Shire Moat House Hotel, Cambridge

Ok now hear me out before you start to yell. Whilst I have never stayed in the Moat House Hotel, it is situated in the village I have lived in my entire life.. in fact it's not just situated, it's sitting on my doorstep. If you look out the back of my house you actually look on to the hotels golfcourse, if you exit my road exactly opposite is the staff entrance to the hotel, and if you drive for 10 seconds down the road is the grand entrance. So ...
...around it - and working in it - is what I shall base this review off. Looking for an alternative review? Keep reading.

Bar Hill is a village that has been on the grow for quite sometime now, not population wise - as no new homes have been built in for as long as I can remember - but in a business sense the plan for the village was always to offer a lot of jobs and the such. I had to do a project on the village for geography, but the ... more

Ok now hear me out before you start to yell. Whilst I have never stayed in the Moat House Hotel, it is situated in the village I have lived in my entire life.. in fact it's not just situated, it's sitting on my doorstep. If you look out the back of my house you actually look on to the hotels golfcourse, if you exit my road exactly opposite is the staff entrance to the hotel, and if you drive for 10 seconds down the road is the grand entrance. So whilst I have never stayed in it, my experience living around it - and working in it - is what I shall base this review off. Looking for an alternative review? Keep reading.

Bar Hill is a village that has been on the grow for quite sometime now, not population wise - as no new homes have been built in for as long as I can remember - but in a business sense the plan for the village was always to offer a lot of jobs and the such. I had to do a project on the village for geography, but the jobs the village offers aren't just limited to the rather large business park, but Tesco have also invested a lot of money into the place to make us have a very, very busy shopping mall a walk down a path away. So as you can tell, by no means do I live in a hamlet, but this is no town. It will take me about 10 minutes to walk side to side, no effort needed. So besides Tesco, what's the best way to bring people to Bar Hill, which is a 5 minute drive away from the centre of Cambridge? Well somewhere for all these explorers to stay obviously.

Enter the Moat House Hotel, although in the past 12 months it has been taken over by Menzies to become, well.. the Menzies hotel. The hotel has very much stuck to the formula that made it a success for the previous company, and there has been no structural differences. Three stars and 134 rooms, taking on a job here was going to be a bit different to my previous experience of a 20 room Travelodge. When the name change first took place they were looking for a lot of people to fill the new vacancies, and having heavily enjoyed being a receptionist for Travelodge I decided to give it a shot. I went for my interview on a Saturday morning and it was quite a relaxed affair, and more of a where can you start than a checking me out - obviously they really did have a lot of vacancies. What I was told is that they don't let people work on reception til they are 18 years old... and I was 16 at this point. Hm, a bit of a difference. Due to my previous experience though they would give me a shot.

My first shift would be a weekday evening, and there didn't happen to be that many people checking in. Everyone there was friendly enough and I wasn't the only one being trained, as there was also a new worker there with me, so I guess that stole the focus a bit from training me. I spent most of the evening working the switchboard for phonecalls, which was surprisingly fun - something I wouldn't mind doing again. 118 here I come. Asides from that though I didn't get to do much. Menzies obviously prides itself on being a bit more high class than Travelodge as well, so suit and tie is a requirement. The tie was provided, how lovely. When it came time for a break, there is food provided but to be honest it was all disgusting left overs. The place for you to sit on your break looks like some sort of diner out of the 80's as well, with Simpsons on the TV. Compared to how posh the rest of the hotel tried to look, it was a bit surprising to see the staff quarters. Of course though you don't have to spend your whole break there.. you could always go to the smoking shack outside with plastic garden furniature. Nah, not my kind of thing.

To give me a taster of all the jobs avaliable at Menzies, for the next shift I would spend an evening in the restaurant. Working with food is not my kind of thing, I took a GCSE in Food and I was awful, and something like a job in McDonalds is probably the worst job I could ever imagine. Rentboy? Hm, probably better. Of course you don't have to wear a suit and tie to serve food to people, but with 134 rooms it makes for quite a busy restaurant. Now I'm not sure if any of you heard in the news about that job advertisement where they advertised they wanted Polish people only, well you would think Menzies had hired the same way. It was slightly hard to communicate, although I had no problems with them. Most of what I did would just be taking food out to people and that sucked. Take my word for it, I would not be doing that ever again. When the end of the night came they asked what hours I would want to book for the future, but I said I'd wait to hear if reception wanted me again before booking anymore restaurant hours. Naturally that phonecall never came and that was the last I would ever work there.

I think it was worth the experience though, as maybe it showed I was out of my depth in a bigger hotel, although it was nice of the company to actually pay me for my two days work at £5.50 an hour - not bad for a 16 year old. And hey, I got to keep the employee handbook!

As for my general impressions of the hotel, they do seem to offer a lot of services what with the bar, restaurant, rooms, gym and a golf course. You can also order things to be sent up to your room. When I was younger and the hotel still went from the name of Moat House I remember that every Saturday night they would be playing music loud til late, and that actually created some complaints for them from my neighbourhood, although since becoming Menzies it's very unusual to hear music coming from there. Maybe that's just because I'm older and am out more on Saturdays, but my parents don't complain either so they must have decided to cut the party atmosphere of the hotel down a bit. When you walk in there though it doesn't seem like it would be a party hotel, in fact it seems to in a way take itself too seriously, afterall it's not the Ritz.

The golfcourse is full size and to be honest, that's quite impressive. There is a helicopter pad on this golfcourse, so that means every now and again I get to see a helicopter coming down as once again - it's within easy view by looking out my back windows. This doesn't really offer any noise pollution to my living though, and the pad is closer to my house then it is the hotel so it shouldn't for anyone staying there either. It's not like the helicopters come and go in the middle of the night anyway. As for things that may ruin your stay, if you play golf you may find people walking across the golfcourse to get to the neighbouring village and that is one way the youth like to access the place. There has also been crime with golf buggys getting away and being crashed into fences of people who live in the village, prompting police sniffer dogs and helicopters - a bit over the top I might say, and that happens what - once in a blue, drunken, moon?

Overall, if you're looking to discover Cambridge but the city hotels are too expensive for you, Bar Hill is an excellent place to stay as it has buses running to the centre the whole time. Menzies won't be the best hotel you ever stay in, but if you're looking for something slightly classy, it's probably the place for you. 

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