There's wasn't any form of clock in the room - so I set my mobile for 8:30am. I could have used the hotel's phone for a wake up call, but it would be nice to have a clock (they do only cost £3.00 at Tesco).

I needn't have bothered with an alarm. At 6:00am sharp I was awoke by someone with very loud footsteps above me - either that or they were practising a military parade. I eventually got back to sleep when awoke again at 7:30am - by the sound of toilet roll coming off the holder and then a flush. Followed by a shower.

This was coming from next door - full scale ablutions in glorious Technicolor. I couldn't stand in any longer so I though the place might redeem itself with a good brekkie.

BREAKFAST

On the way down to breakfast and managed to see a bit more of the hotel. They had been trying to make the place feel more modern in some places - the lift for example was fairly new, with some tasteful limestone tiling around it. Just why did they paint the doors the sort of green you'd find in a council multi-story?

Going through reception it was unmanned, though they did have a sort of David-Blane-esk semi transparent office which covered half the desk. Here sat 2 members of staff. They said hello (through the perspex) on the way past but it was rather an odd arrangement for a reception. More the sort of thing you'd find at a post office than a hotel's front desk.

My journey to the restaurant also took me past what's supposed to be a themed pub with olde-worlde charm. It looked about as charming as a tatty Berni Inn. I didn't realise the mid-eighties chain pub look was a theme worthy of re-creation.

The breakfast restaurant was large, very large, though there were only a handful of diners. Presumably they couldn't get into the Travel Inn either. A rather friendly, but brisk woman sat me down and took my order for tea or coffee and invited me to help myself to the buffet.

There was a fairly decent selection, but nothing outstanding - juices, breads, yoghurt and some cold and floppy toast.

Not being much of a lover of continental breakfasts, I skipped straight to the hot course. I helped myself to the sausage, bacon, mushrooms and beans. I passed on the scrambled egg which looked like a roll of foam-filling from a sofa and instead took a rather cold and god-only-knows-how-long-ago-they-cooked-this fried egg.

The beans were a tad crusty, the mushrooms were a tad wet and the deep-friend sausage (you know the really cheap ones that look like a burst condom) was vile. The bacon was ok and the cup of tea could only ever be described as tepid.

After finishing breakfast in about 5 minutes flat I went back to the room and concluded my packing. I then checked out -fortunately the reception didn't ask "how was my stay" otherwise I'd have been there all day telling him.

IN SUMMARY

When I told my friend where I was staying - she said "it's a hole". That's probably a touch unkind (and would have been more helpful if she'd told me this before I booked it!), because the hotel was - well, at best OK.

Yes it could do with a refit, and yes I think a bloody good manager (which it certainly doesn't have right now) could turn it around; but for now it's one to avoid.

* Would I recommend this to anyone else?
Nope.

* Was it the worst hotel stay of my life?
No; not by a long way.

* Was it the worst value hotel stay of my life?
At a £99 a night, you bloody bet it was.
 

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