The Miller's Arms Inn, Canterbury

...valentine’s weekend.

The Hotel that they had booked for us was The Millers Arms Inn in Canterbury somewhere that neither of us had been to before. Because Valentines Day this year was on Monday the dates that we went for was from Friday 11th February to Sunday 13th February. So all we had to do know was to arrange for a baby sitter for the weekend.

We had both booked the Friday off work so that we could drive down there ...
...check in and the earliest would be around 2.30pm. This however, could be earlier if the rooms were ready.

We gave our selves just under 2 hours to get there as after all we would have to find the place once we had got to Canterbury. This itself proved more difficult than we first thought because some of the roads lacked road signs and when you’re in a town that you don’t know these can be a big advantage. Although I am not sure if ... more

For Christmas, my parents very kindly booked us a weekend away for two, which was a lovely gesture it’s self, as we have made no plans to go away this year, and to make this even more special, they had booked it for valentine’s weekend.

The Hotel that they had booked for us was The Millers Arms Inn in Canterbury somewhere that neither of us had been to before. Because Valentines Day this year was on Monday the dates that we went for was from Friday 11th February to Sunday 13th February. So all we had to do know was to arrange for a baby sitter for the weekend.

We had both booked the Friday off work so that we could drive down there as early as possible so checked what time we could check in and the earliest would be around 2.30pm. This however, could be earlier if the rooms were ready.

We gave our selves just under 2 hours to get there as after all we would have to find the place once we had got to Canterbury. This itself proved more difficult than we first thought because some of the roads lacked road signs and when you’re in a town that you don’t know these can be a big advantage. Although I am not sure if it was just the road signs that were the problem, Steph was giving me directions from a map we had printed off and not sure that map reading is her speciality.

Once we had got over our map reading problems and finally found the hotel we parked in a short stay car park opposite and walked over to the hotel. We had arrived there at about 2pm so we were a little early. This however, gave us the opportunity to have a drink in the bar before our rooms were ready and half two. This was when we discovered the prices in the bar were what we through to be slightly overpriced, a bottle of Budweiser and a vodka and coke costing over £5. This of course meant that over the course of an evening and bar could get quite expensive after a few rounds of drink.

Anyway, the room became available at half 2 as we were promised so we grabbed our case from the car and were shown the room. The room itself was lovely and recently decorated. It was a double room with en-suite shower and toilet facilities. It had a colour TV, phone and modem point for those who want to spend some time on the internet or are there on a business trip. This type of room, we found out, was pretty much the standard of the rooms throughout the hotel, although they do have one room which is more expensive than others as it had a Jacuzzi and a 4 poster bed in it as well. We did try to get this room but found it to be fully booked.

The hotel has two floors of rooms which are on the first floor and second floor and ours had to be one of those on the top floor which is a bit unfortunate as they do not have any form of lift facility so there can be a few stairs to walk up. This obviously becomes more difficult after them few rounds of drinks at the bar. All of the rooms in the hotel are non-smoking which for me, is not a problem but for Steph she was not overly impressed by this.

From the hotel room itself we had windows on opposite sides of the room and being on the second floor had a view of Canterbury. From one window we had a few of some new homes but from the other could see over what was part of the old mill with a small foot bridge and a little water feature where people could sit and take in their surroundings.

The price of the room includes a breakfast of your choice in the mornings, but of course when you go to these places it had to be a full English breakfast each day. The only problem with this was that we found it was slightly overcooked. Breakfast includes unlimited supply of tea, coffee and juice. But for those of you who do not fancy the big breakfast there was the options of cereals or a continental breakfast. Breakfast is served between the hours of 8am and 10am, for me this was a little early.

For lunch or dinner you had various options, you could eat in either of the bar areas or go into the town centre and try one of the various places there. We decided that we would go into the town centre for both nights we were there as the menu in the pub was a set menu which we found to be rather limited and quite expensive for what was on offer.

The bar and hotel parts and separate entrances to which we were given a key, this therefore allowed us to go in and out at any time of the day or night. This can be particularly useful if you do decide to go into town and stay out till late as after the pub closes the doors are locked and there would be no-one there to let you in.

The bar and hotel we felt, we like two different places. The hotel part was freshly decorated and modernised, but the bar was dull and unattractive and not particularly inviting. However we did find that all the staff were very friendly and always as helpful as they could be. The bar has two areas, the first a smaller area near the bar itself with plenty of seating. The second was a larger open area which is used as the restaurant area. This could really have been sectioned off as we found that people were trying to sit and eat a meal as people around them were standing and drinking.

The Friday night we were there the bar did become extremely busy and because of the layout of the bar this can make things very difficult to get to the bar or the toilet area. However it only appears to be like this on a Friday, other nights were a lot quieter even the Saturday night.

The hotel has no designated car park facilities; the closest car park is a short stay car park which was just across the road. The hotel was able to provide us with a voucher for parking which would allow us to stay in the short stay car park. This voucher was valid for 24 hours only, which of course meant that it had to be renewed each day. The cost of this voucher was £3.90 for 24 hours and this was added onto the bill for your room at the end. Be sure though, to ask for a car park voucher as the staff do not offer it to you.

The prices of the rooms were £70 per night and are charged per room as opposed to per person. So for a double room this only works out at £35 per person per night which as I said earlier includes breakfast, so I suppose this is quite reasonably priced. However if you do decide that you want the room with the 4 poster bed then the price is £80 per night, again not bad for the type of room that you will get.

One of the biggest advantages of the hotel is its closeness to the town centre. We were able to walk to the town within 10 minutes and found it very easy to find our way there and back and for those of you that wish to go and visit the cathedral it is only 10 minutes walk from the hotel. This was something that did not interest me though, so although we passed the cathedral we did not visit it.

The town itself is very old fashioned, and although has many of the shops, pubs and restaurants you would expect to find in any major town or high street the design of it has been kept to that of years ago. Because Canterbury also hosts a university we found that the town was very popular with students, particularly of an evening.

The check in and out process was very easy, to check in we just gave the member of staff the reservation number and we were shown to our room. Checking out was just as easy, although you have to be out of the room by 10am, which seeing as breakfast is served between 8am and 10am we felt that 11am would have been more reasonable. The room bill is paid for at time of checking out including anything else you have added onto the bill such as car park vouchers.

Booking a room with them is easy and can be done online via a website at www.activereservations.com. All you do is select the dates you wish to stay and the website will check the availability for you. If there is a room available then you can reserve the room and place a credit card on file as deposit for the room. The advantage of booking through this site is that if this hotel does not have any rooms available for the dates you want then it will show you other local hotels that do have rooms available.

Overall I would recommend a stay at this hotel but be prepared to go into town for a decent meal.

The hotel details are:

The Millers Arms Inn
1 Mill Lane
Canterbury
Kent
CT1 2AW

Telephone: 01227 452241

Or you can view their site on the Shepherd Neame website and email them using the contact button at:
http://www.shepherd-neame.co.uk/accommodation/pubs.php/millersarms_canterbury

 

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